it is important to find out if the decision will be popular with others (IBT)

Hi all,

This is my Toefl writing essay, please read thorough, comment or let me know my mistakes in this essay.

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?
Before making a decision, it is important to find out if the decision will be popular with others.

In our life, we must make many decisions. Some of them are important and some of them are not. You can succeed in our life or not depend how good your decisions are. Is it important to check whether your decision is popular or not before making it? I think it is not important. Because each person has their own targets, living conditions and capabilities.

We have our own targets, so we can not make the similar decision as everybody. After graduating secondary school, most of my friends decided to study at Nguyen Hue high school, because it's near their house and good enough for them. Whereas, both my family and I want me to join in the best high school in my town. I tried to pass the entrance examination and I think that is a good decision.

Nevertheless, everybody has different capabilities. We have some strong points as well as weak points. Before making decision, we should analyze yourself to know what we can benefit from that decision, what we can loose or what risk we can meet. For instance, when we decide which major we will study at university, it's more important to assess our capability rather than check whether every body study the same major as us or not.

Additionally, learning from experience is very good, but we just should consider it as reference. We have different living conditions, so we can not resemble the decision of other people. I'm wondering where should I study master program. Most people on many forums told that study in US, Canada and Australia is very good. But I can not afford for the school, food and lodge fee there. Consequently, I choose Sweden just because the school fee is free and this is the most important point for me.

All in all, everybody has different targets, capabilities and living conditions. We can not follow the decision of the popular, but we can refer to it to analyze why they make that decision, what are our strong points, can we make it better. By doing like that, your decisions will be better over the time.

Thanks in advance,

Tuan.

^Ones success in life depends on the quality of their decisions.



The question is not asking if your decisions should be the same as those of your peers. It is asking if it is important that your peers agree with your decisions.

tuanlnc


You should link both sentences up because "I think it is not important" is an independent clause and the sentence that follows is a subordinate clause.

The word "their" should be "his or her" as "their" is a plural pronoun and the words "each person" doesn't agree with it.

So the revised sentence could be something like this:

"I think it is not important because each person has his or her own targets, living conditions and capabilities."
____________________________________________________________ _______________________


"Can not" should be spelt as "cannot". I suggest phrasing the sentence this way:

"As we have our own targets, we cannot make similar decisions"

Thanks so much to Llamapoop123 and JunYuan for your suggestions.

@To: Llamapoop123

1. Llamapoop123's sentence,"Ones success in life depends on the quality of their decisions.", is really better than mine.

2. I feel difficult to re-state the topic sentence in the introduction paragraph. Is there any guideline for this?

3. I think the topic does ask do we consider popular trends as an important factor when deciding.

@To: JunYuan

1. Your revised sentence let me know what are my mistakes. Hope I can avoid making them again.

Cheers,

Tuan.

Your grammar and word choice are generally correct, so you are in good shape for taking the TOEFL.

Where you are saying "target," the better word would be "aim."