IELTS TASK 2: Advantages and Disadvantages of being a celebrity

Hi all! Sorry, I posted my essay on the wrong forum category. How can I fix this?

Topic: Being a celebrity - such as a famous film star or sports personality - brings problems as well as benefits. Do you think that being a celebrity brings more benefits or more problems?

Public person experiences

Famous people like movie stars or top athletes may have many benefits; however, their fame can also be detrimental. In my opinion, being a celebrity brings about more problems than advantages.

Admittedly, there are some benefits of leading a famous life. Firstly, celebrities are admired by the public. Their talents and achievements are widely recognized and appreciated so they might feel very proud. Secondly, well-known people can earn a lot of money. Being highly influencing people, they are very well-paid for their professional performance as well as other activities using their name such as advertisements and public speeches. For example, a Vietnamese pop star named Dam Vinh Hung earned hundreds of thousands of dollars during his career by holding live shows, issuing CD and appearing in advertisements.

Nevertheless, despite the advantages above, I believe that being famous can be very harmful. One problem is that fame takes away privacy. Every single behaviours and events in famous people's personal life is closely watched and judged by the public. As a result, they are under high pressure of maintaining their image which may not be their true self just to satisfy their fans. Another drawback is that well-known people usually lead a very hectic life which makes it difficult for them to maintain a balance. Many famous actors and actress experienced mental breakdowns, drug abuse or personal relationships collapsing because they cannot handle the pressure of always being on a tight schedule and having no time to relax or spend time with their love one.

In conclusion, the pressure of maintaining image under the eye of the public and being always overworked are seriously harmful to the life of celebrities so those disadvantages far outweigh the advantages of being wealthy and having a lot of fans.

I only have some synonyms for some words in your essay :
watched=monitored
harmful=do harm to
You use a wrong phrase: love one should be loved one

Thank you for your comments

You should change some words in introduction like problems->drawbacks,advantage->benefits

Sorry my advice took so long to get to you. The essay was posted in a section of the forum where contributors do not normally post. I had to inform the forum administrators about your error. They are the only ones who can transfer your post from one section to another. So, let's get started with the assessment. Please be more careful with your postings. Posting in the wrong place delays the help that I can offer you.

There is, what I believe to be the better approach to this discussion. However, if your tutor has other teaching methods in mind that run counter to my advice, then you should opt to follow your tutors advice instead. I do not want to force you to learn the method that works for my students since my students focus on my advice, the way I ask them to accomplish their essays, all of which result in a band score of 8-9 for most of them. Again, if you have other writing teachers, it will be useless for me to help you. You cannot combine 2 different teaching styles. You will be bound to fail. I can see from the advice that you give the other students here that you have another teacher, so I do not understand why you are asking for help at this forum since you did not really apply the corrections I gave you the first time.

You already know the sentence number requirement per paragraph and that you have to avoid run-on sentences. However, you created run on sentences , confusing sentences, in your overall presentation. Now, unless you are just copying my advice as you give it to the other students, but you do not really understand why it has to be done that way, you will not increase your scoring potential. Being able to give advice to others, and you actually being able to apply the advice you give to your own writing are two different things. I do not see you actually applying the advice that you give others to your essay. The 3-5 sentence requirement applies regardless of the paraphrase, reasoning paragraphs, or concluding recap. The clarity of the paragraphs, through the use of proper simple and complex sentences, not run-on sentences also apply. Unfortunately, you did not apply those properly to your essay.

Your reasoning paragraphs are under developed. You only give reasons, not real explanations that justify the reasons you provided. I told you before, one reason per paragraph is sufficient. You are not being scored on knowledge, you are being scored on your ability to provide clear explanations that can support your reasons. You have to prove that you can explain yourself in a manner that can be understood, That is why you are being asked to focus on one reason, with examples and explanations for your reason.

There is no use for ordinal numerals in these essays. Only topic sentences. Topic sentences help show your English comprehension skills. The ordinals do not help with the coherence and cohesiveness of your presentations. Only topic sentences and transitions sentences can do that.

There are several other errors in this essay, but they all go back to the previous advice that I gave you. If you are following your tutors advice in writing, then you should have your tutor review your work. I will not be able to help you anymore. You only get further confused and will not be able to develop a writing style that will help you during the actual test.

@Holt

Thank you for your comments. It is true that it is easy to spot errors in other students work but it is not easy to apply them to my own essay. I am a little bit confusing because I am studying alone without any teacher so I referred to many sources of information. The reason that I failed to apply your advice may be due to my inability to understand them thoroughly. I continuously posted my essay as I attempted to apply the principles but I still feel that there is something missing in my essay and I cannot fix it. I have some questions that I am unable to answers as follow:

- I understand that I have to develop my ideas fully. However, I still cannot distinguish between developing them and going too far and get off-track. How to solve this problem?

- I have problems with analysing the topic, too. You said that I have to read the topic very carefully and do exactly what it requires. This topic, for example, required us to talk about problems and benefits. I understood that I have to present at least two problems and two benefits and express my opinion at the same time. However, in order to develop fully a problem, explain it and illustrate it with an example, it will take a whole paragraph and I will end up overwrite my essay. So I ended up writing 2 paragraphs, one for problems and one for benefits. I don't know how to develop fully my ideas while still fulfil all of those requirements in the topic or did I interpreted the question wrongly? What is the basic techniques that help me to understand exactly what the question wants me to do?

I hope that you are not frustrated because of my questions. If you do not want to help me anymore, I can understand and I won't bother you by posting my essay here anymore. I just want you to know that although I really appreciate your advice, I still feel it difficult to apply them in my essay and maybe I am still unable to understand my own problem. I don't mean to show off my knowledge or anything else. I am just confusing.