Sveta

Hi Mlnost! Thanks a lot for your comments. It's always so pleasant to receive any reactions about what I've written. :p

Dear all! I have written an essay on this topic. At first I understood the topic the same way as you, Ditoman. But then when I finished I thought that we might have misunderstood the topic. We should discuss not advantages and disadvantages for our community, but whether our community is a good or a bad place to built a university. I mean why the government should build it in our community, but not in another one? Dear test-magicians and anyone, could you clarify this? #113: The government has announced that it plans to build a new university. Some people think that your community would be a good place to locate the university. Compare the advantages and disadvantages of establishing a new university in your community. Use specific details in your discussion. At first glance, establishing a new university at my hometown seems to be an excellent idea. However, there are both advantages and disadvantages and there is a lot to be discussed before building a university. The major issues concern conveniences for young people, the quality of education and possible changes in the lives of other citizens in my town. One of the main advantages is that building a new university can be good for the youth. My hometown Gatchina is quite small and is located near the Russian 'second capital city' St.-Petersburg. Nowadays most of the young people get higher education at institutes and universities of St.-Petersburg. The way to the city takes for some people more than an hour one-way. Since there are a lot of students who live farther from the city, the places in dormitories are rarely available for those from Gatchina. As a result, the youth of Gatchina wishing to pursue a graduate degree have either to rent quite expensive apartments in the city or spend at about three hours a day on their way to St.-Petersburg and backwards. For sure, establishing a new university in Gatchina will help to solve this problem since more young people will decide to study in their own hometown. However, there are some certain disadvantages. The main point is the quality of education. The quality of education is undoubtedly very high in St.-Petersburg. Meanwhile, the new built university in my hometown may not be of the same high standards, as it will be difficult especially during the first years to attract exceptionally qualified professors. Another point is that Gatchina is a very peaceful place now. Students spend a lot of their leisure time in St.-Petersburg after their studying. But if a new university is built, more young people will stay in the evenings in the town. Though it can give rise for entertainment business in Gatchina, the image of the town will be changed. These changes may not be favourable to other citizens, particularly senior ones, who like Gatchina due to its quietness. Consequently, building a new university in my community will has both benefits and drawbacks. On the one hand, it will be more convenient for the young people as the way to the city takes much time now. On the other hand, the quality of education can be lower in my town in comparison with that pursued in the city and it will make my town not as quiet as it is now.

Hi, Ditoman! There are some grammar mistakes in the essay. The thing that I disliked was again repetition :(. It looks a bit boring with it and like that you don't know other words except those written in the topic question. But for sure you do know, so show it! And I think you should show in the essay why you can't choose a roommate better than university can. I quite agree with you that if a roommate is from another country, he may teach you a lot. But why can't you choose this person yourself? Your concluding sentence (In conclusion, if I could choose a student at my own will, my choice would be a student who university assigns. ) gave me a feeling that you didn't understand a topic. Teh topic asks wherther you would like: 1) to choose your roommate yourself or 2) to allow the university do this choice instead of you. Don't be dissapointed with my critics. I just hope to help and it's only my opinion. All the best! Sveta

Hi Ditoman! This essay as your others seems to be of good formatting :D. The only thing is that you add a new idea in the conclusion: You haven't written anything about drawbacks in the essay, so it's a little bit strange to see it the conclusion. And I don't understand what you mean by complexity of large shopping centers and why it's a drawback :shy:. In the first body prgh you use a word 'low' and 'lower' too many times. It's almost in every sentence. It would be better if you could try to avoid repetition. Thus, in your example of this prgh, you could say that appearance of large shopping centres in your hometown helped you to economize enormously on buying products. I think it looks better when there are more specific details in examples. Otherwise it seems that you give it, just because you are forced to give an example, but not to prove your opinion. It will be better if you say how your town has changed. So it will be more clear why it is good for your neighborhood. Good luck! Sveta

I'll be glad to know your opinion about my essay :) In some countries, teenagers have jobs while they are still students. Do you think this is a good idea? Support your opinion by using specific reasons and details. Teenagers can have less time for studying when they start work. However I believe it is beneficial to start working being a student as it develops very valuable personal qualities like responsibility. Also working within the same area of studying can have a lot of advantages. First of all, I think that work can teach young people a lot of good qualities. For example, students become more responsible when they start work. It occurs because of many reasons. One of them is that being an employee a teenager has to fulfill certain tasks and very often his salary will depend on the results of his work. Since it is a usual desire to have more money, a teenager will have to become more responsible for what he is doing. Another reason is that if a person is not responsible at work, his manager will surely not be pleased with that. As a result this person can be even made redundant. That is why while working a teenager is forced to become more responsible due to the negative consequences that may follow if he is not. Moreover, working in the field, in which students are going to have a job after pursuing a degree, is extremely awarding. By this way they can understand better what for they are studying and what career they may have. It happens because of many contacts they have while working. Observing the process and speaking to people can clarify a lot for them. Additionally, young people will understand better the theoretical issues as soon as they start using them in practice. In this case working and studying can be mutually beneficial. To conclude, it is good for teenagers to have jobs while studying. They will learn how to be responsible. Their job can also help them to better understand the goals of their studying and how the theories are applied in practice.

Hello Ditoman! Thank you for your comments. I was also thinking that in the third paragraph the topic sentence is a bit not the same as the concluding one. But if to consider the topic sentence as the first two ones then it's the same to the last sentence of the paragraph^ My intention was to show that though professional success can be defined by that how much money a person earns, it cannot be done in some cases. At first I wanted to join those two sentences, but they appeared too long. Do you mean by this I should give some kind of my definition of success?

Thank you very very much for those who commented on my essay. And especially thank you, TM Staff, for a substantial analysis. I tried to correct it according to your suggestions. It would be great if you could look whether my corrected essay is better now. Could you say an approximate score I might get for such a one? In our contemporary world money is very often considered to be the symbol of success. Many people think that the more money they earn, the more they are successful. I cannot agree with this statement. Our lives consist of many different spheres, in many of which success cannot be determined by money. Even in a professional sphere, where a correlation between success at work and a salary may seem obvious, there are a lot of exclusions. First of all, I think that money cannot determine success of the whole life. For instance, the family life is successful when there is mutual understanding and love. If there are no such feelings among the members of the family, I consider this area of their lives not successful despite the fact there can be a large amount of money on their family account. Consequently, since a person's life has a lot of different aspects, every aspect should have its own criteria of success. The only sphere, where money can sometimes be a criterion of a person’s success, is a professional one. However, there are a vast number of cases, in which it is not observed. For example, if a person is working for a non-business organization, the amount of money which he earns is not the proper determinant of his achievements. The salary may not become higher as he moves up the career ladder and becomes a better specialist, because of the limit of financing available for these organizations. Also there are a lot of other professional spheres where salaries are not high. For instance, teachers in Russia are paid really peanuts for their work, but the majority of them are of high qualifications. Therefore, I believe that the amount of money which a person earns does not always reflect properly whether he is successful in his profession. To conclude, I consider that money is not an adequate criterion of success of the whole lives of people. Success cannot be determined in such areas as family life by means of the amount of money that people earn. At the same time people, who do not earn a lot of money, are not necessarily unsuccessful in their professional careers. That is why, since money fails to determine success of people in many cases, I disagree with that people are successful only if they earn a lot of money.

Hello Ditoman! I liked your formatting. You did great job concerning all those rules about topic and concluding sentences, structure of paragraphs and the whole essay structure. There are some mistakes in grammar. For example, when you tell a story about children, it's better to use past tense, not present (were playing, did not stop, etc.) and there are some misprints with the usage of auxiliary verbs: All the best and good luck! Sveta

Hello all! This is my first essay. I'll be very tahnkful :p to receive any your comments. Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Only people who earn a lot of money are successful. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer. In our contemporary world money is very often considered to be the symbol of success. It occurs because of that many of our achievements can have monetary effects. Take for example accomplishments at work that are often followed by the rise in salary. But I believe that money cannot always be the adequate determinant of a person's success. First of all, I think that money can determine success only in a professional sphere, but not success of the whole life. For instance, a person can do some theoretical research and the fact that he has not received a lot of money for this research does not mean that he was not successful in his findings. Likewise the family life is successful when there is mutual understanding and love. If there are no such feelings among the members of the family, I consider the area of life of these people not successful despite the fact there can be a large amount of money on their family account. Consequently, a person's life has a lot of different aspects and every aspect should have its own criteria. Moreover, I think that money has certain limits even in determining professional success. If a person is working, for example, for a non-business organization the amount of money which he earns is not the proper determinant of his achievements. The salary may not become higher as he moves up the career ladder and becomes a better specialist, because of the limit of financing available for these organizations. Also there are a lot of other professional spheres where salaries are not high. For instance, teachers in Russia are paid really peanuts for their work, but the majority of them are of high qualifications. Therefore I believe that the amount of money which a person earns does not always reflect properly whether he is successful in his profession. To conclude I consider money to be a good criterion only of one's career success and only for certain types of professions. That is why if people earn a lot of money it does not necessarily mean that the whole lives of these people are successful.

Hello Malena! I liked your essay. Your language seems to be very fluent. My only comment is that you might be a little bit not to topic. It seems that your essay is about the role of money in our lives, but not about whether those who earn a lot of money are truly successful. I can suggest you to add concluding sentences at the end of each body paragraphs to make it more clearly why this role of money in people’s lives reflects the success of people. For example, after the first body paragraph you could add the statement that because of the big role which money plays as a foundation of these ‘many things’, people think the larger the amount of money they earn, the more they are successful. But I'm not a specialist and I'm just learning to write essays like you. So it's just my opinion. :)

Hello Sheju! I think you can have your score higher if you make your essay of a nicer format (I mean punctuation, capital letters, spelling). My advice for you is to copy the essay to Microsoft Word and it will mark these mistakes. About the context. I think in such type of the essay, we have to wirte not only about advantages of one thing, but to compare it with another thing. So my suggestion is to write in this essay also about the life without changes. All the best! Sveta

Hi Joyyoy! I liked reading your essay. ;)The thing I'd like to suggest you is that it would look nicer if you could make it more on the topic. I mean that your paraghaphes describe different sacrifices of celebrities. So as I understand it's the reason why you think they deserve high salaries. It would be better if you made it more clearly and also added some other reasons. Also I've read suggestions somewhere in this forum that it's better not to use the phrases like "as follows", "folllowing reasons", etc. in the introduction, but better to make some general statements about them. As to me I don't think that such phrases spoil the essay, but maybe it's really better not to use them. All the best! Sveta

Hello Dalal! I'm very glad my notes helped you to clarify some things. Wish you all the best and lots of luck on your exam!!! :p I'll have mine on February and I'm afraid I don't have enough time to prepare :(

Hello Dalal! As I understand there's no difference between 'despite' and 'in spite of'. And after them there should be a noun, noun phrase or gerund. For example: Despite the rain, we went to the beach. In spite of the rain, we went to the beach. Although is followed by a subject and a verb. For example: Although it was raining, we went to the beach. So if you want to use a subject and a verb after 'despite' and 'in spite of' you should make a noun phrase out of this, for example, by adding 'the fact': Is spite of the fact it was raining, we went to the beach. Hope it will help :), Sveta

Dear Erin, I suppose there can be some misunderstanding in the question 221 from a grammer test on this site. The farther an object from the surface of a planet, ______ . O it weighs the lesser O the less it weights O the less its weight O it weighs less Both B and C are correct, aren't they? In the explanation it's said at first that C is correct and then that it's said that C is incorrect. Sorry if I mix something. And may I ask a question: In such structures can we use a verb in a second part of the sentence if there was no verb in the first part? And visa versa: can we not use the verb if there was a verb in the first part. For example, are these variants correct? The more preparation, the better you pass the test. The more you study, the better your result. Thank you very much, Sveta Original TestMagic Question 221. The farther an object from the surface of a planet, ______ . O it weighs the lesser O the less it weights O the less its weight O it weighs less C is the best answer. TestMagic Explanation Remember this sentence to help you remember the rule: The bigger, the better. This question is testing you on the "the + comparative... the + comparative..." pattern. Please note that this is the only type of sentence that appears on the TOEFL Structure section that does not contain a verb. the less it weighs would also be correct (if we had that as an answer choice). C is incorrect because it lacks the the, which is a necessary part of this grammar pattern. C would be correct if it were rewritten like this: the less it weighs. A is incorrect first because the order of the words is wrong, and second, because lesser is the wrong word to use in this sentence with this meaning. lesser means inferior. Finally, B is incorrect because it uses the noun weight instead of the verb weighs. B would be correct if it were rewritten like this: the less it weighs.