Efficiency of Working in Groups - TOEFL Essay

cooperation between people at a work place

Sometimes we are assigned to work in a group on a project. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? The group will be helped more by persons who will be willing to do what other group members want than by persons who often strongly insist that things should be done in a way that is different from what the group wants to do.

Based on my observations, I strongly agree that a group will be helped more by persons who will be willing to do what other members want. In the following paragraphs, I will give more details to support my stance.

First of all, a group highlights the working efficiency, and a person who is willing to do what other members want could be increasing the efficiency. For instance, John was my colleague in the cosmetic company two years ago. John tends to cooperate with others in the team because he identified with the efficiency was the first priority. Last year, there was an urgent case. The boss asked us to make an advertisement for a new lipstick in a month. It was tough because generally, we needed at least two months to do the job. However, all members decided to challenge the impossible task. John spent several nights to brainstorm and come up with a lot of ideas with us. When John had different opinions, he would communicate with other members and negotiate feasible plans. Finally, we spent only two weeks and finished the project of advertisement. On the contrary, if someone in my group did not cooperate with other members, we could not accomplish the task in such a short time.

Secondly, a group needs cohesion, and a person who is willing to do what other members want could enhance the group cohesion. That is, those who like to do the same things as other members could make friends with and support each other. Take my friend, Amy, as an example. Amy participated in a volunteer program to help the elderly people in hospitals. Amy devoted four days a week to the club because she loved to join in the same activities with other members, such as mountain climbing. In a short time, Amy made a lot of friends at the club. Amy gave other members a lot of support as they had difficulties. Similarly, other members could listen to Amy's troubles and help her release anxiety. Finally, the group generated a strong connection with the members.

To conclude, I support that a group would be improved more by persons who are willing to do what other members want. To be more specific, they could prompt working efficiency and group cohesion. That's why I have this kind of opinions.

Sufang, since this is an opinion essay that asks you to agree with a previously given statement, it is important that both facets of the opinion presented be discussed in your opinion. That way, you can show the proper strength and consideration that makes your opinion the correct one. In this instance, your essay would have been further strengthened if you had based your opinion on a comparison of how a team works effectively or not as effectively depending upon whether or not everyone on the team does their part and cooperates. By showing how a team fails when one member does not wish to do the same thing the others want to, your reasons for supporting the statement about a person who does his part to help the team towards success gains more importance and believability. As of now, this essay is good but too lopsided in reasoning which makes it bias instead of a fair comparative discussion of the prompts provided.

Do your best to present your explanations in less sentences. Try to do it within 5 sentences because you need to prove that you can make yourself understood in English using direct explanations. You don't need to explain the whole situation to the reader. Just present the salient / important points such as the task of the group, the assigned task to the person, what the person did, the outcome of his cooperation. 4-5 sentences per paragraph should be sufficient in this instance and future instances of needing to present a sample as a reason within a paragraph.

With only a limited amount of time to write this essay, you cannot afford to be too wordy as you still need to leave time for editing and revising your content for grammar and clarity. If you write too many words, you won't have time left over to do that and not proof reading your work could lessen your score due to the mistakes left on the page that should have been corrected.

Thank you very much, Holt. Your advice indicated long-term problems in my writings. I will try to change my habits of TOFEL independent writing because I hope to get high scores.