dim/essayforum_raw_writing_10k huggingface dataset:
Nguyen, there is a disconnection between your paragraph title and the actual discussion that you present. In your title, you indicate that technology is causing children to spend less time with their parents. However, in your discussion, you do not present any evidence of technology that prevents children from seeking their parents company. If this were an actual test, you would have been given a failing grade by your teacher because you did not manage to properly discuss the topic title in your paragraph. A representation of how technology consumes the time of the children and how their gadget related activities removes them from the real world in terms of interacting with their parents should have been presented in the paragraph. Thus justifying and properly discussing the title that you chose for the paper. This is not a well written paper because you did not understand what the topic title wanted you to discuss. You just wrote what you think the topic was about. There is a clear lack of English comprehension skills in this paragraph exercise.
**IELTS Writing Task 1**  
*The chart below shows the amount of time that 10 to 15-year-olds spend chatting on the Internet and playing on games consoles on an average school day in the UK.*  
  
## youth staying online and playing games

  
  
The bar chart compares how much time it takes 10-15 year-olds, by gender, to chat on the Internet and play on games consoles on an average school day in the United Kingdom.  
  
Overall slightly more boys and girls in the 10-15 age group prefer playing on games console to chatting online. It is also evident that an overwhelming majority of boys enjoy playing on game consoles, while chatting online is considerably more popular among girls than boys.  
  
Regarding chatting on the Internet, the number of 10-15 year-old boys spending time doing this activity for less than an hour a day is the same as that of their female counterparts, accounting for nearly 30 percent, although much more girls than boys chatting for over one hour.  
  
On the contrary, nearly a massive 90% of 10-15 year-old male students spend time playing on games console on an average school day, whereas the figure for females is just over a half. Most girls, about one third, play on games console for under 1 hour per day, while the majority of boys, roughly 45 %, enjoy doing this leisure activity for 1 to 3 hours. It is noticable that the proportion for males in the 10-15 age range playing on games console for more than 4 hours per day is roughly 10 percent, the same percentage for females talking to their friends online for the same amount of time.  
  
*
Moon, the paragraph presentations you made are too short. You need to learn to use full stops instead of commas or continuously long sentences in your paragraph in order to meet the required 3 sentence minimum. Please make sure to enhance your summary statement by making it more informative and allowing for a more proper overview of the information provided. The work you have done shows that you rushed through the essay, did not properly assess the chart for additional information or comparison points, and neglected to do a thorough review of all the information presented for analysis. Based upon the obviously rushed and haphazard presentation of this essay, I do not doubt that the score of this will be extremely low. That is because you did not do what you had to do in order to create more complex sentences that would have proven your ability to create analytical presentation in written form using the English language.
***Hi Moon**, I will try giving you a few suggestion for finalizing your writing.  
Actually, your writing is good, but you did not aware minor mistakes which can reduce your score. Firstly, your first sentence could not describe paraphrase of the statement. You wrote pronoun "it" whereas that confuse readers. Please, you avoid that mistake in the next term. It can make meaning of the paraphrase abuse. For your overview, it is good because that could cover general trend. However, you should merge between the first and second paragraph because the good paragraph consists of at least three sentences.  
  
For your body paragraph, your grouping is good, but you did not explore your first body. That is very short. You are able to compare use of the internet which accesses for 1 to 3 hours. In addition, that is not balanced because you tended to explain about proportions of playing the games console. You could impress the examiner with exploring both matters.  
  
I believe you can achieve the higher score if you want to expand your explanation.  
GOOD LUCK*
Red Moon, you must take note that IELTS writing task 1, among other things, tests your ability to specifically interpret a given information encrypted in form of charts, graphs, or diagrams. Your ability to critically look at the chart provided before making any attempt is the best approach to giving a precise interpretation of the information in the graph. As pointed out, there were lots of hasty misinterpretations in your current post. For example, "nearly a massive 90% of 10-15 year-old male students spend time playing..."  you are perfectly wrong in the expression highlighted above. Considering the scale of the graph, you can observe that 1 cm to 10 units were used. This means that since the peak of the bar representing boys is at the middle, the actual value is 5 % and adding the already established 80 %, you have exactly 85 % of boys playing video game, and not 'nearly a massive 90 %...' You can also give more information by breaking these percentage according to the number of hours spent as indicated in the keys. So, always try as much as possible to do the needful first ( which is to understand the chart provided, notice the scale used where necessary and so on) before going on with answering the question.
## Number of buyers of fiction, non-fiction, and magazines in a college bookshop

  
  
The provided table shows the sales numbers in a college bookshop during February 2000. The figures cover three types publications: fiction, non-fiction, and magazines. Sales data were obtained from two groups of customers, non-book club members and book club members.  
  
Among the three types of publications, magazines took up the most number of sales (1,696 out of 3,134). The second best-selling publication was non-fiction with 1,287 copies sold. The least popular one was fiction, which barely went over 150.  
  
In terms of the type of customers, non-book club members won over the book club members, taking up more than half of the total sales. The non-book club members are divided into three sub-groups: college staff, college students, and members of public. The highest number of sales among the three sub-groups was 1,474 by the college students. The type of publication preffered by most students was magazines (1,249 out of 1,474) while the least was fiction (31).  
  
\*\*  
  
I am aware that this essay does not fulfill the required minimum of 150 words and that there are misspells (preffered) and incorrect use of English.  
  
Would it have been better if I had written it by focusing on just one, types of publications or types of customers? For example:  
- Paragraph one: introduction  
- Paragraph two: magazines  
- Paragraph three: non-fiction  
- Paragraph four: fiction  
  
Thank you for your help.  
  
*
Katya, generally, this type of essay requires you to describe the entire information in the table during which you make comparisons where necessary. You are not expected to focus or create a paragraph or sub-head for each content as you implied. The format for proper response to the this type of essay is that you must first paraphrase the topic question of the essay (the prompt). This action shows that you have a perfect understanding of the idea in the chart or table at a glance. The next is to give a general overview of the content of the table which is usually obvious when one observes the chart or table as in this case. Thereafter, you have to look at the table critically and tell the examiner what the table entailed and be specific. Make comparisons if need be. By the time you properly interpret every significant observation in the table, you shall have written at least 150 words. I recommend that you check other reviews on IELTS Writing Task 1 as many have been reviewed here in this forum.
***Hi Katya**, I have read your writing closely and found a few mistakes which you are supposed to be fixed.  
You could face a big stumbling block to achieve score more than 6 because you missed presenting one of essential elements in the writing task. I have not found your overview presenting general and interesting trend in the table. You tended to display the information of the table. I meant this sentence.  
  
Sales data were obtained from two groups of customers, non-book club members and book club members.  
Admittedly, the overview is essential because you can show to examiners that you could analyze the data given. In addition, you have presented your data safely. Its reason is that you only listed the data. I remind you that your job in the writing task 1 is to compare the figures, not to explain separately. As we can see, you avoided comparing the figures. You had to compare the figures if you wanna get the higher score. There are some relevant data which you are able to compare. In the other words, your review is unattractive. However, I believe you can improve this by observing the examples of the writing task 1. You can master this section if you wanna practice more and more. GOOD LUCK*
*The graph below gives information about the preferred leisure activities of Australian children.  
  
Write a report for a university lecturer describing the information shown.  
  
You should write at least 150 words.*  
  
The given graph compares how australian boys and girls aged between five and fourteen years old prefer to spend their free time.  
  
Both genders enjoy similar activities, with all of them mentioning watching TV or videos as one of their favorites. The second most frequently cited activity was playing computer and electronic games, roughly 80% of boys and 60% of girls do that to spend their spare time.  
  
The graph suggests that boys seem to like physical activies more than girls of the same age group. 75% of them ride their bikes for leisure, while 55% of girls act similarly. Skateboarding and rollerboarding were overall less frequently mentioned, with approximately 55% of boys and 25% doing one of these two during their leisure period.  
  
Conversely, recreations related to arts and crafts are more popular among girls. The data shows that around 55% of them do these activies for fun, while only 35% of the boys do the same.  
  
( 158 words )  
  
edit: I've added more information about the essay  
  
*
Rodolfo, your opening statement is an incomplete summary as it lacks information regarding the activities that will be compared based upon the chart information. While you are not allowed to provide the actual data in the summary overview, you are however, expected to discuss the classifications that will be discussed as part of the discussion outline. Bear in mind that the opening statement sets the tone for the discussion and as such, must indicate the topics that will be discussed in the succeeding paragraphs. Incomplete information, such as what you presented also prevents you from meeting the 3 sentence minimum requirement per paragraph. Always double check your summary information to ensure that you are properly representing all the discussion points for the next paragraphs. You should have given a complete paragraph of 5 sentences to the presentation of the activities that the teenagers enjoy in order to further break down the information you will be discussing. There were several activities indicated in the chart and you seem to have only concentrated on a few of them. Therefore, this cannot be considered an accurate nor academic summary of the chart provided. You also consistently fall short of the required number of sentences per paragraph. Based on these errors, I believe that you cannot get a score higher than a 4.
@Holt  
  
Hello, Mary Rose. I really do appreciate your comment, it will be very valuable for me . However, now I'm confused about several things.  
I've based my report structure on some IELTS Task 1 models that can be found in the web and in books and they don't mention these rules, specially the ones concerning the number of sentences per paragraph. In fact, most of them have between one to three sentences in each paragraph.  
  
I feel that I'm at crossroads, since I don't know which approach I should take when writing my essays.
Rodolfo, it is a general rule in the use of English Language that a paragraph must contain at least 3 sentences. Generally. the 1st sentence of a paragraph is the topic sentence that introduces the idea that the next series of sentences (complimentary sentence) would elaborate on. So, if the so called link have essays with one-sentence paragraph, to which category do you think the sentence would belong - topic or complimentary? It is important for you to note that each paragraph of an essay must discuss a central idea or point and not two or more unrelated ideas, then the last sentence of each paragraph would be a transition sentence that connects the previous paragraph to next one. These are general rules in all types of essays including IELTS writing task 1 or 2. The overview statement in task 1 is very crucial because you are being tested on your ability to reveal information concealed in form of graph, chart, figure or Table. Most times, these statistical components show trends that are observable at a glance without critical evaluation of the content. Those observable trends are what the overview statement highlights which then form the basis of the critical evaluation that would ensue in the next paragraphs. I suggest that you try and obtain information from a more reliable links such as those of British Council or Cambridge, with regard to IELTS preparation, as they would would offer a first hand information than a mere blog that aims at increasing its traffic. You should trust the guidance availed to you in this platform by professional and academics in various fields with years of experience. Be guided and do not be confused. In addition to the review statement made by Rose, you can also notice that your essay lacks conclusion. "Conversely" is not a transition word for a concluding paragraph. 'Ultimately', 'To sum up', 'In conclusion' and so would serve better in that paragraph.
## what kind of study problems in schools?

  
  
The table illustrates the seven areas of difficulties encountered by pupils in two primary schools in 2005 and 2015.  
  
Overall, there were more students from school A facing the seven problems than from school B in both given years. While the most students from school A found it difficult to follow instructions in 2005, students from school B reflected concentrating in lessons as the major problem. Whereas in 2015, children in school A faced problems in having good handwriting, while not being able to keep concentrated in lessons was still the main problem for school B.  
  
In 2005, 42% of students of school A had problem in following instructions, followed by 40% of them found difficulties in concentrating in classes. In contrast, the former problem involved the second least proportion of children in school B (only 6%), but the latter problem was also a main one, with 15% of students involved. The remaining problems was at range of around 20% to 35% and about 5% to 15% in school A and school B respectively.  
  
In 2015, the figures of the seven problems for both schools were similar, except for the significant decrease in percentage for the two major problems in school A, both halved from over 40% to under 20%, and the slight climb for school B in terms of following instructions from 6% to 12%.  
  
\*\* It seems that I did not mention much data other than the items with the most and least percentage of students, does this matter?  
\*\* I found it confusing in how to group the data from table as there are really so many numbers, which when I deal with bar charts, will be less problematic. Thank you!  
  
*
Ng, reviewing your essay will not be that easy because you failed to post the prompt of your essay alongside the draft. How will I assess if you really answered the question or did a proper paraphrase of the prompt when there is no prompt in the current post. Be that as it may, my comments would be based on the content of the essay. I can point out that your paraphrase is improper as it reads the original statement in the prompt. For you to do a proper paraphrase, you must rephrase the topic question of the essay. That shows that you have perfect understanding of the requirements of the essay. Your overview statement is incomplete. The first sentence of the 2nd paragraph (overview) is okay but the rest of the sentences are meant to be part of the next paragraph since they are not overview statements. At least three overview statements can be generated from the table. Meanwhile, an overview statement is one that describes the observable trend(s) in the chart, graph or table provided.  
  
Overview 1: Percentage of students having academic problems was generally higher in school A than in B.  
Overview 2: There was an observable decrease in the percentage of students with academic issues in student A over a ten year period.  
Overview 3: The proportion of students with academic challenges in school B was fairly stable between 2005 and 2015.  
  
Notice that in the above statements, there was no specific comment on actual figures with respect to the increase or decrease reported. These specific comment would be made in the paragraph(s) following the overview. Your 3rd paragraph is difficult to follow because you were not mentioning the particular component of the table which you were trying to describe. Your essay also lacks conclusion. I can not go further than this due to error of not posting the prompt alongside your current draft.
## House or a flat? Different opinions

  
  
Nowadays, it is argued whether it is better to live in a house or in a flat. Some people hold the opinion that houses are more convenient to live in because of more space and luxury, while others assert that living in a flat is more practical. This essay supports the second point of view and I will illustrate in the next paragraphs that living in a flat is much better because it is cheaper and easier to clean.  
  
Firstly, living in a house is an attractive choice for many people who seek spaciousness and extra amenities. But, cost is a very important factor also to consider when you choose your dwelling place. It is well known that houses are more expensive than flats in the same living districts. According to a survey done by rent., the average American house costs $50,000 more than the average flat of the same number of rooms. The fact that all the building's bills are shared between the tenants makes it always a better choice for people with tighter budget.  
  
Secondly, household tasks are very energy and time demanding which makes people think about having a small place to live in and save a lot of their time rather than owning a big place with so much cleaning and maintenance responsibilities. The average house consists of at least 3 rooms, lounge, kitchen and garden, not counting other amenities like swimming pool. Obviously, this would require at least two persons for cleaning weekly and still a cumbersome task. in addition, busy people and students don't have this time to spend taking care of their houses and so a small apartment will be a perfect solution for them.  
  
To conclude, I don't think that owning a house has more advantages than owning a flat, on the contrary, a lot of times people are inclined towards buying a small flat because it is cheaper and easier to clean and handle.
-In the first paragraph, last lie, i think you should not list the reasons obviously like that because it won't attract the examiners . Instead let's discuss about it in the body.  
  
-I reckon that " well-known" means famous, so there may be a better phrase such as " it is common knowledge that ".  
- Third paragrapgh, last line, you should replace " dont have this time..." with " dont have enough time to take care.."  
- Generally, I am impressed by your usage of vocabulary, they are diverse and interesting. However there is something lack in your paper, which makes me not very satisfy.  
  
+That's my personal opinion. Hope you achieve great success in your study
Hessen, you have taken the wrong approach to writing this essay. Why is it the wrong approach? First of all, you are never supposed to include the reasons that you will be explaining in the opening statement. The opening statement is always just a summary of the assigned topic for discussion and the instructions given. That is the standard, academic, and examiner expected approach to this sort of essay writing. The last sentence of the paragraph should always indicate that the detailed discussion regarding the reasons will follow in the proceeding paragraphs. You should also indicate that your opinion is required in the essay if it is indicated in the original instructions. You should never say "This essay will discuss...". Rather say "In this essay, I will discuss my opinion that..."  
  
The second problem is that this essay indicates researched information from rent.. All English exam essays rely on personal knowledge, publicly known information, or personal experience. You must never get used to indicating researched information because you only have 30 minutes to write this essay. That time allotment will not allow you to do proper research of information. Also, the testing center computers do not have access to the open web, thus rendering any possibility of research impossible on your part. So use only personal factors in such instances.  
  
Finally, your conclusion must only summarize the topic, the discussion information you gave, and the final reiteration or repetition of your point of view. That is 3 sentences with no new information indicated. You cannot add information in a properly developed conclusion because you have a 5 sentence limit per paragraph. That is why you are never advised to add new information at the end of the essay. There isn't enough sentence space to properly develop and defend new ideas at the end.
Topic: **In many countries, an increase in crime has been blamed on violent images on TV,computers and video games. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion ? ( 150-180 words)**  
  
## brutal images on TV, internet, etc., propagate violence

  
  
The more developing the world is, the more increasing number of crimes is. A majority of people view TV programmes, Computers or video games with violent sceneries as one of the main reasons for this. As far as I'm concerned, I uphold mentioned opinion.Firstly, brutal images showed on these devices propagate violence to people. After watching or playing, they add a bad new definition into their mind , which means they understand how violence is. In other words, they awake people's instinct that first step to awake potential crimes. Secondly, they teach people ways of acting violently. Each time running into an aggressive scenery on TV or experiencing a battle on games is you've learned how to use violence or murder. By the same token, people can immidiately itimate them, especially the youngsters. People may consider that violence can speak their strength and power so they'll continue using it for times. Then, it little by little becomes their bad behavior route and the level of violence used by them getting higher. Therefore, it slowly leads them to name as a crime. With all aforementioned reasons, it's beyond question that expanding number of crimes is due to brutal images on Tv or other devices and they should be checked out before being published.