TOEFL test kaplan

[AdrienZeuch]

Originally Posted by SD2007

You said 'Cars are cheap' is your topic sentence, but I couldn't link this topic with the statement, which is about impact on our society.

now I understand..what I usually do is, I make three points which support my main opinion. If you have not noticed, In the introduction i say that one of the reason that has made cars have more impact on us is that their use are cheaper than the airplane. Some people cannot travel by airplane; howerver, they can travel by car because it is cheaper.

Don't you agree ? i think that people buy car and travel by car because they cannot afford a airplane's ticket. In Brasil it is very expensive to travel by airplane. Consequently, a lot of people purchase cars. In other words, the car has a greater impact.

[SD2007]

Originally Posted by AdrienZeuch

now I understand..what I usually do is, I make three points which support my main opinion. If you have not noticed, In the introduction i say that one of the reason that has made cars have more impact on us is that their use are cheaper than the airplane. Some people cannot travel by airplane; howerver, they can travel by car because it is cheaper.

Don't you agree ? i think that people buy car and travel by car because they cannot afford a airplane's ticket. In Brasil it is very expensive to travel by airplane. Consequently, a lot of people purchase cars. In other words, the car has a greater impact.

Your introduction and conclusion parts are good.
For the body part, I understand what you are talking. Remember in Barron's book, we practice main or minor idea. I think 'cars are cheap' is minor idea, 'people use cars more' is main idea. If that is the case, you should say: People use cars more often than airplane. Then you say: Because cars are much cheaper than airplanes, it is affordable for people to buy and use cars rather than airplanes.
How about that?

[SD2007]

My essay:
I agree that cars impact our society much more than airplanes. There are a few reasons to support this idea.
First, there are more cars than airplanes. I am living in Vancouver, Canada. Almost every family in Canada has one car. Some family even have two or three cars. There are millions of cars on streets. They keep out streets very busy. In contrast, most family do not own any airplane. We only have one airport. Maybe just 200 airplanes take off or land in the airport each day. Some cities eve do not have any airport and hardly see any airplanes on their sky.
Second, people use cars more often than airplanes. In other word, cars involve in our daily life much more than airplanes. We need drive our cars to school, to work and to shopping. Because people so get used to driving a car, they drive even though only 10 minutes walking distance. Conversely, most people only take airplane on special occasions, like holiday or business trip to another city.
Third, cars are much nearby rather than airplanes. Cars just park or pass on the streets next to our living area. If your house is close to streets, you can hear traffic noise all time. Driving cars is the main reason that pollutes our environment. On the other hand, airplanes are much far from us. Even they have noise, we will not hear much because of distance.
In conclusion, it is very clear that cars affect our daily life much more than airplanes. Everybody has responsibility to reduce using cars to make our society better.
Please give me some comment for my essay. I know I don't have lots of detail, that's my problem.

[AdrienZeuch]

Originally Posted by SD2007

My essay:
I agree that cars impact our society much more than airplanes. There are a few reasons to support this idea.
First, there are more cars than airplanes. I am living in Vancouver, Canada. Almost every family in Canada has one car. Some family even have two or three cars. There are millions of cars on streets. They keep out streets very busy. In contrast, most family do not own any airplane. We only have one airport. Maybe just 200 airplanes take off or land in the airport each day. Some cities eve do not have any airport and hardly see any airplanes on their sky.
Second, people use cars more often than airplanes. In other word, cars involve in our daily life much more than airplanes. We need drive our cars to school, to work and to shopping. Because people so get used to driving a car, they drive even though only 10 minutes walking distance. Conversely, most people only take airplane on special occasions, like holiday or business trip to another city.
Third, cars are much nearby rather than airplanes. Cars just park or pass on the streets next to our living area. If your house is close to streets, you can hear traffic noise all time. On the other hand, airplanes are much far from us. Even they have noise, we will not hear much because of distance.
In conclusion, it is very clear that cars affect our daily life much more than airplanes. Everybody has responsibility to reduce using cars to make our society better.
Please give me some comment for my essay. I know I don't have lots of detail, that's my problem.

Ok. You gave not too much details but they are good. Your structure sentences are good as well. However I think you should rework on your introduction and perhaps your conclusion.
My teacher always told me that introduction is the most important part of an essay. Because of this, we have to make it strong.
This how I organize the intro.

first, there's the HOOK, which is the very first sentence and its purpose is to grab the reader's atention.

second, background information..this follows the hook and it composed by 2,3 sentences just to give extra informations and to say if you agree or not with the statement.

third, thesis..ater the background inf you write the thesis which is most of the time three points.

Doing this structure...the rater will see that the person organizes well the indtroduction, and the chances to get a good score a bigger.

I think also that you could do a bigger conclusion...conclusion is important as well, and you could strenghten it by restating again your three main points.
So, if you change the intro and concl I assure you that you would get a better and good score. Try to work on this.
and I will try to make my essay more eficient as you said. Ill keep the same structure and lenght, but I'll strenghten my body paragraphs.

[AdrienZeuch]

Here is an example of a introduction which contains a hook, Background information and thesis

Computers are very important for students. Nowadays, the numbers of schools acquiring computers has dramatically increased. Even though books are a good source of knowledge, I believe that the computers are a better tool that provide students with useful knowledge. Computers have Internet that has an expanded source of information. Computers also provide faster ways to acquire information. In addition, students who master the computer have more possibility to get jobs.

red is the hook. blue is BI. green is thesis.

[SD2007]

Originally Posted by AdrienZeuch

Ok. You gave not too much details but they are good. Your structure sentences are good as well. However I think you should rework on your introduction and perhaps your conclusion.
My teacher always told me that introduction is the most important part of an essay. Because of this, we have to make it strong.
This how I organize the intro.

first, there's the HOOK, which is the very first sentence and its purpose is to grab the reader's atention.

second, background information..this follows the hook and it composed by 2,3 sentences just to give extra informations and to say if you agree or not with the statement.

third, thesis..ater the background inf you write the thesis which is most of the time three points.

Doing this structure...the rater will see that the person organizes well the indtroduction, and the chances to get a good score a bigger.

I think also that you could do a bigger conclusion...conclusion is important as well, and you could strenghten it by restating again your three main points.
So, if you change the intro and concl I assure you that you would get a better and good score. Try to work on this.
and I will try to make my essay more eficient as you said. Ill keep the same structure and lenght, but I'll strenghten my body paragraphs.

You are right. Normally I do the way like you said. But this essay seems hard for me to write down lots in introduction and conclusion. Hope during the last 5 min of 30 min for the independent writing, I can make them better.

[SD2007]

Originally Posted by AdrienZeuch

Here is an example of a introduction which contains a hook, Background information and thesis

Computers are very important for students. Nowadays, the numbers of schools acquiring computers has dramatically increased. Even though books are a good source of knowledge, I believe that the computers are a better tool that provide students with useful knowledge. Computers have Internet that has an expanded source of information. Computers also provide faster ways to acquire information. In addition, students who master the computer have more possibility to get jobs.

red is the hook. blue is BI. green is thesis.

This is the format I use most time, but not the cars vs airplanes one.
Could you please use this format to write down an introduction and conclusion for cars vs airplanes for me?
Cheers!

[SD2007]

Today, I start to re-read OG, try to get more detail of the format for all 4 sections. Meanwhile, read some sample essays from Testmagic:
TOEFL Essay Samples with Comments and Score

[AdrienZeuch]

Originally Posted by SD2007

Today, I start to re-read OG, try to get more detail of the format for all 4 sections. Meanwhile, read some sample essays from Testmagic:
TOEFL Essay Samples with Comments and Score

yes, it's good to reread OG. I was reading it yesterday.
these examples are very good, I have a book which contains 185 examples of good essays (I do not read it though - how stupid )

I will make an introduction and conclusion for essay car x airplane

[SD2007]

I just read one thread from Erin:
http://www.urch.com/forums/twe/1219-...our-essay.html (How to format your essay)
I didn't realize double space between paragraphs also good for essay.