dim/essayforum_raw_writing_10k huggingface dataset:
Your first sentence is an exaggeration that does not lend itself to an educated discussion based on a readership base of your peers. This will be read by educated individuals, possibly teachers, who do not see this as a controversial issue. In fact, it was not referred to as such in the original discussion instruction. So why did you feel the need to exaggerate rather than simply discuss the topic? Why are you approaching this as an IELTS Task 2 presentation for that matter? Your format does not make sense. It does not base itself on the CBEST discussion format.  
  
Your explanations are not well supported with proper reasoning and examples. Combining 2 different reasons in one paragraph, without properly explaining connecting and discussing each, in a related manner means that you are only partly successful in explaining yourself throughout the task. Your presentation is not effective due to the weak explanations. Your response approach is basically incorrect. Do not confuse the CBEST with the Task 2 IELTS essay. There is a big difference in the formatting requirements for each test. Familiarize yourself with the CBEST writing format before you proceed to write another practice response essay.
## fear - just a state of mind

  
  
Everyone faces obstacles at some point in their lives. Whether these obstacles are physical, mental, emotional, or psychological, they keep people from achieving their goals. In an essay to be read by an audience of educated adults, identify an obstacle you have faced in your life, describe how it affected you, and explain how you either overcame it or learned how to work around it.  
  
Obstacles are a part of human life. A true warrior always confronts obstacles with sincere efforts and courage. I had also faced a psychological obstacle when I was a teenager. My willingness to overcome my fear of driving along with my mother's advice helped me to confront that obstacle, and to get my driving license.  
  
In July 2014, When I celebrated my sixteenth birthday, I was excited to get my driving license. Therefore, for my behind the wheel driving test, I was learning to drive a car from a local driving school instructor. Unfortunately, During those days, my best friend Marcy, who had gotten her driving license a few weeks ago, met with an accident while driving a car, and she died. This incident had such an extreme impact on my mind that I became afraid of driving, and I dropped the idea to get the driving license.  
  
I was so scared of driving that I never even tried to drive in a parking lot. Fewer and then, my mother tried to convince me that I must learn to drive. Everytime I refused, "Mom, I do not want to die like Marcy." Until I graduated from high school, I never realized that the lack of a driving skill could be an obstacle for me because my high school was at walking distance from my home.  
  
After high school, I got admission for bachelor's study at the university which was twenty miles away from my residence. To reach the university was the biggest problem for me, and to use the public transport bus was the only option for me. It was the time when I felt a dire need for a driving license. With a mixed feeling of fear and tension, I shared my problem to commute to the university with my mother.  
  
While listening to the problem, My mother also made me realized that everyday I was wasting my precious two hours only on travel. I could save time for self-study If I drove myself to university. To overcome my fear of death: she explained that death is certain even if I would not drive a car. No one could escape from death. Only cowards were afraid of death. At the same time, she encouraged me that driving a car is not that complicated as I assumed.  
  
Therefore, I decided to learn to drive, and within a few weeks, I got my driving license.  
Later on, I realized that the biggest obstacle was just a state of my mind and it was fear. I became able to overcome my fear of driving a car when I directed my mind to do so, with my mother's suggestion and encouragement. I also realized that safe driving is an essential skill in today's world.
Okay. I noticed that towards the middle part of the essay, you lost your focus on the topic you had presented, which was your fear of driving as being an obstacle to you getting to your university earlier. You somehow forgot that part when you stated that your fear was actually dying, without relating it to driving. In order to make this discussion clearer, you have to make sure that your 2 obstacles are proper connected from the beginning. In this case, your obstacle should have been presented as:  
  
I have a fear of dying in a car accident. Therefore, learning how to drive became an obstacle for me.  
  
By giving the reason for the obstacle at the start, the overall discussion would have been clearer. Your presentation actually ends up a bit muddled and difficult to understand at some points because of your reference to terms that do not relate to the overall sentence or paragraph presentation such as "Fewer and then".  
  
You need to learn how to keep the obstacle and the reason together when referencing "fear of death" in the essay. You often focus on just death, without incorporating the "obstacle" in the discussion. This creates a fork in the discussion, separating the two topics, and making the actual obstacle confusing to the reader. Always unite the obstacle and the reason in the discussion to keep the clarity of the discussion presentation for the reader.
Topic:  
***Some people think students should study the science of food and how to prepare it. Others think students should spend time on other important subjects.***  
  
## Discuss both views and give your opinion.

  
  
Answer:  
There has been a controversy of whether students ought to dig in the science of food and its preparation instead of other subjects or not. This essay will discuss both views of this problem and point out my own perception.  
  
On the one hand, opponents to the study of the science of food have some arguments. To commence with, food study will be believed to be a waste of time if it is brought in the official curriculum. This results from the fact that other important subjects is integrated with further reading about food and if learners know how to condense them, they will not have to spend some periods per week cramming this amount of knowledge. Instead, schools could held extracurricular activities which not only ensures to adapt the demand of food understanding but also reduces the students' burden while they have many subjects to study.  
  
On the other hand, there are several reasons for the support of learning food science. Firstly, food has had a crucial role to play in since the existence of human hence people need gain some food fundamental knowledge in order to extract nutritions from it. Understanding about what a particular type of food contains, we can avoid mistakes when creating mixtures of food. To exemplify, given they can react detrimentally, garlics must not be combined with duck eggs while cooking. Secondly, wastes of food has been an intense issues virally happening all over the world. Therefore, students need to be raised consciousness about the importance of food and the situation that millions of their peer lack food supply so that every citizen has equal chance for normal development.  
  
In conclusion, although each side has its own advantages, I raise my voice to the opinion that it is better for children to learn the science of food and how to prepare it. Personally, I think this will help us protect ourselves and solve global problems.
You have to be able to tell the difference between a debate, a discussion, an opinion, and a thought process when you read the original prompt presentations. These differences, when properly identified and referenced in your restatement, will allow you to gain a better TA score as you will be able to show not only English comprehension skills, but an analytical skill that allows you to identify differences in idea presentations. In this case, when the original prompt refers to "some people think" and "other people think", the two sides are not referring to a controversy. Rather the phrases indicate a difference in thought presentation or opinion. Therefore, the correct reference word should relate to synonyms for the thought or opinion presentation.  
  
The biggest problem in this presentation is the missing 3rd paragraph that should have referred to the development of your personal opinion explanation. That is presented individually, after a comparison of the 2 public points of view as you are still required to offer a completely developed explanation for your reason, which must support one of the two points of view. The conclusion is not the place for that. The conclusion should be used as a mere closing summary of the previous discussion topic, reasoning points, and your personal opinion. These should cover 3 sentences at the very least.
## **Today, there is a great increase in anti-society behaviors and lack of respect to others.**

  
*What are the causes of this? Who would take the responsibilities for dealing with it?*  
  
What is Anti-society behavior? It is a deliberate action that harms or lacks of consideration for the well-being of people. It has also been defined as a conduct that violates the basic rights of people and considered to have disruptive actions for society. People who have anti-society behavior have a possibility of experiencing huge stimuli like money temptation, extremely high pressure, drugs and alcohol. The reason why they can't conquer the factors, we could say that growing environment is a crucial point to investigate.  
  
People who have anti-society behavior appear some negative personalities. For example, they usually have bad tempers and get used to lie to others. Therefore, they don't trust people, but themselves. Sometimes they are dangerous and have mysterious attractiveness. It made me think of "Joker", the movie published in 2019. If you have watched the movie, then you can clearly understand that our society needs to face the issue of anti-society behavior seriously.  
  
When our society starts to face up the issue, we need to know what makes the problem, who needs to take the responsibilities and how we can improve it. In the movie, Joker, we can know that Arthur, the main character, he is actually a good person who takes care of his mother, works hard and dreams of having his own comedy talk show. But he has got sick since he was little when he saw his mother was abused by her boyfriend. Thus, this disease made him laugh hard when he was under high pressure, he was seen as a psycho sometimes. People were not friendly to Arthur though he was trying to be good.  
  
According to the third paragraph, I sort out three points to explain the caused reason and I continue to use the movie as an example. First, the family problems, Arthur was born in a complicated family with violence and loneliness. Second, the understanding, people didn't understand Arthur when he fell ill. The last, respect, people didn't respect each other. Therefore, they destroyed Arthur's trust and love to them. Arthur finally collapsed and turned into a really bad person, the nightmare of Gotham City.  
  
There is no exactly who should take the responsibilities but everyone does. More understanding and respect will make the world peaceful and fill with love. We can't choose our primary family, but we still can be kind to ourselves and other people. Finally, we realize that Life is short, but life is yours. Making the right choice is an important issue in life. Spend more time to explore the world and out of the ivory tower. Be a happy person!
Since you did not specify which English test you have written this paper for, I will not be able to give you a focused review of this presentation. I will give you a general review of content and applicability of your discussion to the topic instead.  
  
You have defined anti-social behavior in a manner that shows a Wikipedia plagiarism, having barely reworded the original definition as stated on the website. That is unacceptable in any form of academic writing. Unless you can cite the source of your information, plagiarism is still plagiarism, even if you changed one or two words to make it appear as your original thought. When left to your own devices in trying to explain the reason for anti-social behavior, your presentation falls apart due to a lack of central reason, an over generalization of your statement, or an improper English sentence structure. All of which make it clear, upon further investigation, that your first few sentences are plagiarized.  
  
Your first sentence in the second paragraph, the topic sentence, is also unclear as you are missing the connecting phrase "to have" prior to the term "negative personalities". Additionally, you are making reference to a movie that not everyone may have seen, so it is important to classify the reason why you believe that "Joker", as a movie exemplifies anti-social behavior.  
  
The focus on the movie, rather the general discussion about being anti-social created a prompt deviation which could be a problem in your final scoring consideration. As I do not know what type of test you are taking, I cannot be very specific about how this change of discussion will affect your presentation score.
Please give me some advice on my essay. Thanks so much!  
  
***Topic: To be labelled a 'Work of Art', a painting, sculpture or other art form should display certain qualities that are unique. However, over the past century there has been a decline in the quality of prize-winning artwork and it is now possible for quite ordinary pieces of art to be labelled 'masterpieces ' whilst true works of art pass unnoticed.***  
  
Do you agree or disagree?  
  
There has been a deterioration in humanity's awareness of masterpieces since the past century. This has led to numerous detrimental problems that eradicate true talented artists. In my opinion, the statement above is appropriate to the world nowadays.  
  
To begin with, there are some reasons explaining why such ordinary pieces of art can win various precious awards. One of them is that valuable prizes are likely to pay more attention to the general attitude of the society toward an artwork, not of expert people. Therefore, unnumbered pieces of art are easily labeled as masterpieces because of the community's high appreciation, despite not being extraordinary. Meanwhile, many works of art that deserve winning prize is constantly ignored due to their eccentric intrinsic, which is hard to understand if not being a professional. Take Picasso's drawings for instance, his talent was eradicated because no one could welcome the uncanny quality inside his arts. Unfortunately, only after his death was his talent noticed and rewarded. This problem has a tendency to occur again if we keep labelling undeserved artworks as masterpieces.  
  
To the best of my knowledge, it is not a good idea to let this state continue. Not only will it upsets true talented artists, but it also leads to a reduction in average work of art awareness. I believe that in order to win a precious award, an art work must be considered carefully by experts, who have high knowledge in art aspect. By conducting this, special qualities in these pieces of art would be examined with meticulousity, which then deserve the substantial effort of artists and consequently receive their high respect.  
  
Having analyzed everything above, I strongly recommend that meticulous examination must be given to artwork when it comes to being labeled as masterpieces. Proper artwork will only be awarded as long as its unique intrinsic is discovered.
I think you really have a problem with your English comprehension skills. You are constantly changing the topics for discussion in every essay that you write. You are incapable of writing the essay based on the original prompt because you keep sensationalizing or misleading your readers. I asked you to download the thesaurus to help you learn how to use alternative words for the original keywords in the presentation. You have not done that here. I think I will have to start teaching you how to write these restatements from the very start. It appears to me that you are self studying right? So I will have to take you by the hand and teach you by section. Let's start with how to properly restate the original prompt.  
  
Use an outline for this part. Divide that into sections as follows:  
  
Topic: a painting, sculpture or other art form should display certain qualities that are unique.  
Problem: it is now possible for quite ordinary pieces of art to be labelled 'masterpieces ' whilst true works of art pass unnoticed.  
Reason: over the past century there has been a decline in the quality of prize-winning artwork  
Discussion: Do you agree or disagree?  
  
Based on that outline, you should clearly see that there is no detrimental problem being discussed. Only a lack of proper high quality / award worthy craft presentations. It is your tendency to exaggerate the original presentations that pose a problem for your restatements. You are always exaggerating for no reason. Or, in this case, exaggerating to the extent of changing the discussion target. I have tried my best to point out this problem to you several times already but you show no improvement in this section. Perhaps more English vocabulary lessons would help you. Have you tried participating in Conversational English lessons? Those normally help with the development of a student's English writing skill as you learn how to stop exaggerating and simply begin to discuss in verbal form, which often carries onto the written aspect of English writing.
@Holt  
Thank you so much for your detailed advice. It is true that I am self-studying. I used oxford thesaurus dictionary for this essay but it appears that I used it wrongly. I guess I persecuted too many advanced words that are unsuitable to the topic without considering its meaning. I will follow your advice, start learning vocabulary and use them properly as well as participating in Conversational English lessons. I wish there will be improvement in my next essay.  
  
Hop that you don't mind pointing out problem in the next essay, although I guess it is annoying to keep fixing my consistent weakness.
## The Startlight Bridge

  
  
The Startlight Bridge- the most poetic and charming pedestrian bridges located in the heart of the Phu My Hung international- residential area in Ho Chi Minh city. It is regarded as a breathtaking view due to LED system lights that projected backward from the bottom up with the water spray making the bridge Startlight Bridge more and more magical as well as creating for people the feeling like stepping on the thousand of stars. While this public place has a great number of enticing activities, I contend that the negative aspects and its solution should not be underestimated.
You were asked to evaluate a public place. So the evaluation should not only describe the place but also, the types of people and activities that take place there. A description of the architecture of the buildings or layout of the area would have also been necessary in the presentation. A physical description that can help the reader create an internal image is most important to this type of writing. You should have also given a run down or simple descriptions of the problems that you see in the place. This could be anything from foot traffic, pedestrian control, and trash bin placements. Then, depending on the problems you have discussed, you should be able to make proper suggestions regarding how these observed situations could be resolved in order to create more appealing surroundings. All you did was describe the place. You did not really give much thought to the aesthetic values of the public place and how it could be improved for the benefit of the visitors or tourists. You mentioned that there are negative aspects that could be improved, but failed to expand on that discussion in relation to the task writing instruction.
***SOME EDUCATIONALISTS THINK THAT INTERNATIONAL STUDENT EXCHANGE WILL BENEFICIAL FOR ALL TEENAGE SCHOOL STUDENTS.***  
## DO YOU THINK IT'S ADVANTAGES WILL OUTWEIGH THE DISADVANTAGES?

  
  
It is argued by some educationalists that all teenage school students would benefit a great deal from foreign programmes, albeit with some drawbacks of this idea, I opine that the benefits are far more significant.  
  
On the one hand, teenage students face many downsides of engaging in international exchange project. The first disadvantage is culture shock. Exchange students might face the challenge of adapting to traditional beliefs and social customs, which could give rise to misunderstandings in social etiquette and norms. Consequently, they would incur tension and conflicts that are difficult for them to wrestle with a problem. Another downside is that many students are unable to read their international programmes by virtue of the difference of languages which makes the subjects become more elusive for them. Take me as an example, I was struggling to catch up with the first academic year of international programme due to poor language skills. It took me more than 5 months and cost a substantial amount of money to resit the exam.  
  
In my opinion, however, the benefits of international student exchange are deemed to be more significant than the drawbacks. Firstly, It is an opportunity that arises for them when they can cultivate their knowledge and social skills, the things that they might have not chance to learn in their home country. For instance, Education System in Vietnam believes that theoretical knowledge takes precedence over practical skills shown to cause many pressures on students. Secondly, It is common knowledge that they would be more well informed about different cultures when exchange students could gain valuable experiences in lieu of learning from newspapers and social media. Finally, international student exchange is a real asset for them to be more self-reliant and resourceful. This is because without daily support from their parents, those students have to manage their budgets and make their own decisions.  
  
In conclusion, although exchange students might have difficulties adapting to the new culture and following international school curricula , there is a myriad of benefits that I believe it does outweigh those drawbacks.