dim/essayforum_raw_writing_10k huggingface dataset:
***Many people believe that formal "pen and paper" examinations are not the best method of assessing educational achievement.  
Discuss this view and give your own opinion.***  
  
## exams role in the education system

  
  
Examinations have been the most popular method of evaluating people's knowledge for decades. The belief is that this procedure is the key to measure learning in the education system, while others claim that it should be reconsidered. In my opinion, I totally agree with the latter view.  
  
Obviously, exams measure memory, not learning. First, the main aim of an exam is to assess how much information learners can put down onto the paper in the given time. Thus, students with good memories will perform better than those with bad memories. Second, different types of exam questions do not have any real-world application which is the end goal of learning. Although exam questions are now somehow more realistic, whether examiners are willing to accept any types of students' opinions or not is still uncertain. Instead, they are among reasons why students become more anxious, also, obsessed to be the best in their class. As a result, exams partly limit learners' creativity and ability to break the mold, let alone evaluate one's achievements.  
  
However, it is undeniable that our system of public examinations indeed bring out benefits. In fact, hundreds of good, demanding examinations such as SAT and IELTS open doors to higher study and to fulfilling lives. Despite the above-mentioned advantage, deeper learning including debating, teamwork and research skills in long-term performances rather than exam results in isolation, should be the goal.  
  
In conclusion, besides being broadly designed to assess one's ability properly, exams should also be in combination with other methods to be truly an important role in the education system.
@vanslogy your opening statement is almost correct in presentation. You did a good job of rephrasing the topic for discussion, but you failed to properly represent the thesis statement in your presentation. The thesis restatement should have been:  
  
*This essay will discuss the current point of view regarding the formal "pen and paper" exams so that I can offer my personal opinion on the matter as well.*  
  
An accurate paraphrase always closes with a restatement of the discussion instruction line because that serves to complete the outline of the original paraphrase and helps to create the discussion chronology in the paper you will be writing. By the way, since this is not an "extent" essay so you did not have to state that you "totally agree" with the statement. You have to remind yourself that in the IELTS test, you are not allowed to offer discussion data, of which your statement of opinion is, in the opening paraphrase. There is simply no room to fully discuss your opinion there so it should be reserved for the actual body of paragraphs instead. That is the rule and it should be followed. A direct response to the instruction is only acceptable in the TOEFL opening paraphrase.  
  
You were supposed to discuss the public opinion first and then your personal opinion second. There is no representation of your personal opinion in the essay. You cannot assume that all of the paragraphs you presented belong to your personal opinion because it lacks the use of the personal pronouns that serve to give ownership of the statement to you, as in , your opinion. So what you have here is just the public discussion of facts regarding the given topic. An oversight on your part resulted in the lack of a personal statement being delivered as part of the required elements of the essay.  
  
Additionally, you are over the maximum sentence requirement of 5 sentences in your second paragraph while you are just about meeting requirement in your third paragraph. It would be best if for your score if you deliver 5 sentences exactly in every paragraph. That include the opening statement and the concluding paragraph.  
  
By the way, you are not supposed to include a new discussion of information in the concluding statement. That is what you did in this concluding statement. That is unacceptable and you will be scored down for not properly summarizing the content of the essay discussion in the concluding statement. That is the required representation for that paragraph.
***Topic: Most schools offer some types of physical education programs to their students. Why is physical education important? Should physical education classes be optional or required?***  
  
## physical education benefits

  
  
Nowadays, students are required to take more and more hours studying at school. Besides theoretical classes, most schools also offer physical education classes. Despite great benefits that physical education provides to both physical and mental health of students, schools should only categorize it as a recommended option rather than a required class.  
  
The most obvious effect that physical education does to a student is giving the child a healthy body. By taking exercises or playing sports regularly, children can burn calories and strengthen their muscles. From doing regular exercises at school, students will form a good habit of working out at home to maintain a healthy lifestyle. In addition, a good health also prevents students from serious illnesses, such as diabetes, heart diseases, and so on.  
  
Furthermore, physical activities contribute significantly to a positive mental health. With a fit body, students will be more confident, energetic and optimistic. Besides, they can release stress after long studying hours by playing a sports game with friends, which helps them gain their motivation to get back to study better.  
  
Even though physical education classes are of great importance, many students may not receive the benefits fully. This is because each person's physical condition is unique so that one training program cannot be suitable and safe for everybody. On the other hand, playing a sport effectively requires both players' interest and some natural skills. Hence, students will not be able to enjoy a class that offers the sport that they do not like, or they may fail sports tests that require natural skills which they do not possess. Therefore, schools should only promote physical education as an optional class with valuable benefits and encourage students to take part in.
Hi Tran, I enjoyed your essay, but I think your thesis should include something about why physical education is important, so that you address the prompt more directly. Here are some additional suggestions:  
  
required to spend more and more hours  
  
Despite the great benefits  
  
both the physical and mental health  
  
effect that physical education has on a student  
  
By doing exercises {or "performing" or "taking part in"}  
  
~~a~~ good health also prevents  
  
significantly to ~~a~~ positive mental health  
  
stress after long hours of study by playing sports with friends {or "playing a game", but "sports game" sounds unnatural}  
  
which helps them regain {or "increase} their motivation  
  
receive their full benefits.  
  
and encourage students to take part in it. {or "to take part"}
Tran, you are required to restate all of the original text, in your own team understanding working your opening statement. This is a requirement that helps the examiner understand the level of your English comprehension skills. While I admire the fact that you have some background information to share with the reader in this section, you should only present the available facts from the original prompt in this section. Remember that this is an IELTS essay so the factual discussion should start in the second paragraph, not the first. Only a thesis statement is required at the end of the opening paragraph.  
  
In the second paragraph, better represent the prompt reasonably by offering a clear opening please to the discussion based upon keywords from the original. The more appropriate opening would have been too say " Physical education offers important benefits such as...". Opening this way shows that you are responding directly to a prompt question. The same applies to the third paragraph and fourth paragraph.  
  
For the fourth paragraph, you should have presented a personal opinion format for the optional physical education classes since that is what was required by the prompt. After that, a summarized concluding statement should have been presented in order to properly close the essay. As of now, the essay is still an open discussion. Your essay should have had a total of 5 paragraphs.  
  
Kindly keep in mind that there is a minimum 3 sentence requirement per paragraph. Failure to deliver the minimum required number will result in severe points deductions that could lead to a failing score for your test.
Dear @TJLuschen  
Thank you for your corrections. I will rewrite this essay and will definitely consider all of your helpful suggestions.  
  
Thank you @haotran. I did write a thesis statement and a conclusion, but it seems like they aren't clear enough. I'm happy that you think my vocabulary is good, but I wonder if it's good enough for a 6+ IETLS band score.  
  
Dear @Holt,  
Your comment is so helpful to me as a beginner in IELTS academic writing. I will try to improve the essay following your advice.  
Many thanks!
Question:  
===========  
  
**In many countries today, parents are able to choose to send their children to single-sex schools or co-educational schools. Some people think that children going to single-sex schools have disadvantages later in life.**  
  
Answer:  
============  
## single or a mixed gender school?

  
  
In different parts of the world,it is often decided by the parents whether to admit their kids to a single gender school or a mixed gender school. It is considered by many that studying in a all boys or all girls school has some negative impacts on a child's life when they are grown up. I completely agree with this notion and in support of my view I will discuss the problems faced by both male and female students in this essay.  
  
One serious problem faced by the boys having studied in single gender schools is uneasiness while communicating to a girl. As a student spends a vast majority of his life in school and in an all boys school he can only get along with students of the same gender, he faces difficulties interacting with girls. Due to this many boys suffer from severe mental pressure when they enter college and see that the boys coming from a co-educational background have a better rapport with girls than they have. It badly affects them at such a critical juncture of their lives.  
  
Similarly, girls coming from a single-sex school feel nervous when they enter college or join the workforce which have people from both the genders. As they have not had the experience of working and competing with males,they feel dominated by the large number of men in college or workplace. They always prefer to be surrounded by female colleagues and try to avoid getting along easily with men ,which does not contribute to a healthy work environment.  
  
In conclusion, I agree with the notion that children studying in single gender schools face a lot of problems in life in terms of communication and confidence, compared to the ones studying in mixed gender schools.
Riya, the complete prompt for this essay requires you to discuss both points of view and then deliver a discussion of your opinion. What you discussed in the essay focuses solely on your point of view. As such, your response will be considered only partially correct and receive the appropriate low score for the essay. The moment that you chose not to properly represent the instruction sentence in the opening statement, you already got the lowest possible TA score for this essay. Then the tangential discussion further lowered the TA score. This has created an extremely high possibility that, when combined with your low scores for the remaining criteria, that the work you did will not get a passing score. Always remember, the original prompt provides you with the outline for the discussion all you have to do is follow the format it is presented in. In this instance you had to make sure that your body of paragraphs contained:  
  
1. A supporting point of view  
2. A contradicting point of view  
3. Your personal statement  
  
Since this essay focused only on your personal statement, you cannot get a high, passing score for this essay. The prompt requirement must be followed at all times if you are to gain a passing score. The problem, is that you do not seem to properly assess the prompt and its requirements. If you do not take the time to review the essay requirements, you may end up always just submitting partially correct essays such as this one.
@Holt,  
  
I am really sorry that I missed writing the question fully. The complete question is:  
  
**In many countries today, parents are able to choose to send their children to single-sex schools or co-educational schools. Some people think that children going to single-sex schools have disadvantages later in life.  
  
To what extent do you agree?**  
  
Could you please tell me if my essay is fine for the question mentioned above? Please tell me if I need to make any changes?
## the advantages and disadvantages of a gap year

  
  
Topic: **It is becoming increasingly popular to have a year off between finishing school and going to university. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this?**  
  
These days, it is becoming increasingly popular to have a year off between finishing school and going to university. Although some disadvantages can be seen from the phenomenon, the advantages are more significant.  
  
Having a year off between high school and university presents several drawbacks. First, the knowledge can be forgot after one year without recall. Many students who come back university after one year off have some difficulties with the old knowledge in high school and the new knowledge in the university. They take more time than the students who go straight to university after high school in the beginning for pursuing university education. Second, the opportunities to get a job may be lost. The students who continue academic education after finishing high school will finish tertiary education earlier than the students who have a year off and they can get a permanent job with a stable incomes.  
  
However, those disadvantages above still cannot overshadow the advantages. First, a gap year before attending college will be a good time to save money for studying if you have difficulties with the university fees, or if you want to become an independent person, or if you want to share with your parents apart tuition. You can get a full time job or temporary job to work for saving money. Second, there are many good social skills that you can learn from this year. With a volunteer work, you will have a good chance to experience new experiences outside school and family environment to learn the skills. Third, one year off is a perfect moment to orient your future. Many people when finish high school, they do not know exactly what they desire for their lives, what major they will pursue. They just make a decision because that is the choice of their parents or their friends. One year off after finish high school likes a pause moment to see, to discern, to make a good orientation and to live.  
  
In conclusion, despite there are some disadvantages in term of knowledge and chance to get a job in university environment, the advantages are more worthy to consider. With the social experiences and a good orientation beside comfort about tuition will be a good preparation to build the future.
Nguyen, since this is your first time posting in this forum, I will give you some leeway and explain to you the various means by which you can improve your essay presentation in order to gain a decent overall score. We will have to go point by point on this so you have to read what I am saying and make sure you understand how to execute these instructions.  
  
First of all, when you write the prompt paraphrase, you must ensure that you are only delivering the correct information, as indicated in the original prompt. Your discussion of the original prompt is both lacking in sentence requirement (at least 3 sentences) and a proper representation of the prompt. The correct paraphrase for your prompt is:  
  
*There is an increase in the number of students taking a gap year between their secondary and tertiary education. This year long respite from education is said to have advantages and disadvantages. In this essay, I will be presenting one advantage and one disadvantage discussion stemming from the so-called year long "academic leave".*  
  
Since the prompt is not asking you to discuss each of the advantages and disadvantages, then it is enough that you offer an explanatory reason for each rather than changing the prompt as you did do indicate that one side of the discussion is more important than the other. The prompt is not requiring such a discussion and doing so shows that you did not fully understand the instructions for the discussion. This will force a lower TA score for you.  
  
You are also delivering less that stellar discussions per paragraph because you are forcing yourself to present 2 reasons, which you cannot fully explain because of the 5 sentence maximum requirement per paragraph. You actually end up going beyond the allowable maximum in your paragraphs because you present up to 9 sentences per paragraph. There is a one topic maximum requirement per paragraph. The single topic allows you to fully develop your discussion, rather than just presenting half baked and haphazard representations of reasons, which will end up garnering you a failing C&C score.  
  
The conclusion is also problematic since it doesn't follow the summary format for the closing paragraph presentation. The concluding paragraph is the same as the opening paragraph requirement with the only difference being that now, the concluding statement needs to summarize the discussion points instead of offering a thesis statement at the end of the paragraph.
***The pie charts below show how dangerous waste products are dealt with in three countries.  
Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.***  
  
## Toxic waste

  
  
The pie charts are presented for analysis of the disposal methods of hazardous waste materials employed in three countries - Korea, Sweden and the UK. Each figure represents a country in the list. In the essay, I will summarize the destinations of waste and make comparisons between the states wherever needed.  
  
The bulk of dangerous waste is buried on land in the UK and Sweden, while waste recycling is strongly preferable in Korea. The technique is also employed on a modest scale in Sweden but does not come into use in the UK, the only country to dump waste materials at sea or treat them with chemical products. As to incineration, it is a fairly common treatment process in Sweden but rarely used in the others.  
  
As an insight into the details, 82% of dangerous waste products end up in landfills in the UK, compared with 55% in Sweden and 22% in Korea. 69% of dangerous waste products are recycled in Korea, much higher than 25% in Sweden. The figure is even lower in the UK that does not recycle materials of this kind.  
  
With regard to the treatments unique to the country, 8% of dangerous waste products are subject to chemical treatment and as many are dumped at sea. It burns roughly the same percentage of waste as Korea does, 2% versus 9%. In Sweden, however, as much as 20% of dangerous waste products are reduced to ash.  
  
**I would more appreciate it if you score my essay,  
  
I have a question: in my third and fourth paragraphs, I uniformly used "dangerous waste products" to match "the percentage of"(82% of..., 69% of... etc.). Some textbooks recommend replacing "dangerous waste products" with similar expression including "hazardous waste products" and "waste materials" for language variety. Is the replacement necessary?  
  
I sticked to "dangerous waste products", since I found a report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), in which only "...% of U.S. electricity generation" is used.**  
  
eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=electricity\_in\_the\_united\_states  
  
*
@LadyOfClockwork What is the topic of the essay? Is it "How dangerous waste products are dealt with in these countries"? (I am just asking this for myself)  
  
As about your essay, I think it is good; but I feel you could go into more details about them, and give a little bit more extra information, like if the governments of these counties are trying to implement new laws which an help in more efficient and more eco-friendly way, and if the people support what their respective countries are doing with the waste, etc..  
  
I think you should use Hazardous instead of Dangerous. It feels more orthodox.
Gang, you need to use as many synonyms (different words with the same meaning) as you can in your essay because this shows a clear depth of your English vocabulary in relation to your Lexical Resource score. If you can vary your word usage enough throughout the essay, you will also find yourself unconsciously developing more complex sentences. So yes, the textbooks are correct and I would recommend the same in this instance. While the use of keywords are vital in the opening paragraph, variations of the term allows you to prevent reader fatigue since constantly using the same term can be highly redundant.  
  
Do not base your work on the reports of others. Develop your own writing style. If you don't do that, you will be doomed to a limited vocabulary presentation in your essays. Sometimes, you will find yourself falling back on the original term, but only if it is required in a report. In a formal presentation, you may need to stick to one reference word. Since your English skills are being tested in this instance, you need to vary the presentation as best as you can.  
  
In paragraph 3, the reference to the 25% in Sweden is a bit confusing. I would have phrased it instead as; "... much higher than the recycling rate of 25% in Sweden". There are instances when you will need to remind the reader of what the paragraph is about, as in this instance, which helps to clarify your reference material.  
  
Please don't feel disappointed but I feel that the highest base score for this essay is still within the 7 bracket. I know that you so badly want to hit the 8 score but these things can't be rushed. Your improvements are continuous and admirable. I do not doubt that your perseverance will pay off in the future and you will eventually reach the score that is your ideal.
@Holt  
Thank you Marry for your clarification. In China mainland, tens of thousands of anxious IELTS applicants are baffled with conflicting recommendations by dubious gurus of the test. Without you, I would hardly make any improvement. Your authoritative and conscientious advice can rarely be heard otherwise. I will keep improving my skills accordingly.  
  
Though I do desire an 8, I'd like to reassure you of my patience. This month I have much time to practice. Very looking forward to hearing your further advice. :)