Hi everyone, I would like to practise writing with the given TOEFL topics.
Will appreciate if anyone could give me some comments, thanks!
Question:
What is your approach to problem-solving, and how does it work for you? Use specific details to support your response.
-----my answer (word count: 391)-----
When I solve problems, I follow two steps - look into the cause and search for solutions.
Finding the cause is important in solving problems because without a cause, there would not have been a problem at all. Once I received a score in a physics test, and I didn't understand why I got a particular question wrong. The papers were not distributed back to us, so I couldn't find out why I was wrong. To find out the cause, I went to the physics teacher and asked about the question. It turned out that I was on the right track for solving that question, except I mistakenly circled a wrong answer. If I had not looked into the cause, which was the reason for picking the wrong answer, I would have never realized that I had only mistakenly chosen the wrong answer while bearing the right concept in mind.
After having identified the cause, I look for solutions to the problem, or else it will continue to annoy me. I always have a habit of making silly mistakes like the one I have mentioned above, and to thoroughly get rid of this bad habit, I decide to look for a solution. Now I read a question twice before answering it, and proofread my answers before handing in the papers. Although I still make silly mistakes at times, I feel that I have decreased the number of silly mistakes made.
Sometimes seeking advice is also an important step, because your own knowledge may not enable you to think of the best solution to the problem. One of my friends used to have a problem of constantly overlooking silly mistakes too, but she got rid of this problem within a year, while it took me almost three years to figure out what to do with this nasty habit. She adviced me to slow down and read the question word by word, and even use a highlight pen to underline keypoints. When I followed her advice, my number of silly mistakes went further down.
Therefore, by splitting the problem into pieces and analyzing it part by part can be an efficient way of solving a problem. In my opinion, if one can identify the cause of the issue correctly and then figure out a useful solution to it, problems are not problems anymore.
Will appreciate if anyone could give me some comments, thanks!
Question:
What is your approach to problem-solving, and how does it work for you? Use specific details to support your response.
-----my answer (word count: 391)-----
When I solve problems, I follow two steps - look into the cause and search for solutions.
Finding the cause is important in solving problems because without a cause, there would not have been a problem at all. Once I received a score in a physics test, and I didn't understand why I got a particular question wrong. The papers were not distributed back to us, so I couldn't find out why I was wrong. To find out the cause, I went to the physics teacher and asked about the question. It turned out that I was on the right track for solving that question, except I mistakenly circled a wrong answer. If I had not looked into the cause, which was the reason for picking the wrong answer, I would have never realized that I had only mistakenly chosen the wrong answer while bearing the right concept in mind.
After having identified the cause, I look for solutions to the problem, or else it will continue to annoy me. I always have a habit of making silly mistakes like the one I have mentioned above, and to thoroughly get rid of this bad habit, I decide to look for a solution. Now I read a question twice before answering it, and proofread my answers before handing in the papers. Although I still make silly mistakes at times, I feel that I have decreased the number of silly mistakes made.
Sometimes seeking advice is also an important step, because your own knowledge may not enable you to think of the best solution to the problem. One of my friends used to have a problem of constantly overlooking silly mistakes too, but she got rid of this problem within a year, while it took me almost three years to figure out what to do with this nasty habit. She adviced me to slow down and read the question word by word, and even use a highlight pen to underline keypoints. When I followed her advice, my number of silly mistakes went further down.
Therefore, by splitting the problem into pieces and analyzing it part by part can be an efficient way of solving a problem. In my opinion, if one can identify the cause of the issue correctly and then figure out a useful solution to it, problems are not problems anymore.
