My essay, проверьте, покритикуйте! Спасибо!

[Vanderley]

Подскажите и на счет моего. Сдавать первый раз собираюсь тоже 10.12. и тоже нужна семера.
Topic: Some people think that a sense of competition in children should be encouraged. Others believe that children who are co-operate rather than compete become more useful adults.
Discuss both these views and give you own opinion.

The problem of raising children has long been the subject of intense debate and this is a question that certainly does not have one correct answer. I could agree with the both statement to a certain extent, as I believe that either a sense of competition and co-operate among the young people contribute their success in the adult life. Furthermore, there are several approved facts in this matter.

On the one hand, a sense of competition allows offspring become more confident in the future. According to recent report United Nations Organization in this area, about 59 per cent of adults are confident in their life. Moreover, they had achieved their own aims. As a result, it is clear that competition is essential fact of pupil`s life.

On the other hand, co-operation is mandatory. Interaction between children develops their senses of partnership. For instance, in obedience to another survey the co-operation allows young people to choose their futher step toward subsequent goal. Therefore it is obvious that partnership is obligatory.

Taking into account everything mentioned above I am inclined to believe that co-operation and competition between pupils have similar effect. Moreover, government should encourage parents in these directions in order to our subsequent generation will be more successful in the future.

Это пример очень плохого эссе. Две вещи которые никогда не надо делать это пичкать своё эссе клише, которые вдобавок очень сильно выделяются на фоне слабого английского. И вторая - это писать статистику, которая в 99% случаев берётся из головы. Я уверен, что на экзамене вам бы все это вычеркнули из эссе и проверяли бы оставшееся. В итоге у вас бы осталось от вступления 2 слова из первого предложения и кусок из второго. Ну и остальное бы пострадало бы, правда немного слабее. Подкладывая экзаменаторам рыбу вы рискуете получить пенальти за недобор слов, а рыбу экзаменаторы как вы уже догадались не считают.

Далее по эссе. Смотрите как у вас за ошибки в логике полетит оценка за кохешн и кохиеренс. Читаем ваш второй абзац: соревновательность делает потомков уверенными. Есть 59 процентов уверенных людей. Более того они добились своих целей. В результате очевидно что соревнования важный факт жизни школьника. Что я не пойму так это то как из второго и третего предложения что-то очевидно, там про соревнования-то ни слова. В следующем параграфе вы вообще огорошиваете читателя фактом, что кооперация оказывается помогает идти навстречу цели. Это всё сделает ваши оценки за task achievement and coherence and cohesion очень низкими.

Ну и ко всему прочему у вас масса ошибок в граматике и лексике, некоторые очень страшные, из-за чего ваши оценки за соответствующие секции пострадают. Разрешите я вам не буду тут детально ошибки разбирать.

В итоге я думаю, что за это эссе вы бы на экзамене получили в районе 4.5.

[Goran Dražić]

Can someone please pretty please check my essay. I don't get any comments at all and it's really sad

Topic: Popular hobbies and interests change over the time and are more a reflection of trends and fashions than an indication of what individuals really want to do in their spare time. To what extent do you agree with this statement? Give reasons for your enswer.



Short plan:

• Intro. Fashion and individual preferences play equal role in choosing a hobby.
• 1st body paragraph. Fashion, TV, advertisments, celebrities.
• 2nd body paragraph. People want to realise their dreams and break taboos.
• Conclusion. Restating the thesis. Time comparison.

Detailed plan:

• Intro. Compare our interests with interests of our parents. → have significantly changed → Fashion contributes more than personal preferences and intersts → I think they contribute almost equally.
• 1st body paragraph. Following the trend can be explained by the power of media. → A lot of time is devoted to leisure time advertisments → Modern advertismets are catchy and colourful → Shows and celebrities. → Little dogs.
• 2nd body paragraph. Connection with unrealized dreams. → Parachuting and gliding → Taboos → Hollywood movies in the SFRJ.
• Conclusion. Both affect equally and in future none of them will disappear. → New freedoms and new inventions will enable us to enjoy new activities.However, advertising won't lose its power over minds of ...

Essay:

If you ask your parents what were their interests and hobbies when they were younger, you will probably find out that you have virtully nothing in common. Indeed, pasttimes and interests have changed greately and they continue changing. Some people attribute this process to the fact that people can be easily influenced by popular trends. However, I believe that fashion and personal preferences equally contribute to this constant change of hobbies and pasttimes.

Following trends in choosing a hobby can be explained by the increasing effect of modern mass media. An element of media that has succeeded in popularisations of particular types of leisure time activities most of all is advertising. Indeed, modern advertisments are catchy and colourful, and after another watch of an advertisment telling about the fun of a particular pasttime one can hardly fight the lure of taking up this activity. Another source of trends for hobbies and interests are programs and shows about celebrities, and constantly increasing number of tiny dogs' owners only prove this fact.

However, the reason for taking up a new hobby is not always rooted in ever-changing fashion. A great number of people choose their pasttime activities based on their personal interests which in turn can be based, for example, on their unrealized dreams. For instance, people who wanted to become astranauts when they were children often take up parachuting or gliding. One may be attracted to a certain activity even stronger if it is or was a taboo in their contry. It can be illustrated by a huge demand for Hollywood movies in Croatia after the collapse of SFRJ, where western movies were forbidden.

To sum up, in my opinion fashion and personal interests play equal role in choosing a hobby or spare time activity. I also believe that they will remain two most significant factors that affect our decisions about pasttimes in the future. As people all over the world enjoy more freedoms and science makes more things possible people will be able to make more of their dreams come true. I also think that fashion and trends will not lose their power over people's minds.

Thanks, Goran.

[Maimiti_Isabella]

Can someone please pretty please check my essay. I don't get any comments at all and it's really sad

I commented twice but as I didn't have any feedback on my posts - in fact, they were just by-passed in favour of some other people's comments - I presume that you are not interested in what I've got to say.

[Goran Dražić]

I commented twice but as I didn't have any feedback on my posts - in fact, they were just by-passed in favour of some other people's comments - I presume that you are not interested in what I've got to say.

As I read the thread once again I realisied that it may've beed a bit rude on my part. I am sorry, I didn't mean to be rude. It was just that your comments were the ones that I totally agreed with and I was distracted by responding to others.

Can you please chck this one. I promice to be as polite and greatful as possible.

[srr]

Can someone please pretty please check my essay. I don't get any comments at all and it's really sad

I'm afraid not so many readers have enough language skills to check your essays, that's why you don't get comments. That's clearly the reason for me to stay quiet.

[Maimiti_Isabella]

......

First of all, I don't see any major problems with the body paragraphs.

However, what actually got me in this particular essay is that you constantly mispell the word 'pastime', and this is the 'anchor' word in the essay.

Also, I'm not sure how the examiners will look at the SFRJ - this is not a commonly know abbreviation in English. If you are sitting for IELTS outside of Croatia I' certainly recommend spelling it out. Again, maybe within the EU this is normal, but were you in Australia people would not have a clue what you're talking about.

What I don't like at all is your Introduction and Conclusion.
In the introduction you are repeating the words and phrases and to me this looks very much like a dog chasing its tail. You either need to rephrase or find synonyms, or just develop the idea differently.

In the Conclusion there are an excessive number of 'I's. Yes, I know, this is allowed but, first of all, this is more common to the General IELTS style essyas and secondly, there are too many even for the General IELTS. The thing that puzzles me is that I can't see the reason for the use of the personal pronoun. In addition, as you are using similar structures yet again it feels as if you're repeating the same things over and over again (I also believe vs. I also think vs. I my opinion). My advice would be to get rid of them.
To sum up, in my opinion fashion and personal interests play equal role ... -> seem to play / appear to play / certainly play, etc

I also think that fashion and trends will not lose their power over people's minds. -> It seems obvious / One can be certain that fashion and trends will continue to play a significant role in our society and influence the choice of personal preferences as far as leisure activities and pastimes are concerned.


BTW, any particular reason for using 'people' twice within the same sentence? Coupled up with the repetition of personal pronouns, this looks rather bad.

I'm not comfortable with putting any mark for this essay thanks to the mismatch between the body paragraphs and the Intro and the Conlusion.

[Goran Dražić]

Maimiti_Isabella, thanks for your detailed comments.

In the introduction you are repeating the words and phrases and to me this looks very much like a dog chasing its tail. You either need to rephrase or find synonyms, or just develop the idea differently.

Do you mean repeating hobby-related vocabulary? I am not sure how to deal with it. Before writing this essay I wrote down all possible synonyms like pastime, leisure time, hobby, interests, spare time and then tried to mix them. Was it a bad idea? I guess I could've tried to come up with ideas that don't have the word hobby in them but still are relevant.

BTW, any particular reason for using 'people' twice within the same sentence?

No, it was totally unintentional. The sentence was big and this style mistake just happened.

In the Conclusion there are an excessive number of 'I's. Yes, I know, this is allowed but, first of all, this is more common to the General IELTS style essyas and secondly, there are too many even for the General IELTS. The thing that puzzles me is that I can't see the reason for the use of the personal pronoun. In addition, as you are using similar structures yet again it feels as if you're repeating the same things over and over again (I also believe vs. I also think vs. I my opinion). My advice would be to get rid of them.

I am preparing for the General Module, so I guess the punishment would be less severe . Anyway, what I have certain doubts about is how I can express my opinion in "opinion essay" (And this one is an opinion essa, right?). I thought it was a must to put a couple of phrases which mean "I think" to show that those ideas are my thoughts but not just some general knowledge. Do you think it would be okey to use this "impersonal" constructions?

Thanks again for your comments! I am sure they will help to improve my writing.

[Maimiti_Isabella]

Maimiti_Isabella, thanks for your detailed comments.


Do you mean repeating hobby-related vocabulary? I am not sure how to deal with it. Before writing this essay I wrote down all possible synonyms like pastime, leisure time, hobby, interests, spare time and then tried to mix them. Was it a bad idea? I guess I could've tried to come up with ideas that don't have the word hobby in them but still are relevant.

yes I do. There are a couple of other mistakes in the Intro as well.
The repetition also prevented me from getting the meaning straight and now I can see that there's another problem. You are saying that people can be influenced by trends. This is ok. But then you continue with stating that they can also be influenced by fashion and personal preferences. Fashion = trends. So - huge conherence problem.

I am preparing for the General Module, so I guess the punishment would be less severe . Anyway, what I have certain doubts about is how I can express my opinion in "opinion essay" (And this one is an opinion essa, right?). I thought it was a must to put a couple of phrases which mean "I think" to show that those ideas are my thoughts but not just some general knowledge. Do you think it would be okey to use this "impersonal" constructions?

Even if you use personal pronouns, there are too many of them in your Conclusion! Once is OK I guess but you're using them 3 times in very similar sentences. This leads to problems with readability (coherence) as the reader would be trying to figure out which of these is your opinion.

How I would've written this? I'd've probably 'forgotten' about personal preferences and concentrated on fashion and trends. This will give me a better chance to streamline the essay.

Anyway, my try on the first para , without any changes to your style or ideas.

If you ask the older generation about their hobbies and interests, you will probably find that these have changed greatly over the course of time. The changes can be attributed to the fact that people are influenced by popular trend. However, personal preferences ... (as per your essay)

Note the problem with embedded question:
If you ask your parents what were their interests and hobbies -> what their interests and hobbies were

[Goran Dražić]

This will give me a better chance to streamline the essay.

Streamlining is a whole science It can make writing a particular essay MUCH easier. I hope I will be able to master this skill as I practise more.

Note the problem with embedded question:
If you ask your parents what were their interests and hobbies -> what their interests and hobbies were

That's one big "shame on me" It's my second favorite mistake after third person singular "s".

[Maimiti_Isabella]

...

BTW, you don't have to be 'as polite as possible' as I have absolutely no interest in it. It's just the total lack of any feedback on your part that made me believe that you'd rather I didn't check your essays. And I'm OK with this as from time to time I come across people with whom I don't 'click'. There's nothing wrong with this.

[Esperanca]

I am preparing for the General Module, so I guess the punishment would be less severe .

Can you please explain how General module requirements for the essay differ from Academic ones?

[Goran Dražić]

Esperanca, Have I written somewhere they are different? In fact I haven't seen any requirements for IELTS essays.

However, immigrants are less likely to write a lot of essays in the future, so in GM they probably do not punish for the less formal style and including personal opinions in form of "I think" etc.

[Maimiti_Isabella]

They are different in terms of the level of formality and also from the point of view of how the tasks are set.

Frankly, I'm astonished that people who are preparing to sit for IELTS are not familiar with the requirements and don't read the official information.

http://www.ielts.org/pdf/Information...es_booklet.pdf (go to page 5)

[Esperanca]

Esperanca, Have I written somewhere they are different? In fact I haven't seen any requirements for IELTS essays.

However, immigrants are less likely to write a lot of essays in the future, so in GM they probably do not punish for the less formal style and including personal opinions in form of "I think" etc.

I heard that requirements for GM and AM are slightly different in terms of style. I asked you about that in case you knew exactly what the difference was.

[Goran Dražić]

Frankly, I'm astonished that people who are preparing to sit for IELTS are not familiar with the requirements and don't read the official information.

http://www.ielts.org/pdf/Information...es_booklet.pdf (go to page 5)

Well, I saw these requirements, but they are too abstract. The only conclusion I could draw from this brochure was that students who take AM are more likely to be punished.