lionontheshore

Hello ingman, Thank you for your comment :-D First of all I didn't take TOEFL after this, I plan to take it next year ;-) And for the word count, I have seen a youtube lecture saying that the longer it is, the better. Thank you :-)

That was really helpful :) Thank you very much. Have a nice day!

Question: Small town VS big cities Few years back, I used to live in a lively and populated city which is situated in the middle of the district. Years have passed since then, and I have ended up living in a tranquil town, which is not quite like the city I used to live when I was young. As a person who has experience of living in two contrasting places, I think they both have pros and cons. However if I were to choose where to live for the rest of my life, I would prefer to live in a big city rather than a town. The first reason why I would like to live in a city is because of its public transport system. Big cities obviously have greater population compared to small towns. Not all of this population can use their automobiles and the roads to travel, as that would cause unimaginable traffic congestion. As a result, most of the cities have developed public transport system such as subways, buses and so on. I find this one of the most important merits of living in a city as it is very convenient to travel to places despite the fact I don’t have a driving licence. Another reason why living in big cities is better than living in small towns is because they have better medical facilities. In big cities, there are more large hospitals with experienced doctors and sophisticated equipments. When you are gravely ill, the ambulance could easily reach you and bring you to the nearest hospital. On the other hand, small towns are usually endowed with only privately owned clinics. This could mean you might have to travel a long distance to a large hospital when you are ill or come across a lethal injury, which could be pretty life threatening. Not only that, it is easier to go for medical checkups when the hospital is near to where you live. Living in a big city could literally be safer than living in a small town. Last, but not the least, I don’t enjoy the quiet and idyllic atmosphere of small towns. Entertainment is an unknown territory in them. There are no amusement parks, nightclubs, shopping malls, etc, which are quite common in the big cities. Although some people might not like the noisy atmosphere of big cities, that is what I like about them. With all the neon lights and enticing shops lined up next to a bustling road, taking a mere stroll outside your house can be really enjoyable when you live in a city. Moreover, cities often organise festivals and parades on special occasions. If you live in a city, you would never run out of things to do! Some people envy me for living in a quiet town. However, I can’t help to disagree with them. Although there are positive aspects of living in a town, I don’t think they are enough to cover the negative aspects. I know that I am a ‘city’ kind of person, and I can’t wait to move out from this town someday to live in a city again. ____________________________________________________ That's 516 words in total. I am eager to hear about what you think about it. Thank you!

Thank you very much :) Good luck to both of us!

Assignment: Is conscience a more powerful motivator than money, fame or power? Greed is an irremovable part of human nature, and sometimes it seems like we human beings never cease to desire for things we don’t have. However, I believe most of the people do not let these ugly wishes to dominate them. Instead, they choose to act rather altruistically according to their conscience. Throughout human history, this kind of behavior has been shown by numerous individuals in both real life and literature. One good example of such an individual is Professor Jonas Salk from United States of America. He was the one who have discovered and developed the first successful vaccine to Polio, which was considered as a disastrous disease before and has killed and crippled innumerable people around the world. Professor Jonas Salk was none at all interested in wealth. Although the sale of the patent to a medicine company could’ve made him a millionaire in a split second, he refused all the offers. By doing so, he has enabled the vaccine to be manufactured with a low cost, and thus allowed more people to have access to the vaccine. We can never deny the fact that his selfless action has played a great role in eradicating Polio in most of the countries and saving millions of lives. As in real life, there are many such altruistic individuals in the literature as well. Take the case of Ursula Iguaran, a character from the ever acclaimed novel, One Hundred Years of Solicitude. In the novel, a complete stranger asks Ursula to take care of bags of gold coins for him which he would come back for in the future. Ursula does this by burying them deep in her garden. Despite her own financial hardships from lack of customers in her business and other catastrophes, Ursula never lays a finger on the gold coins. Later in the novel she is constantly pestered by other characters who have heard about the gold coins and desire to know where they are. However, Ursula keeps the location of the coins to herself only until her death, resolutely believing that the coins rightfully belong to the stranger, despite he hasn’t come back for them for decades. Although material prosperity is important, conscience still has more clout in human beings. The destruction from the feeling of guilt one faces when one defies one’s conscience is well illustrated in the novel ‘Crime and Punishment’ by Dostoyevsky. This is probably why conscience still prevails in the corrupt world we live in today. ____________________________________________________________________________ That's 413 words in total. I am very eager to hear about any comments and opinions on it. Thank you in advance! :)

Hello! I am preparing for TOEFL by my own, and unfortunately I don't have anyone to grade my essay. I would be infinitely grateful if you could spare your precious time to have a look on my essay and grade it! I am willing to hear any form of advice or comment on it, every single one would be of a great help to me. Thank you very much! That's 559 words by the way. Question: Has television destroyed communication? Almost everybody loves watching the television. Since its invention, television has been loved widely across the whole world and caused many people to be addicted to it, until terms like ‘couch potato’ were even made. Because of this nature, television is often accused of being the prime suspect of breaking bonds between families and friends. However, I don’t think this is true at all. In this essay, I would provide some reasons and explanations to corroborate my view. Majority of the people who advocate the idea of television severing relationships imagine a rather common scene: family members or friends not talking to each other because they are too busy watching the television in their own rooms. However, I think this is a rather erroneous stereotype. As far as I know, most of the families have a single television in their living room, rather than separate ones in their own rooms. And when they want to watch a programme, they watch it together in the living room. Instead of destroying communication between family members, television actually help to bring them together. If it weren’t for the television, I am pretty sure the people would rarely come out of their rooms to spend time with their family. The second reason why I think television can help to improve communication is because they provide topics to talk and discuss about in our everyday lives. Television shows a variety of programmes regarding numerous topics- celebrities, politics, animals, science, and so many more that I can’t even state them all. It is quite common for us to discuss about whatwe have watched in the television with our families and friends. Without television, I am pretty sure we would be deprived of topics to talk about. As an expatriate, I remember how boring my life used to be before the local television had included the channel from my home country. After the change, surprisingly I found myself talking more often with my parents as we discussed about the television programmes we have watched, or telling one another about programmes that either I or they missed. I became closer to my parents and now there isn’t hardly a day I don’t talk with my parents about things I have watched in the television. Television also helps to improve our communication skills and language. I believe watching television is one of the best ways to improve your pronunciation and listening skills, or learn a new language. While watching programmes, we can naturally grow familiar to listening and analyzing information. Not only that, it helps learning a new language fairly easy, as what you see on the screen supports what you hear. Even though you are completely ignorant on the language, you can still understand what is going on. For instance, most of the babies learn how to speak from children’s programme nowadays. They follow what the characters are saying naturally while watching them. Even the scientists acknowledge that this is a pretty effective way to help the children’s linguistic skills. As a conclusion, I would like to state that television has made our life so much enjoyable by rendering valuable information and helped us to indulge in more talks with our families and friends, although this fact is denied by some people who are still unwilling to accept the benefits television has brought into our lives.