The honesty is the most crucial thing in a good relationship

TOEFL - Independent Task

Independent Topic: Always telling the truth is the most important consideration in any relationship between people.

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

Maintaining a good relationship between people is not an easy task but very complex. Many factors may contribute to a good relationship between two people. A trait of always telling the truth is one of them. Some people may say that this trait is the most important thing in maintaining a good relationship. However, it is not always the case in practical world.

Many people can not absorb truth especially if it is something that goes against them. One of my friends in school was very sensitive about himself. I can remember very well that when I used to talk something negative about him, for example, about his speech in a program, he used to get very angry. It shows that he was not able to accept the truth and ultimately this trait of telling truth before him suffered our relationship in a greater extent. Similarly there are people who becomes depressed or frustrated when they are crticized constructively and definitely it hampers the relationship between them. So, it shows telling the truth, specially when it is bitter, might affect a relationship heavily.

Sometimes there are situations when the result of a simple lie worth much than telling the truth. For instance, a people, living in an extremely religious country, is going to be killed judicially for simple fighting with his neighbours. And his life can be saved if a witness says that he is not involved with the fighting. In such situation, I would definitely vote to say a lie in order to save a life. Thus, not telling truth can make the relationship stronger sometimes.

I knew another people who classified as hostile in the eyes of his collegues as because he said truth to his boss. And eventually he had to leave his job. This telling truth ultimately did no good for him even though it was not his fault.

In conclusion, relationship depends on many factors. Situation is one of the most important factors among them. It is situation that will determine what to do or how to do. Sometimes it is the nature of person that will decide whether you can always tell the truth or not. That is why there is no way to say that always telling the truth is the most important consideration in any relationship between people.

hi @jam92, the problem is that i didn't understand the topic as you didn't describe it well, are you meant to be writing for or against it so i could know how to comment. asides that, the essay isn't flowing well.try and arrange it to into parts like intro, the body where you talk about the pros and cons and finally your opinion about the topic.

The essay should turn out better.

hope I've been of help

Hi Jam,
Your prompt does not indicate whether support or against the idea but I will understand that your choice is against the idea of telling the truth. I think your essay is quite good. It is concise. However, it should not have contained an individual experience unless the prompt required you to use your own experience as an example supporting your opinion. Although the idea flows smoothly, your clues are so specifics that goes against your debate. Should it be more convinced if you ultimate a general information such as news or scientific research as an evidence to your essay

James, based on your problem with expressing yourself in English, this essay cannot score higher than a 2 in an actual test setting. You are being hindered by the confusing sentence development and presentation in this essay. You do not use appropriate words in given instances and you have a problem with presenting a clear though process. All of these, plus your mistakes in punctuation and grammar added up to the final score for your essay.

It would be best if you try to brush up on your sentence structure skills. Take the time to truly explain what you mean in short but adequately informative sentences. That way you will be able to explain yourself in a manner that the reader can really understand. Try to explain yourself within 5 sentences at the most and always remember to proofread and edit your essay before you submit it.

Remember, you always need to aim for clarity in your presentation. You do not need too many words in your essay, you just need to present at least the minimum in a clear and concise manner. If you cannot do that then you will fail the test. For this essay, it would have been better if you had simply chosen one side of the argument to agree with so that the essay would have been easier for you to write because your focus would have been on perfecting only one discussion within the given time limit.

Thank you very much for your reply @obianujumaureen, @HanNguyen0510 and @Holt.