TOEFL-it is my friends in college that made up my most important memories of the more grown-up stage

TOEFL Writing task
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement:
Students are more influenced by their teachers than by their friends

good teachers and friends as a treasure to cherish

It's true that a good teacher can benefit one's whole life. For instance, I can easily name several of my favorite teachers at middle school, those who drastically influenced my view toward the world and the meaning of life. However, when I asked the question, "What about my college teachers", my mind suddenly went blank. In fact, it is my friends in college that made up my most important memories of the more grown-up stage in life.

Thus I believe that younger students are more likely to be influenced by their teachers than by friends, while senior students, in order words "young adults", tend to be more influenced by their friends.

Teachers are in some way like an authority to young students, and pretty much an admirable one that students may value their approval so much. In the meantime, when disapproval is somehow emphasized, a student may feel deeply hurt. I have a middle school friend who was fat at that time but morbidly thin now, by keeping a diet never eating meat anymore. When we suggested her not to do so in such an extreme way and ask her the reason why, she recalled that our teacher even asked her to dress in boy's clothes because no dress we borrowed could fit her during our annual choir festival back at middle school, which badly hurt her feelings and made her wanted to lose weight desperately. Even though we all know that fat girls generally have pressure from many aspects, the one engraved in her mind was the reaction from our teacher.

After admiration comes rebellion. Senior students at college who pass the adolescent rebellion period and form sort of independent personality will rely less on teacher's opinion, while opinions from the same generation begin to take control. Friends who sing well and encourage you to join in and have a try help you learn to sing and feel empowered, friends who express their understanding in an organized manner makes you want to have a deep discussion with him/her, and friends who have the same passion with you on a specific subject may even become your future business partner! Forget about the teachers!

Though quite dramatic, I believe such change is in accordance with the natural process of individual development in personality. As for me, I personally value good teachers and good friends in my life both as treasures to cherish.

Your second paragraph doesn't contribute much to the theme of the essay; I,would suggest that you remove it. In fact, that paragraph tends to shift focus from the topic.

In addition, when drawing conclusions, do not raise additional points or talk about things out of the scope of the essay. Keep it simple! The concluding paragraph is meant to summarize the central idea of the essay in three or four sentences. As it stands, you have not done that.

@Asphodel the discussion approach that you took to this essay prompt is wrong. You need to present a solid opinion based on one of the two points of view presented. Note that the prompt indicates that you must "disagree or agree" with the given topic. There is no middle of the road. In your essay, you refused to take a particular side. You wrote the essay without an actual opinion that is based on the prompt requirement. Therefore, you did not follow the discussion instructions and will more than likely fail the test because of it.

You also did not properly write the thesis statement into the first paragraph. The thesis statement is always the last sentence in the first paragraph. You must never present that as a stand alone sentence because there is a specific sentence and paragraph requirement for the test. Altering that presentation affects your scoring considerations as well.

You tried your best to provide a response to the essay based on your point of view. Unfortunately, the discussion you presented is not what the topic instruction required. So I am not sure if you can pass the TOEFL test with such a large prompt deviation based on the instructions provided.

Merged:

(totally rewrite) TOEFL-Students are more influenced by their teachers than by their friends

TOEFL Writing task
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement:
Students are more influenced by their teachers than by their friends

It's true that good teachers give us valuable knowledge and lessons for live, however it is our friends who give us each and every bit of advice on almost everything. Typically as a student, having the precious chance of making as many friends as possible, friends surely influence us more than teaches do.

First and foremost, we spend a lot more time with friends than with teachers as a student. As the saying goes, no man is an island. We naturally spend a huge amount of time with our friends out of social demand, either at school or in spare time, even without noticing. For example, not only bad students have the experience of chattering with their voice down during class with a close friend, enjoying the little cleverness not being caught by the teachers, we may all have. Whereas teachers rather focus on delivering knowledge to students, instead of purely sharing interests with joyfulness. As a result, we tend to draw more attention to what leaves us with deep impression, and in most of the cases that refers to friends' words.

More importantly, we share a lot in common with our friends because we are from the same generation. Leaving in a rapidly advancing world as it is nowadays, the more excitement we have to share with our peers, the more difficult for our teachers to keep up with us students. Take an extreme case, the way of learning is drastically changed compared with a decade ago - we can almost search for anything we want to learn on the internet now, and interact with our peers even living in a faraway country! Can our teachers understand that we may not even need for them? Whereas a friend who also study say, programming, on his own through the internet, can help you speed up with your learning just by offering you a code sharing website! That way friends give us really constructive influences.

In a word, friends possess more characteristics to influence us than teachers. They are available, closely related to our delights and problems, thus easier to communicate emotions with or earn practical suggestions from.

@Holt
Thank you for your constructive criticism. I've completely rewritten this essay and hope you can give more comments.