TOEFL - Topic : Competition among friends can destroy a friendship.

Name: Joowan Kim

There is an argument over whether competition among friends is able to jeopardize a friendship. Some people might argue that it is definitely true that competition between friends makes them turn into enemy from each other because one might betray another to be superior to him or her in terms of the success in life. My view, however, is that competition among friends can enhance a friendship rather than destroying the relationship. This is largely because the competition is able to improve the quality of their lives. Moreover, they are able to share their thoughts and give advises from each other.

To begin with, by competing among friends, they have high possibilities to improve their quality of life. In other words, as the competition could stimulate the motivations between them, they would do their best to become better than another. Since they are competitive partners, they will try to succeed for their lives consistently. When they get older, both of them could hold in a high position in the society, and realize that the competition helps their success come true. According to a study recently conducted by researchers in Harvard University, about eighty percent of graduates of the university were able to succeed in their lives with competitions among their friends. This was because all of them had competitive partners when they approached to their dreams. They said, 'without having a competitive partner among friends, it must be hard to achieve your dream in life.' Therefore, competition among friends is able to trigger them to accomplish their dream.

In addition, people can not only give advises from each other, but also cooperate together for the same purpose they have. If they are involved in the same field, it would be more effective because there are more chances for them to help from each other. Based on my experience, when I was in high school, I mostly had a trouble about solving math problems, while my friend was very competent at math. When we had a math test, he taught me how to solve math problems I could not solve it by myself and rectified mistakes I made. Moreover, he was able to improve his math skills by teaching me at the same time. Eventually, all we got much better grades in our school. If it had not been for getting his help, i would have harder time in math class. Thus, competition among friends offers an opportunity for them to cooperate and help from each other.

Overall, it is sure that competition between friends does not destroy a friendship. Instead, the competition can develop the quality of their lives better and to provide many chances to interact with each other. In this regard, having a competitive partner among your friends would be necessary enough for your future life.

In my opinion, you should not explain your arguments (even in brief) in the first paragraph of your essay as this one is only an introduction. Instead, you may end the passage with the phrase like "because of the following reasons" or " I will endeavor to explain my stance in detail further".


This sentence should be revised in order to make your opinion more precise.

In the whole, your essay is very well organized and informative. Indeed, good work!

Kim, an overview of the discussion that you were about to give would have been in order. Your opinion on the matter is a necessary part of the introduction since the first paragraph must contain the restated prompt, overview of the discussion, and a quick reference to the stance that you are personally taking in the discussion. Mariana is right though, you need to close the paragraph by saying that further explanations are to follow in the essay.

While I agree with all of the points that you presented to support that competition does not destroy a friendship, I believe that this essay is asking you to present an opinion based upon 2 sides. Remember, there are real life friendships that were destroyed by competition. There have been instances when business competition, or personal competition have caused burned bridges among friends, parting them in ways that could never be repaired and sometimes causing generational family feuds as well.

In my opinion, I believe that your essay would have been more balanced and convincing if you had presented an opposing discussion. By doing so, you could have argued the reasons of the opposition in such a manner that would have produced a winning argument for your opinion towards the end of the paper.

I think this is a really good work with great structures and examples that perfectly fit the topic. This is a structure of typical TOEFL writing. And like marina and vangiespen said, maybe adding a transition sentence between the first and second paragraph will make the passage better.