Free Writing Tips and Help! from a TOEFL instructor for question 2

[sweetu1995]

Hi notefull, Thanks for all your help in giving us a feedback!

Below is my first TOEFL essay. Would really appreciate your valuable comments:

Advertising influences people's behavior in a negative way.

__________________________________________________ ________

Questions about the impact of advertising on the behavior of its audiences might fetch mixed reactions. The two contrasting
answers to this question "Yes" or "No" can be presented with various supporting viewpoints and examples. However, I find the
later more convincing - I cannot see as to why and how we can blame advertising as a negative influence on people's behavior.

It is my firm belief that behavior is an outcome of one's social interactions over the years. Hence a meer 2 to 3 mins
advertisement is not capable enough to influence a person's attitude. Audiences today are more mature as compared to what
they were a few years back. Hence even if there is a conflict of opinion between the advertisement and the audience, they
might want to analyze the negative impact first. For e.g. everybody would have started smoking if the advertisements would
have had a negative impact. People know that smoking is not good for health, however influential the advertisement be.

Most advertisements have pure commercial interests and do pass through a lot of expurgations and censorships before being
presented to the general public. Hence the effect on immature and prone audiences like children is minimal. For the same
reason all Cigarette ads come with a mandatory statutory warning "Smoking is injurious to health". Also if you see any
medicinal ads, it comes with all the relevant warnings on the side effects of a particular medicine.

In fact, in some instances advertising might leave a positive impact too. For e.g. an ad campaign to promote literacy in a
relatively illiterate population might help people recognize the importance of education. This completely contradicts with
the opinion that it moulds the behavior is a negative way.

Hence, to claim that advertising does have a negative impact on one's behavior may not be worthwhile. Most of the time, it
has no effect on its audiences. Even though advertising has an ability to impact, there are already so many measures in place
that it will have minimal to no impact on the people. In some instances, it has also shown to be beneficial to the general
public.

[gualomax]

Hi notefull,
It's really nice to have someone like you in this forum. Can you help me with my essay? Any feedback is welcome.
Thanks in advance.
With kind regards,
Gualomax

The prompt I chose was:
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Playing games teaches us about life.

There's a saying that states: "watch how a kid plays with his toys, then that kind of man he will become". I believe that some games help us to develop skills for our development as human beings, so yes playing games teach us about life. There are abilities needed in life that aren't taught in the school or in books, and I'm going to point out the 3 most important in my opinion:

The first is to be sharp. Life isn't easy and most of the time isn't fair. Some games teach us to accept a defeat and look other way to win. Also they teach us to make tricks to get goals. For instance, when I played Monopoly for the first time, I did not realized the good opportunities of acquiring properties of the same land, I just went buying everything in my way; then I lost. For the next games, I was focusing on newer strategies to play, like trading properties with other players, and so on. As crazy as it may sound, those tricks helped me to make decisions for my first real business in life.

The second is leadership. Life is full of decisive moments when we must take decisions that affect others. Some games, most of them team sports, need leaders to take their team to victory by taking chances that affect all team members. For example, in the game Naval Battle, in order to avoid loosing our Main vessel, we need to fake it using small vessels while we sink the Main vessel from the enemy. I'm not an expert, but I might think that in real life it work that way too.

The last, and I think the most important is the communication skill. Most games force us to communicate with others even through some kind of indirect language or other media. For instance, the Poker games force the players to be alert to signals from the others, instead of a direct contact. This way they can "predict" other players moves and then increase their winning chances. This is called blofing, and sometimes is used in life to confuse people about the truth of something. It is not fair, but it's something very useful to learn.

In conclusion, I believe that playing games teach us about life in ways than other activities or books can't do. The games show us skills like been sharp, commanding and communicative, which are the abilities needed to survive in real life.

[marc2]

Hey,

could you maybe tell me which grade I might get for my essay? Thank you very much!

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Many people visit museums when they travel to new places. Why do you think people visit museums?

Museums are of big importance being institutions of language, history, geography, history and culture in general. Even if people nowadays tend to be not as interested in cultural aspects as generations before have been, it is relevant to ask whether people still visit museums today, especially if they get to a new place they have not been before. I can think of at least three reasons why people visit museums.

The first reason is that visitors, getting to a new place, are interested in informing themselves about this place. This aspect especially refers to historical questions of the place the museum visitor has travelled to. For example when I was in Egypt three years ago, I visited the national museum, located in Cairo, in order to get information about how the state of Egypt was organized about 500, 1000 or even 2000 years ago. However, not only did I visit the museum to learn about Egypt’s history but also about economic aspects, for example the importance of oil in the past as well as in the present. Being of the opinion that intercultural communication, especially based on informing oneself about the history of a place, is very important, I think that this is a main reason for people to visit museums when travelling to new places.

The second reason is that visiting museums means having fun for many visitors. That is because museums can show things such as sculptures or maps which visitors have not seen in their life, yet. Thus, the new place does not only offer them the opportunity to get information about the place itself, as described in the first paragraph, but also to get away from a monotone life with much routine. For myself this aspect was a quite important one as far as my visit of the Egyptian National Museum is concerned. Interested in culture very much, it was fun to see pictures of sculptures or pharaohs I have only read about in books before. Of course this reason is strictly related to your own interested. Nevertheless having fun, relaxing and trying to do something new, is very important when visiting a museum, located in a place you have not been before.

The third reason for people visiting museum when they travel to new places is connected to the first reasons which I would like to summarize with the noun “intercultural communication”. However, whereas the first paragraph deals with history, you should also recognize that you get in contact with many other people of other places when visiting a museum in another place. For example you can talk to people from the country the museum is located in as well as to people who just travel to this place. This seems to be a very important point since natives are not always happy with tourists just getting to their native country in order to go to the beach or to stay in the hotel. By visting a museum, the travellers could show the natives their interest about the natives’ country which will make them happy since they can recognize that having holidays also means getting in contact with natives. So this reason seems to be more important than the one mentioned in the first paragraph with regard to “intercultural communication” since the visitors are not only interested in the history of the country but also in the habitants of the country.

All in all, there are at least three main reasons which you should pay attention to when answering the question why people who travel to a new place often visit museums. Whereas two reasons are related to the communication between cultures, in the first case regarding history and culture in general, in the second case regarding the habitants of the country, there is also the reason that you will enjoy in a museum, if you are interested in culture and meeting new people. Consequently, there are not any reasons which you can relate to every visitor as the visitor himself, especially his own interests, are of big relevance when talking about his reasons to visit a museum in a place he has travelled to.

[Cosmabit]

is noteful still around or has the service been stopped?

[pri687]

Hi notefull,

evaluate my essay and grade it

please give your suggestions and comments

this is my toefl essay

“Is social and technological change generally a good thing?”
When comparing our present life with the one a few decade before, we have changed both socially and technologically . I think these changes are good for the following reasons .
When comparing the two changes we will talk about the change in technology first. Is there a problem with technology? I would say “No”. Technological changes right from the toaster we use to prepare our breakfast till flights , which makes us reach any part of the world in minutes, makes us realize how fast we are when comparing to the older times. Technology has definitely made our lives better . We seem to adapt to all these changes very well. I think the development in communication which is the biggest change in technology , has only made us to understand each other better.
This understanding has developed more ideas and different opinions on issues, which has made us make a few changes socially. I see that, the blind customs and rituals which was followed in the past has made us think the importance or the foolishness of it. Even behavior of people has refined. I think all the social changes had only made us a better civilized society.
Even though we feel at some place the changes has made us a little mechanical and also selfish. I think it is not right to blame the technology nor society as a whole for that . I think it is the people who should start to have better attitude to handle the changes.

thank you

[amcpp]

Every human is different from one other. That way every generation is different from another generation. Every generation has their own views. They think differently from other generations. That is why, I believe that my generation is different from my parents' in many ways, like, we think differently and would take a risk for new work, and our parents' wouldn't. Next thing is we have more freedom than our parents' had and because of that we could do more work than our parents’ could. I will explain my views in the following paragraphs.

First, my generation thinks differently than my parents' generation. For instance my father is accountant because my grand father wanted him to become an accountant. So my father did that. My father wanted to become a lawyer but he did not tell his father because he thought that if he would tell his father then his father would feel sad and might be unhappy that his child did not want to listen to him. Because of that my father did not say anything, and he did whatever his father told him. So, that way my parents' generation followed their elders, but our generation thinks for themselves. That does not mean that we will not obey our parents', but we can think and we will explain to them about our views and our wishes.

Second, my generation is very energetic. They have more confidence than our earlier generation. Our generation has confidence that we can do anything. So they take any kind of risk to do new work. Because of that confidence, people can have more progress in their life. For example, one day, one of my friends asked his father that he wanted to make a world record in swimming. His father said, "No, this is not your age to make a world record”, because he was just five years old. But after sometime, his dad was ready and gave him permission. Then, he did it. He got a world record. So my generation can take risks but my parents' generation probably wouldn't.

Third, our generation has more freedom than my parents’ generation. They lived under another country's rule. They didn't do whatever they liked. They had to follow another country's rule. They had to follow their orders, but we are free and we have an independent country. So, we have more opportunities that our parents. We can do whatever we like. We can go anywhere without others’ interference. We can study whatever we like. We don't have to follow others’ orders. We can do our own research. We can do any experiments in our lab. That way my generation has more opportunities than my parents' generation.

All in all, my generation is after my parents' generation, but it is different from my parents' generation by thinking, freedom, more energetic, and confidence.
can any one rate my essay

[devir96]

Hi notefull.my name is parvathi.i am going to take toefl exam next month,but iam not perfect in writing ,could u pls help me .iam sending one writing topic to u ,pls score that essay and give some suggestions.pls send me reply.
Should a factory built in your community ?
Factories helps to increase our nations profit and to built modern society . some people think, due to factories we have so many disadvantages than advantages, but others think in a different way. I cannot judge whether it is good or not ,because we need factories to improve our society , at the same time we must keep our society clean and healthy.
Now a days, the unemployment rate is increased a lot . factories helps to consume unemployed workface in some aspects. A family can increase their income , they can get nutritious food and can spend on other personal things. It improves the value of my community, we can get good opportunities, good job ,high standard schools and colleges.
There are some disadvantages are also there, when a factory built in our community . first of all we don’t feel fresh air ,because the factories produce very excessive amount of fumes and embarking sounds. It causes air pollution ,water and sound pollution ,this is not good for both children and adults. Living cost increases tremendously ,food cost , house rents and other facilities . it is burden to poor and middle class people , they don’t have enough money to spend on food and children education.
In conclusion , consider all these points we have so many disadvantages than advantages to built a factory in our community . we should give first preference to health , because without health we cannot move in our life, we must keep our community neatly and healthy.