The qualities a person needs to become successful in today's world cannot be learned at a University

IELTS Task 2 - Education (Agree/Disagree)

Hi everyone, I am aiming for 7~7.5 in writing, so I have practiced a few topics and uploaded to this forum, thanks so much for your time and assistance!

The qualities a person needs to become successful in today's world cannot be learned at a University of any similar academic institution. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

With more people receiving higher education with the aim to succeed in the 21st era, whether or not being successful is solely dependent on academic knowledge has become a widely debated topic. While many believe that tertiary education has nothing to do with personal attainment, other maintain that there is a high correlation between academic result and success. Given that luck play an essential role in most success stories and that having an effective social network is an indispensable part of success, I strongly agree that one cannot learn anything from college contributing to his or her future success.

In terms of the effect of intrinsic factor, no one could deny luck being a main element of success. For instance, one inborn with a golden key or with an endearing appearance is more likely to get the laurel. It takes a normal person a great deal of effort and tremendous time to level the playing field in order to catch up with the pace of those with luck. The invisible gap between a normal and a lucky person will only be widened if the lucky one work hard as well, and luck cannot be made up by any knowledge in school. As a result, no university course can offer luck which could exert an enormous impact on ones' success.

Regarding the importance of networking, a resourceful network, in which people could share resources and offer opportunities to each other, is invaluable. Take Mark Zuckerburg as an example, his dorm mate whom Mark has been working with on building a social platform blazed a trail for today's behemoth - Facebook. We cannot achieve anything large solely on our own, but to rely on others at least to some extent. Therefore, networking is another cardinal foundation of success, which is unrelated to the training in tertiary institutions.

Having discussed the aforementioned, I firmly believe that we cannot learn to be a successful person simply through the education in university. This is especially true for the youngsters who do not have much life experience while craving for success via fast-track. If people could be more down-to-earth and pay more attention on broadening their network, I am confident that they would soon or later reach their dreams.

You have to remember that the examiner will not accept exaggerations in your presentations. There are no debates indicated in the original discussion. Therefore, you should have used the term "discussion" instead as that connotes an exchange of ideas closer to the original prompt. You should also make the essay sound more natural by using more common English terminology. Everyday English words will suffice. Words like "intrinsic factor" and "main element of success", or one inborn with the golden key" are not everyday words. The latter being a memorized English phrase that is over used and often exaggerated in the presentation.

You cannot say, "Regarding the importance of networking", you cannot refer to it as "Regarding" when you never mentioned it before. You only mentioned "luck" as having a part to play in the success of a person, you never mentioned networking. So there is a lack of coherence and cohesiveness in your reasoning presentations. These need to directly relate to one another. You cannot present a discussion topic as an after thought.

In the concluding paraphrase, you are offering an opinion in the last sentence. Since you were not asked for an opinion relating to how success can be viewed, you should not say with certainty that this is the way for a person to reach success in life. You should only be stating comments relating to the education factor as presented in the essay topic. Sadly, this sort of presentation, though long, is not yet worthy of a 7 or 7.5.