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TOEFL Independent Writing Task: Q: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Children over the age of 15 should be allowed to vote. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer. Response: Research has proven that the human generation is growing smarter. Statistics from several IQ tests has shown an increase of about 4-6 points per human generation. Despite the increase in IQ levels which depict human intelligence, there is no evidence of increase in maturity levels. I firmly disagree with the statement that children over the age of 15 should be allowed to vote. Majority of children gain the knowledge, experience and the ability to make decisions after they are seventeen or eighteen years old. Though children are gaining more knowledge at an early age nowadays, that knowledge is more in the fields of physical sciences. Because of the Internet, they know a lot more about topics and subjects taught in their schools. However, they may fail to possess the wisdom required in the field of Politics. For example, most of my friends didn't even know about all the political parties extant in my country before eleventh grade. How can they be expected to reach a valid conclusion without possessing sufficient information? Having had no prior experience, a few children can recognize the work done by political parties at a very young age. It’s true that even children who vote for the first time when they are eighteen years old have no prior experience. However, by that time, they may have learned more about the political parties and their work from their parents. This sort of gives them a secondhand experience. It’s utmost necessary to know about the past work done by the elected parties and their impacts. Coming to ability of making decisions, majority of children make major decisions after eleventh or twelfth grade, when they need to choose their college. There is a vast difference between deciding the outfit to be worn on a date and choosing a National Leader, who usually stays in rule for five years in most of the countries. Kids can be easily swayed by small incentives like 'Free Wi-Fi’, concessions in Movie Tickets et al, thereby missing out on major issues like Foreign Policies or GDP improvisation. To conclude, children should be allowed to vote after seventeen or eighteen years as by that time, they would have gained sufficient knowledge about political parties, would have become better at making decisions and would have gained some secondary experience of elections. Words: 385 Thanks