Ranu

Tsvdj, I think that you could also mention the recent elections in Jammu & Kashmir, where every effort was done to make the elections free and fair. Although, the Indian govt could have made an effort to rig the election there considering the delicate political and law&order situation there. Infact it had called in observers from other countries to prove their transparency, which resulted in an exceptional voter turnout. Also, please post the essay here, onceyou are done with it.....I have my test on 06Jan.....it would really help. Cheers! Ranu

Hi Deepika!! That was a great score...congrats!! The tis given by you are very useful. Even I had started taking my math preparation lightly. But after reading your posting, I have pulled ut my PR book, to review the Math specially the probability questions. Also, the website http://www.downdowndown.net is really helpful. Just wondering, what wasI doing all this time. Thanks :) All the best!

Hi Natasha!! Congrats for your score!! Its great... Your experiences would really help all the test takers. Specially the one about taking the confirmation letter at the test center. But, when I appeared for TOEFL here in Delhi, they never asked me the confirmation letter, that's strange. Nevertheless, its better to carry it than to repent later. All the best for your admissions, though

Hi everybody at TM!! :o I have received my final score for TOEFL....283. Listening: 26 Structure/Writing: 29 Readin: 30 Essay Rating: 6.0 Hope this is a good score.... All the best to all of you. :)

Hello everybody at TM!! I have given my TOEFL yesterday 10October, 2002. My Score: Listening: 26 Stuc/Writ: 13-29 Reading: 30 Total: 230-283 I would like to tell about my experience of the test. The Structure & Reading sections were "DAMN EASY". And since there was lots of time avaiable, I performed well. But in the listening section, although not very tough, I had problem in concentrating on some passages because this was the first section and the long passages seemed really endless. Due to lack of concentration, I missed out some imp things in some topics. But the section was definitely NOT tough. Hope this feedback helps everybody. Will tell u my final score also within 2 weeeks. Till then sitting with all my fingers crossed. U'll see me more during my prep for GMAT which is on 06jan, 2003. Thank you everybody for all feedback given to me. ranu

Hi wiou4e! I think that the stand you have taken is the "ideal situation" and it reflects exactly your point of view. But the topic clearly asks you to take a stand : "Compare these two choices. Which one do you prefer? Support your answer with specific details." Considering this, you should mention in the first paragraph your preference out of the two. Later it asks you to compare. this is where you can mention a combination of both as an example but this should still not weaken your stand. Remeber you have been asked to support your answer with specific examples. This is something I am telling you out of experience in one of my previous essays when i had taken a middleway and not a stand.

I support the view that there has been a substantial improvement in the way people live because nowadays food has become easier to prepare. This is due to the various kitchen appliances and easy availability of ready to serve or partially-cooked food in the market. All these facilities save a lot of time and effort and leave more oppurtunity to pursue other interests, particularly for women. In the earlier times, women were essentially associated with household work, of which cooking was a major part. Men and women had their work defined clearly, wherein men were supposed to bring firewood and raw material and women were expected to cook. They were usually unaware of the world outside their home. But now with the application of scienctific methods in cooking, this is history. A simple thing as a gas stove has saved the effort of fetching firewood and lighting it for cooking. Also a lot of time is saved. Now that women prefer to go out to work, it is very convenient for them to have a modern kitchen with all the latest technology and gadgets. Besides, the efficiency has increased. It is now possible to cook a large variety of food within half the time spent earlier. And now we need not wait for one whole year to enjoy some favourite seasonal fruits and vegetables. Science and technology has made it possible for these to be available all year round. Hybrids and cold storage-preserved food are common words now. However, these changes have led to various lifestyle related disorders. We are moving away from nature. The use of synthetic preservatives kills the nutrition of food. This means that the food that we now eat may be easy to cook but may not be nutritious or in some cases even harmful. Thus, we cannot deny the fact that the way we cook now has definitely improved life, provided we are sure that whatever we eat is nutritious. In keeping pace with changing cooking habits, we should keep in mind that it should improve the way we live, and this definitely requires conscious effort.

Hi Synthia! I think that the point regarding "recreational value" is kind of repetitive. The sentence: "We could invite our relatives and friends from other areas to our neighborhood and this would be a lot of fun", sounds very odd. Maybe you could use some other way to convey the same idea. Rest as I told you, the points are good, but they could have been more impressive.

Hi Synthia! The points mentioned in this topic are good but do not sound very impressive. Dont get disheartened though, this is just my view, and dont forget, "I am new...." :) maybe if Erin analyses this, you might get a 6.0 score.

Hi Synthia! I think the points made by you are really good. They are very obvious (specailly the personality traits that you have mentioned), but you have put them in a very methodical and elaborative manner, adding to the overall organization of the topic. I must say this was very well handled by you. All the best to you.

In my opinion, the concept of teenage-students working to support themselves is very good. This concept is prevelant mostly in western countries, but is picking up in metros in some South-Asian countries as well. There are a lot of advantages to this. Firstly, students learn to be independant very early in life. Earning gives them a sense of responsibility, which is very important for progressing in a chosen career later in life. It also inculcates the sense of spending hard-earned money, carefully. There are parents who keep complaining that there children are spend-thrifts and do not value their money. I would highly recommend to such parents to encourage their children to work. Also, such students can help their parents by contributing to the family income in whatever small way they can. This increases their respectability within family and society. Such students grow up to be good decision-makers and mature individuals. Besides, most successful entrepreneurs in the world, started out very early and learnt through their early experiences and failures. Failures that come late in life can be very discouraging and damaging to an individuals personality. But a person who has faced such failures early usually comes out strong and more entreprising, thus increasing the success rate. However, inspite of all the good things about students working for themselves, there may also be some disadvantages to this concept. If parents stop supervising their children and leave them to be independant, this may lead to students going astray. If they are not made accountable to all the money spent by them, chances are that they may pick up some bad habits like drugs and alcoholism and destroy their own lives. Thus, we can say that teenagers who work can groom up to be an asset to their family and society as adults. The only word of caution here would be that parents should be aware of the sources of money of their child and make sure that it is spent intelligently, so as to benefit them.

I was almost disheartened by "I am shocked." :) I am happy that you liked it. Any particular suggestions regarding organization?? Probably a sentence change would help. Do tell me. And what about topic sentences? I didn't get you. I agree the conclusion is short. And this is always a problem. Infact i dont see a better way to conclude than to reiterate the topic. any suggestions on that would be a great help for me.

Movies and television are very much part of our daily life and so they have a tremendous influence on our behaviour. The reason is that we try to associate with what we see and search for similarities between these characters and ourselves. We come across many stories in movies which are influenced by real life situations. However, the latest phenomenon that has been observed is that of life being influenced by Movies or television. There have been incidents in the last few years, of kids in some U.S. schools who opened fire within their school campus, while trying to imitate some action movie stunts. Also, research shows that violent behaviour among kids is increasing because of movies and television. "Excess of everything is bad." Thus, too much of television and movies is also bad for us, this is specially in reference to "couch-potatoes" and "movie-buffs." That's because the aim of a movie is to complete a story within a short span of 2 hours. Because of this constraint, it is packed with lots of exaggerated emotion, drama, action and comedy. However, such sudden change in emotions has an adverse effect on human mind leading to depression and realted disorders. However, we should not forget the brighter side of these media and their good influence on us. If used in a proper way, they can act as very good knowledge resources. Nowadays, world's Democratic nations are using this media to create awareness and also as a link between the government and common man. An example to prove this is that the government election process in Kashmir(India) is being closely monitered to convice people about it's transparency and increase their faith in their elected government. And television has an important role to play in this. Therefore, we can conclude that with the increasing presence of television and movies in our lives, we cannot escape from their influence, whether good or bad.

Hi Renata & Cinderellahn, Thnx for your feedback. But i would really appreciate if somebody could also give me a score so that i know how much work i need to put in for the TOEFL (remember... 10Oct is closer than 15Oct.) :) I liked the suggestion that I should go through the 185 TOEFL topics, so you should notice an improvement next time. --Ranu

I agree with the statement that television has destroyed communication among friends and family. No doubt, television is a wonderful mode of communication for keeping in touch with the entire world, but the irony remains that social lives of people are guided by the "idiot box." Our elders can be heard saying that in their times, they were more active because they used to spend most of their time in outdoor activities. Whereas nowadays, more and more children sit glued to T.V. watching Cartoon network." This change in lifestyle is indicated as one of the reasons of various diseases in children like obesity, deteriorating eye sight, slow physical development. Even the working parents of today find it convenient that their children sit at home watching TV so that they do not have to worry about their whereabouts while the parents are away. Secondly, social interaction is limited to a minimum with people prefering to socialize only when required and that too only if it serves some purpose, like a business meeting combined with a party. Every member in a family has his/her time slots fixed for their favourite T.V. programme. And any deviation from this schedule leads to tension amongst family. Television is now fast becoming one of man's personal belonging rather than a luxory item. Therefore, modern man is himself allowing the television to destroy his links with people who matter more in life and it is becoming more of an "idiot box" rather than what it was actually meant to be--a mode of communication.

Thanks a lot for your feedback. Infact this is my first attempt that has been evaluated on a toefl essay, although i have een practicing for sometime now. I have my toefl on 10oct. So, guess i need to buck up now.

Everyday we come across people who work very hard. Some of them are successful, and some are not. Therefore, I believe that success ultimately depends on luck. This does not mean that one can succeed on luck alone. In my opinion, success is 99% work and 1% luck. But that 1% is responsible for all the slips between cup and lips, so to define the famous adage. As an example to explain this, we can consider the various beauty paegants. All the entrants in these competitions are the best as they have already passed all the stringent testing conditions within their countries. They are also trained together for the final event. But there can be just winner. And this winner is decided depending on one answer to the final question. And the luckiest one gets the crown, although it may seem that it's because of the answer to the final question.