TOEFL - Beggars money. Giving them or not. Which point of view do you think is correct, and why?

helping beggars on street?

Direction: For this task, you will write an essay in response to a question that asks you to state, explain, and support your opinion on an issue. Typically, an effective essay will contain a minimum of 300 words. The quality of your writing includes the development of your ideas, the organization of your essay, and the quality and accuracy of the language you use to express your ideas. You have 30 minutes to plan and complete your essay.

Topic: Some people suggest that it is wrong to give money to beggars asking for money on the street, while others think that it is the right thing to do. Which point of view do you think is correct, and why?

Kindly rate me in between 0 -5. My response is given below:

No doubt that helping people is a great virtue and it is appreciated by almost everyone. Helping people, those are really in need of help, will be more fruitful than people who does not really need assistance from others to survive. Forwarding a helping hand to the beggars on the street who are asking for money might seem logical to some people but personally, I, think it is not a right thing to do.

Helplessness could be of many types: some people really need it and others just fake mass people by acting being helpless in order to take advantages of peoples' compassion. For example, in a survey, conducted in South Asian countries, it was reported that majority of the street beggars are not that much helpless as s/he depicts on the street. The reason they say that is a good portion of the beggars are actually wealthy enough, some of them even have enough land property and houses in the capital cities, but they take this begging as a profession. These beggars actually don't want to work hard but to earn easy money by faking mass people. So, when someone is giving money to a street beggar thinking that she or he is actually helping a helpless person, it might not be a case as she or he thinks.

Fraud peoples are present almost everywhere. Some of them take this begging as a tool to earn money in such a extent that one may not think of it. Crime investigatiors in different parts of the world found that various gangs are kidnapping childrens and making them physically disabled so that they can use these childrens in begging and earn cheap money. Now, giving money to this beggars is actually synonumus to assisting those notorious criminals.

Moreover, whenever these beggars, especially who are physically normal but take it as profession are earning money by begging they get motivated to continue it. Thus, a person, who even doesn't know to whom she or he is giving money, may influence those beggars indirectly to continue a task which is ethically unacceptable.

In conclusion, giving money to the beggars on street may not be counted as a simple help always but this act of charity, sometimes, might influence others to continue begging or even might helping criminals to survive through this begging.

for me, it is 4. but you should avoid to write he/she again and again. you can use "they". and you should give example in 3rd paragraph also. and merge 2nd last paragraph with 3rd paragraph. it will sound better.

James, the score of this essay cannot be more than a 3 due to several problems with your work. These problems relate to how well you understood the prompt instructions, your paragraph development problems, and vocabulary shortcomings.

For starters, the essay asks you to explain your personal point of view regarding one of the two opinions. In your presentation, you veer from a personal point of view and opinion because you start to mention that a survey was conducted in an Asian country, which means you did research for the paper rather than simply using a personal opinion based on personal experience or knowledge. FYI, you won't have access to the internet at the testing center so don't mention researched sources. You won't be able to do that at the center.

Next, even though your paragraphs make sense, you are not in the habit of using transition sentences or connecting explanations which sometimes lead to a confusing take on your essay. When there is a lack of transition phrases or sentences, the reader tends to get confused and finds it difficult to keep track of the presentation.

Finally we come to the problem of your sentence formation and lack of proper sentence structuring and vocabulary usage. While the examiner will give you some leeway with regards to these problems, you should strive to present sentences that are properly developed and have accurate vocabulary usage. While these problems abound within your essay, which is why I cannot point these out one by one in this post, you have a chance to fix this problem if you just work on doing more English language exercises and further immerse yourself in the language through listening and reading exercises. The reading exercises will help you tremendously in learning how to properly format your sentences and will also help you develop your English vocabulary as you can look up the meaning of words you are not really familiar with but hope to use in your essays in the future.

Thank you @adirnarmak and @Holt for your reply. However, I am curious to know am I allowed to use my very personal example in TOEFL independent writing? Some people say it is better not to use personal experience as because it doesn't sound formal. Can you (@Holt) clarify this issue please ?

James, based on my experience as a TOEFL topnotcher (I got a perfect score in every aspect of the test) I speak from experience. Using the personal point of view in the TOEFL test tells the examiner one thing alone, you understood the question and are able to present your response based on a personal insight on the matter.

Remember, the prompt indicates:

Which point of view do you think is correct, and why?

The word "YOU" is the keyword here that indicates the need to use personal insight, knowledge, and examples The reasoning for "Why" comes from "YOU". Where else will you get your reasoning aside from personal discussion. It is not informal at all. The informality of a presentation comes from your word usage. Do no use slang English terms and do not use a casual tone for the discussion. Use an academic tone and the personal discussion automatically carries a formal tone. For example, if I said:

I don't wanna do nuthin.

I would be speaking in a non formal and non academic manner as opposed to:

I do not want to do that

which is the formal way of saying the slang version. It is personal, academic, and formal in presentation.

You have to learn to look for keywords or phrases that indicate the need for a personal discussion in a formal tone as opposed to public discussion. I gave you an example of they keywords that indicate this scenario above.