Does Success Come from Luck or Work?

hi again,

can you guys, please, give me an opinion about this one? i am not so sure about it.
thank you

"When people succeed in life, it is because of hard work. Being lucky has nothing to do with success in life." Do you agree or disagree with the quotation above? Use specific reasons and examples to explain your position.

Successful people are...

Success is every person goal. We all need to succeed, to achieve our standards. Both luck and hard work play a role in being successful; for some people is mostly about luck and for others, luck and hard work in the same amount. You must have the opportunity, the luck to be the right man at the right time and then you need to work hard, to invest alot of time in that activity.

Some people are just born in rich, powerful families and this is the chance of their life. Here is not about hard work. This is just pure luck. Being born in a famous family opens the doors more then anything else. For example, take some generations of politicians, mafia clans, inheritance in the families. A big percent of the today's successful people are coming from decades long rich and powerful families. For example, Bush family, the Rockefellers, etc

An important factor to achieve success is the 'cumulative advantages". Malcolm Gladwell describes this phenomenon very well in his book "Outliers". Some people are successful because they met a chain of opportunities that built their success. Gladwell describes the cases of few people, one of them being Bill Gates. First he was born a in a family with possibilities that could afford to sent him in a private school that at that time had one of the first computer laboratories in United States. He stuck with computers, and with hard work and other opportunities became Bill Gates that we know the today. Gladwell says that the magic number of time that need to be invest to become a professional in your field is around 10.000 hours, which is a huge amount of work.

Today, in the developed societies, success means great career, a lot of money and high standard living, but along the history, different societies have different meaning for being successful. In Sparta, for example, the successful person was a warrior; you could not be a warrior without the skills, the talent that you were born with- the luck-, and then, hard work to develop those skills.

In conclusion, success in life is about having the opportunity to focus your hard work in the field that you have chosen. The opportunity "opens the door", is showing a road and the hard work is like "walking on that road". Many had the opportunity, but only few found the power to work hard and they became successful.

Hi ^^
this is just my opinion, hope this help.


- It seems to be not clear.



- I think that you should not state your opinion that is simple like that.(In other words, do not mention the topic like "above quotation").


- It seems like an example rather than an argument.
- ""the luck" such as being born in a rich or powerful family." is not a clause. So your sentence has a grammatical mistake.


- I think your examples are not clear and effective enough.


- I think this conclusion make reader ambiguous after what you done. If I were you, I would confirm the thesis in the introduction, then infer a lession that emphasizes what is realy success (such as opportunity, luck, hard work...).

Good luck ^_^

This first line is weak, because it does not say anything important. Say something strange and interesting, something that catches the interest.

I like your arguments! Perhaps you should adjust your thesis so it says that more of the world's "successful" people got their success through luck than through hard work. That seems to be what you have argued.

You need some more supporting sentences in the intro and conclusion. Use those paragraphs to explain your MAIN point, your thesis statement. Don't just leave that conclusion para as a single sentence; expand on the thesis. :)

Good luck!

Hmmm . . . you start off arguing in favor of luck, but by the end you are putting a fair amount of emphasis on hard work, too. It's okay to say that you need both, of course, but I think you should make sure to state that, the amount of work being equal, people with the good fortune to be born with certain advantages will do better than those who do not have those advantages.

I would agree with the point that you seem to waiver between the two. I tend to agree with your point that luck has alot to do with success. It seems the last paragraph is rather short to be a paragraph.

yeah...i.m kind of waiving. that was my opinion but i didn't know if is ok to talk about both. but, if you read carefully, they are not saying agree or disagree with luck or hard work, just with the quotation.

ty guys for helping me. i have the exam on may 15 and i am a bit affraid of the essay. i don.t know if i can handle it in 30 min.

You still need a clear thesis. You can side with hard work, or with luck, or you can argue that you need both. But whatever you choose, make sure you state upfront, in your intro, what your position is, and then tie all of your paragraphs back to that point. So, in this case, you might start out by saying

"Both luck and hard work play a role in being successful."

Then, you could write a paragraph discussing why luck is important, another discussing how hard work is important, then come up with a conclusion in which you explain just how luck and hard work are related.

As for being afraid of the essay, these sorts of essays are extremely formulaic, and tend to center around the same set of general themes. With a bit of practice, you will have no trouble learning to write these well in under 30min. Try revising this one, then take a shot at another prompt and post it in a new thread for more feedback.