[TOEFL iBT Task 2]: Independency for young adults

Some young adults want independence from their parents as soon as possible. Other young adults prefer to live with their families for a longer time. Which of these situations do you think is better? Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.

some youngsters want to be independent from their families

Some people believe that they need to live independently when they turned to be a young adult. However, others argue that a young adult should live longer with their parents. Personally, I prefer the former idea for some reasons.

Firstly, by having an independency, people who are turning to be an adult will sharpen some skills. In any occasion, they have to be able to make a decision by theirselves. With this full consciousness, they will be trained in preparing them to the next phase of life. For example, when I was in Senior High Scool, I had been living far apart from my family. In the first time, I experienced some difficulties from small things until the greater problems. I was aware that it was not an easy process, but eventually, I found myself became a better person who have an ability to live independently and make a decision confidently.

Another benefit that the situation will bring to the young adults who try to live independently is to develop their responsibility. After they can make a decision by theirselves, they have to be aware of all risks from every decision they have made. This will drive them to responsible for every acts they have done. For instance, when they should choose between study or go to part time job, while the exam is waiting for them tomorrow, they have to make decision carefully and become responsible for every risks ahead.

I maintain that the young adults still need more advices and guidances from their parents. However, the way on training them to live independetly will give them space to grow maturely. Parents could guard continuously their children that not-so-little anymore, but in a more independent way; by giving their children a freedom to choose and remind them all the risks they will have.

Word count : 304

Nuradia, you have shown a great deal of improvement in your vocabulary and word usage. You are more on point when using certain terms such as "young adult" , "independent", and "former idea". Good job on improving your English vocabulary and your ability to remember the meaning of the word and how to use it in a sentence. Keep on growing your vocabulary so you can become even better at word usage.

You also did a good job in defending your stance / opinion in the body of paragraphs. These were clearly explained, fully developed, and used appropriate examples in the presentation. However, your concluding paragraph did not properly summarize the discussion. You continued the discussion instead. Now, had you added another paragraph at the end where you could have summarized the discussion, you would have written a far stronger and better scored essay. However, with a little over 300 words, that might be difficult for you.

Why is it going to be more difficult? While you did show vocabulary improvement, you did not show an equivalent amount of improvement in your GRA / sentence development or structure in the essay. Had you written around 275 words, you could have done that because of the existence of editing time at the end of your drafting process. At 275 words with properly structured sentences, you could aim for at least a 7.5 with your writing.

Dear @Holt,

Thank you so much for your comments and advices that have contibuted to my improvement in writing.
Yes, true, actually it's quite challenging since the task 2 of TOEFL iBT requires minimum of 300 words, so I kind of push myself to write everything in the remain time.

Is it ok if I only write 275 words?

My apologies, the system did not show me that this was for a TOEFL test until it rebooted. I only saw the updated description when your response came in to my review. All along I thought this was an IELTS test because your prompt was originally used in those tests. Please, do write at least 300 words but no more than 350. It is always important to leave editing time, that is a must. It is not optional. My review of your work stands except that the scoring has now changed from a 7.5 to a 3 for this writing with a potential to score at least a 4 once you get a better hold of your English sentence presentation skills.

All you have to do to meet the time requirement is to continue writing the essays. When I ask my students to start practicing beating the clock so that they can edit the paper, I ask them to complete the essay in 30 minutes. Leaving them with 10 minutes to review the essay and correct their work. Perhaps you could also benefit from doing the same thing?

Use your cellphone timer. Set it for 30 minutes then write the essay. Try to finish your draft before the timer goes off. If you finish early, you have 15-20 minutes to finalize the essay. If the timer goes off before you can finish writing, you have 10 minutes to finalize and edit the essay. Aim for the 15-20 minutes writing completion as best as you can. You will find that as you train to write faster, your presentation will also become smoother and clearer.

Why will this happen? You will begin to develop an internal body clock that will somehow manage to notify you of the time constraints even if you don't glance at the clock. Eventually, they learn that they are automatically writing 325-350 words before the timer goes off. They begin to instinctively know when they have written enough words to satisfy the essay requirements. The timer setting is part of that unconscious test timing preparation. See if it works for you. My students manage to develop their instinctive writing and timer using this method. It really helps them with the word count and editing time frame.