A rich person must be happier than a poor person

Hi All,

Can you please check my TOEFL essay and correct it? AND
I am confused about this type of essays and my confusion is when we get such questions like, ".Do you agree or disagree with the statement?" Is it compulsory that you have to agree OR disagree only? Because some subjects are like you cannot explain exactly such as below given subject. I cannot completely agree or disagree. Please help me and tel me Is this the proper way to answer such essay?

A rich person must be happier than a poor person
In my experience, I have found poor people are happier than the rich.

In my analysis, this is due to the following reason.

Happiness is higher with higher ability and lower expectations. The poor mostly know their limitations and learn to keep their expectations under reasonable control. The rich, on the other hand, know their ability and as a result allow their expectations to be higher. That in itself should result equal chance of happiness or unhappiness for both. But the rich suffer from another malady. Their being rich makes them proud and egoistic which further boosts their expectations of themselves. Thus the rich end up with much higher level of expectations than warranted by their richness as such. This therefore tilts the balance against their favor.

The above is indeed a generality which is never immune to exceptions. For instance, there can be some rich people who learn their lesson and do not allow the fact of their being rich to make them too proud or egoistic. On the other hand, there can also be some poor people who despite their poverty continue to rate themselves much higher than warranted and thus end up with disproportionately higher expectations of themselves leading to unhappiness. However, my observation shows that the generality stated above is valid since the exceptions are indeed few and far between. I'm very jealous of rich people, getting to buy everything they want, without having to even looking at the price tag and getting all worried. But then again sometimes I am happy, just to see my family and friends being there, even if I can't have that beautiful blouse from Clavin Klein.

I like the ideas that you try to express in your essay.

Concerning your confusion, I think you have to decide whether or not you agree or disagree with the statement and show your argumentation in a argumentative essay. Say you state a hypothesis, you have to bring examples and evidence to help your hypothesis and argument "shine".

I hope this helps,

Thanks, Svenja

In my view, TOEFL writing is to test your writing skills and they mark your essay as per their standard format of writing(i.e four para format ;. intro, body (at least two paras) and the conclusion). It doesn't matter whether you agree, disagree or take a moderate stance -

State your opinion in the intro. Then give your first reason as to why you hold that opinion and support it with examples. For example, you mention -


Now give a real life example for this argument.

Then give your second reason and support it with an example. Something like... My father always bought vehicles that managed fuel consumption efficiently and never owned a vehicle of his personal choice because he was well aware of his limitations on spending. However, my uncle, a company CEO, was never bothered about such details and always spent lavishly on his desired cars.

Finally, in the conclusion sum up what you said above and re-instate your opinion.

Good Luck with TOEFL!!!!

Hi,

I have same confusion about such types of essays. I didn't get any satisfied answer for that. If you got it would you like to share it with me? I am also preparing for TOEFL.

Your essay is good just you have arrange it in a proper format with explanation as mentioned by dumi.

Thanks & good luck,

Ana.