dim/essayforum_raw_writing_10k huggingface dataset:
@smally01 do not separate the discussion about the event from the amount spent on it. Those two discussions go hand in hand in your presentation. For example, when you say that the grandfather has a birthday that is spent on extravagantly, you can explain that it is a milestone birthday for the elderly such as the grandfather turning 75 or 80 years old. The family decides to spend lavishly because they want to have a very good memory of the occasion and also show respect to the elders. Then you can discuss why you think spending on similar events such as weddings and anniversaries are an extreme expense that people spend (not waste) too much money on. You lack the reasons as to why these are unreasonable expenses. All you did was explain how these become expensive reunions. Which runs counter to the question being asked in the prompt.
@Holt thanks for the comments. Now I realize that I might be off topic and will receive lower mark on TA as I wrongly interpreted the question... i.e the actual meaning of the question is asking:  
  
1. What are the importance of the big spending celebrations?  
2. Do you think people really spend too much?  
  
I should pay more attention onto the analysis or at least understanding on the question in the first place... hope that I can do that better next time.
Please help me with my essay. Thank you very much.  
  
*What can governments do to encourage children to eat a healthier diet?*  
  
## Children's health also in the hands of government

  
  
Children's health plays a vital role in the growth of country; however, most people are less concerned about children's health. The deterioration in their health has increased recent years because of their bad eating habit. Therefore, governments should take measures to raise awareness along with boosting children to eat a healthier diet.  
  
The first point I should mention is that governments should bring out some rules to regulate the food industries. In particular, governments can require food producers to fortify their products with vitamins and hygiene substances. Consequently children would eat healthier food without having to change their habits. However, this would be unpopular and expensive for food producers.  
  
Another feasible approach which I should say is that government should regulate school meals owing to the fact that school meal could institute the majority of children's food consumption. Furthermore, government could require schools to provide healthy food and drink for students including breakfast, lunch and dinner if possible. The positive consequence is that children would have healthy meals every day. But this would not prevent children from bringing unhealthy packed food or going out to fast food outlets.  
  
Besides, governments should ask school to include cooking as an official curriculum. Moreover, schools must choose healthy eating patterns that contain less sugar and fat in order to teach students. According to this, children know which food contains nutrition, take pride in their cooking and transfer these skills to their home. The drawback is that schools may not have the facilities to teach cooking.  
  
In conclusion, governments should take children's health as a matter urgency. Not only the government but also the school are responsible for this problem.
**Prompt: Technology is very much a part of modern life. Many people see technology as a force that has escaped from human control. Others feel that technology has improved the quality of life. Do you think that the contribution technology has made to modern life has been positive or negative? State your position on this issue and support it with appropriate examples.**  
  
\*As I was writing the essay, I have thought that I have overused the word "technology"; however, I had no idea to replace the word since it was the keyword that was mentioned on the prompt. If there is any suggestion to remediate such problem, please advice. Besides, any other feedbacks are appreciated. Thank you.  
  
## Expository essay 2

  
  
Modern life is often defined as an era of progression. In the center of the modern progression, there is technology. Considering how technology has been used everywhere nowadays, it seems that humans are satisfied with the convenience of using technology. Therefore, it is assumed that the contribution technology has made to modern life has been positive.  
  
Technology is widely used in various fields, and one of them is medical. Medical technology is directly related to human well-being; the diseases may be treated and the lives may be saved. As well as the treatments of the diseases, humans are expected to live longer than their ancestors, while remaining healthy, by annual check-ups that use technology. The technology already became part of the human lifestyle and have been affected positively to save them.  
  
Living in Southern California could be challenging sometimes; mainly due to its extremely high temperature during summer. Thankfully, our ancestors have invented the very important appliance, called the air conditioner. The coolness that the air conditioners offer could not be compared to the natural wind, especially during hot summer. Without technology, human beings would not be able to stay away from the unpleasing humidity outside.  
  
Imagine that you are the teacher in 1800s and you are about to write letters to the parents. If it was the 2010s, then you would have to write it once ---and once only--- and print out multiple copies by using computer technology; however, in 1800s, there is no other choice than writing 30 individual letters by using your hands. The appearance of computer technology helped humans to save time and energy. Thus, computer technology is worthwhile increasing work efficiency by simplifying organizing patterns and saving them as a file. Technology is not only necessary anymore, it became essential to modern life.  
  
Technology is everywhere and anywhere nowadays. Although humans often fail to realize, we are taking advantages of technology in numerous fields, either intentionally or unintentionally. Expect more positive effects of technology and eager to find more advantages; then you will earn it.
Jane, while you are doing your practice tests, you can use a thesaurus to vary your word choices. This is the listing of synonyms or words that are different in presentation but have the same meaning. If you had used a thesaurus then you would have known that the variation of the word technology includes automation and machinery, to name a few. You could have also said technical knowledge, scientific knowledge, or scientific know-how. There are various other words that you could have used, depending upon the meaning or topic of your sentence.  
  
Now, the main problem that I see with this essay is that the prompt asks you to complete a direct action; "State your position on this issue and support it with appropriate examples." Rather than stating a direct position using the first person pronoun "I", you instead say "it is assumed." which begs the reader to ask "Who is making this assumption?" Hence the creation of a mistaken response in relation to the given instruction. The correct response would have been "Therefore, I believe that technology has made modern life more positive."  
  
Your reasoning is acceptable enough but the use of the term "ancestors" is out of place. Ancestors are a person, typically one more remote than a grandparent, from whom one is descended. I think the more appropriate term would have been "inventors" since the air-conditioner is a modern invention of someone unrelated to you.  
  
It is because of your imprecise details, simplistic reasoning, and problems with word choice that I do not think you can score more than a 2 with this type of CBEST presentation.
Sorry it is me again... hate myself that not able to keep sentences short... I can see that if I were in the real exam I would either not able to finish it or even it did, I would not have sufficient time for task 1, for anyhow I would fail...  
  
## the responsibility of protecting our planet

  
  
**Individual should take care of the environment or it is the government's responsibility. Discuss both views and give your opinion.**  
  
It is argue that individual are vital in protecting the environment, while other believe the government takes most responsibility dealing with the environmental problem. Below show both views as well as mine.  
  
On the one hand, people who believe everyone is essential to take part in the environment protection. The prime reason for this is every policy from the state should be implemented by people in the end, in other word individual's contribution is necessary for a successful policy to deploy. Without people's understanding, acceptance and follow, any policy will never be smooth to implement. For example, if the main purpose of plastic bag tax policy lead by the state which aim to reduce the produce of plastic wastes that in the end not accepted or understood by their citizen, the policy will end up in the failure and none of the plastic waste will be eliminated, even though a significant amount of tax for plastic bag policy had been collected.  
  
On the other hand, it is undeniable that the government take the ultimate responsibility on protecting the environment as of its influencing power to the state people. In fact the authority have the power on setting up and implement rules, regulations and policies to their citizen to follow. The green tax, for instance, a taxation policy of fuels for private vehicles which will create the deterrence effect for those who own and used to drive their automobile anytime anywhere. By implementing the aforementioned policy, private car owners will take public transport instead of their cars. As a result the emission of harmful gases will be reduced as a whole.  
  
In my opinion, it is vitally important for both the individual and government to work together to pursue for a healthier planet earth. That is, individuals should do their best on avoiding any activities which will pollute the environment, and the states should develop plans and direct their citizen toward to the goal of environmental protection.  
  
In conclusion, both the individuals and the authorities hold the responsibilities on protecting the planet. In my view both parties should work together to create a better world.
Believe it or not, if not for the problematic sentence structures in your essay, you actually managed to develop a highly logical explanation for the discussion. You would have scored well in the TA section but had a problem with the GRA, C&C, and LR sections of the score. This is a marked improvement from your previous essay earlier today. You showed an understanding of the prompt which helped you to explain yourself in an understandable manner.  
  
You need to brush up on your plural word usage skills. When you use the word "are" in a sentence, then the word it describes need to be in plural form. Therefore the phrase should be "individuals are". Since you started the discussion in plural form, the rest of the discussion should follow the same presentation. That means the term should be "others" instead of "other".  
  
The length of your essay will prove to be trying in an actual test. So you need to focus on shortening your presentation by avoiding superfluous presentations in each paragraph. Try to stick to the following format:  
  
1. Topic sentence  
2. Reason  
3. Explanation or example  
4. Transition sentence  
  
These are the only information you need to present per paragraph. So you can easily use a 3 sentence minimum for your presentations. Do not over discuss the topic per paragraph. That is why you write too much and lose track of time.
## recycling numbers of different materials

  
  
The graph below shows the proportion of four different materials that were recycled from 1982 to 2010 in a particular country.  
  
The line graph illustrates the percentage of recycling rates of paper and cardboard, glass containers, aluminium cans and plastics of one country between 1982 and 2010.  
  
Overall, the proportion of paper and cardboard that was recycled was the highest among all four classes of material, but this experienced a downward trend after 1994, whereas there was a continuing upward trend in the recycling of the other materials.  
  
In 1982, the recycling rates of paper and cardboard and glass wares were 65% and 50% respectively. While paper and cardboard briefly oscillated before skyrocketing to 80% in 1994, and then gradually declining to 70% in the end of the period; Plastics, on the other hand, took a nose dive to 40% in the year 1990 before steadily increasing to 60% in 2010.  
  
Aluminium cans were first recycled in 1986, which grew steadily till 2002 at about a quarter, before rapidly soaring to nearly a half (45%). However, this was not the case with plastics, despite being introduced late in the year 1990, was recycled at a significant low fraction (2%) at first, but continued to grow steady and then plateaued to almost one-tenth (8%) over the period.
## less children than elderly people

  
  
PEOPLE HAVE FEWER CHILDREN, MANY SOCIETIES HAVE A POPULATION WITH MORE OLD THAN YOUNG.  
DO YOU THINK IT IS GOOD OR BAD FOR SOCIETIES.  
  
Nowadays, the more society develops, the busier people are. Therefore, people do not have much more time to take care of themselves and their families. As a result , they have fewer kids and many societies face a population with less young than old. From my perspective, the phenomenon is bad for societies because it make bad effects for labour markets and governments will spend much more money for welfare. Also, economy will develop more slowly.  
  
First of all, having fewer children and aging population are bad for societies because they make negative effects for labour markets. That is, the number of workers will reduce in the future. For example, a country has much less junior workers to senior workers will face lack of employees when their senior workers retire. As people understand, younger people are active and have many new ideas, so if companies do not have enough younger employees, they will loss many active ideas. If the number of kids is equal to the number of seniors, countries will have enough workers and many innovative ideas. There in, the government should encourage people to have enough children.  
  
Secondly, welfare for the elderly is a negative effect that many societies having a population with less young than old face. In other word, when a population has too much older people, the government have to pay much more money for welfare. Also, citizens have to pay more money for tax and health care of their older relatives. If it is a balance between the younger and the elderly, each person will spend less money on tax and health care for the elderly.  
  
Last but not least, there are no doubt that aging population and having fewer children make economic development slow down.In fact, today, many countries need to hire international workers to ensure the number of workers. Consequently, the domestic income will reduce. If these countries do not have to employ international workers , the countries' income will not decrease. Therefore, their economy can develop faster.  
  
To sum up, aging population and having fewer children make countries face the lack of workers and the increase of welfare. Also, economy will develop less. Therefore, the phenomenon brings some drawbacks for societies.
@Tracytrinh1998  
Hi Tracy, in my opinion, i have some feedback to you.  
In your introduction, the last sentence is too short, you should combine with the previous sentence.  
In the second paragraph in the body paragraph, instead of use phrase: "pay more money for tax ", you can use a phrase " a greater tax burden for...", i think this phrase will be interesting. Moreover, i use too much word " therefore", you can use the synonymous word such as: hence, thus.  
  
And in your conclusion, some sentences is too short.
Chinh, your essay veers off the discussion points towards the end of the essay. What do domestic workers have to do with the issue being discussed? Stick the main discussion points which are whether or not it is good for a society to have fewer younger people and more older people. The problem, is that you do not fully discuss each reason per paragraph and sometimes, your sentence structure tends to confuse the reader.  
  
Another time that your discussion doesn't really flow well is when you discuss the economy. Why will the economy grow more slowly if there are more older people? This is the part where you discussed the domestic workers in the country. That is an irrelevant discussion because that does not relate to the discussion of one generation being lesser than the other.  
  
You are also confusing retirement benefits with welfare. Welfare is paid out to people who are not working. Pensions are retirement allowances given to the elderly who have worked for a period of time. The government is the one in charge of the pensions, just as they are in charge of welfare. However, welfare and pensions are two separate things that have nothing to do with the tax that was paid to the government.  
  
There is an obvious lack of understanding of the given prompt on your part. You are not properly discussing the prompt because your reasoning is not very relevant to the topic and tends to confuse the reader who may be more informed that you are about the given topic. So the tendency is for your explanation to be incomplete, uninformed, and not really convincing in relation to the discussion.
Prompt:  
*At some point in our lives, all of us have faced some sort of rejection or defeat. Write an essay about a time in your life when you experienced such a rejection. How did the rejection affect you?*  
  
## I found the joy of managing the credit score

  
  
Narrative essay 1:  
  
The word "rejection" often conveys a feeling of being denied. In contrast to the negative connotations that the word might deliver, some rejection may give you a valuable life lesson; such as financial knowledge. My experience of the rejection from the bank led me to find the joy of managing the credit score.  
  
I was a high school senior, who just turned 18 and filled with an eager to speak out my independence as an adult. In a purpose of declaring my independence to my parents, I chose to open my own checking account. Soon after the account opening, I started hearing information on the benefits of opening a credit card from the online advertisements. After a short period of considering, I walked to the nearest bank and applied for a credit card. As a predictable result, my request was rejected; right away.  
  
The rejection made me feel ashamed. I felt like a little kid who tries to act like an adult while lacking financial knowledge. Although I was tempted to leave the place right away, I decided to take a step out to get out of my comfort zone and ask the reason why my request was rejected. The reason was simpler than I thought; that I do not have a credit score, therefore I was unable to apply for a credit card. Nevertheless, the teller mentioned that there are some strategies to establish credits and kindly offered me a chance to attend a seminar for the credit beginners. I gladly accepted an offer and came back home with an excitement for the financial seminar.  
  
Attending the seminar was a great opportunity to establish financial concepts including how to manage the accounts and build the credit. An instructor of the seminar recommended me to wait at least 6 months, since I just opened the checking account, and then apply for the student credit card that would help me to build the credit. After a long waiting game, I finally was able to receive a student credit card. Although the card did not offer any fancy features, such as cash back and bonus, I was still able to build the credit by using the card and paying the card debts. The early education of the financial concepts brought me the joy of building and managing the credit.  
  
Now, my credit score is about 800; which is considered an excellent tier 1 credit. I was able to lease my car with a great deal, and open several credit cards that offer various advantages based upon the great credit score. Despite the bitter rejection for an early attempt to open a credit card, it certainly turned out to be the sweet result after all; know-hows on the credit management.
Hi Jane, I believe that you managed to write a level 3 essay here. Your narrative is related to the task assigned and your explanation is clear. Although there are several language problems in terms of vocabulary and sentence structure, these mistakes did not affect your overall presentation. As such, you were able to develop an essay which the reader could easily understand.  
  
You need to engage yourself in more sentence structure development exercises. I can see that you have the potential to write at an almost native speaker level. The only problem is that you are not yet well versed in the typical English sentence structures and proper vocabulary usage. These are minor problems that can be easily remedied by your continued essay writing and language exercises.  
  
Since this prompt was based on a personal story, I expected you to do a good job with this essay. Now I am eager to read about how you will handle the other type of CBEST essay, the one that doesn't rely on personal experience for the discussion. I hope you can post one like it soon. I am looking forward to helping you with it.
Dear @Holt,  
  
Thank you for your thoughtful feedback. I will work on the sentence structure along with the usage. Hopefully, I could find a great tutor from the school writing center who could help me to remediate such problems that you listed. I feel less confident about writing the expository essay. Nevertheless, I believe that practices will do its job! I will post an expository essay soon. Thank you again.  
  
Best,  
  
Jane
## Higher Education

  
  
I prepare for writing essay test at school. This essay requires at least 400 words so I choose IELTS topic to practice.  
Please give me some advice for my essay, good word or sentences. thank a lot.  
  
**Some people believe that studying at university or college is the best route to a successful career, while others believe that it is better to get a job straight after school. Discuss both views and give your opinion.**  
  
A job became an important role in the life of each people, it is true that no one can live without a job. When teenagers finish school, they face the dilemma of whether to get a job or continue their education .Many people think that studying at university or college will make them successful career while others think that there are some benefits to getting a job straight after school. In my opinion,I would agree that it is better to go to college or university.  
  
To begin with, there are some benefits to start work straight after school is attractive for several reasons. Many young people want to earn money as soon as possible. In this way, they will become independent and not depend on their parents. In addition, they will have chance to gain real experiences in the life, pratical skills and learn skills to get promotions. This way will make them settle down earlier, afford a house or have a family.  
  
On the other hand, I believe that it is more beneficial for students to continue their studies. Academic qualifications are required in many professions. For example, police, doctor or teacher require somebody gain knowledge, more experiences and especially relevant degree so that they need to continue to study more. Moreover, derive benefit from higher education will make them get better job opportunities. The most striking feature of this problem is the job market is very competitive and some company required employee must have qualification. Young people who not graduate at college or university will not have more chance to find jobs with higher salaries.  
  
From these arguments, one must conclude that students are more likely to be successful in their life if they continue their studies beyond school level.