MODEL ESSAYS
MA –
Making an Argument
AD – Agreeing or Disagreeing
PR – Stating a Preference
EX – Giving an Explanation
1 EX (Giving an
Explanation)
People
attend college or university for many different reasons (for example,
new experiences, career preparation, increased knowledge). Why do you think people
attend college or university? Use specific reasons and examples to support
your answer.
People
attend college for a lot of different reasons. I believe that the three most
common reasons are to prepare for
a caree; to have new experiences, and to increase their knowledge of themselves
and of the world around them.
Career
preparation is probably
the primary reason that people attend college. These
days, the job market is very
competitive. Careers such as information technology will need many new workers
in the near future. At college, students can learn new skills for these careers
and increase their opportunities for the future .
Students
also go to college to have new experiences. For many, it is their first time away from home. At
college, they can meet new people from many different places.They can see what
life is like in a different city. They can learn to live on
their own and take care of themselves without having their family always nearby
At
college, students have the opportunity to increase their knowledge. As they
decide what they want to study,
pursue their studies, and interact with their classmates, they learn a lot
about themselves. They also, of course, have the opportunity to learn about many
subjects in their classes. In addition to the skills and knowledge related to
their career, college students also have the chance to take classes in other
areas. For many, this will be their last chance to study different subjects.
Colleges
offer much more than career preparation. They offer the opportunity to have new
experiences and to learn many kinds of things. I think all of these are reasons
why people attend college.
2
AD Do you agree or disagree with the
following statement? Parents are the best teachers. Use specific reasons and
examples to support your answer.
Parents
shape their children from the beginning of their children’s lives. They
teach their children values. They share their
interests with them. They develop
close emotional ties with them. Parents can be very important teachers in their
children’s lives; however, they are not always the
best teachers.
Parents
may be too close to their children emotionally. For example, they may
limit a child’s freedom in the name of safety. A
teacher may organize an educational trip to a big city, but a parent
may think this trip is too dangerous. A school may want to take the children camping, but
a parent may be afraid of the child getting hurt.
Another
problem is that parents sometimes expect their children s interests to be similar to their own. If the
parents love science, they may try to force their child to love science too. But what if the child
prifers art? If the parents enjoy sports, they may expect their child to participate on
different teams. But what if the child prifers to read? Parents
want to pass on their values to their children. However, things change.
The children of today are
growing up in a world different from their parents' world. Sometimes parents, especially
older ones, can't keep up with rapid social or technological changes. A student who has friends
of different races at school may find that his parents have narrower views. A
student who loves computers may find that her parents don't understand or value the
digital revolution.
Parents are important teachers in
our lives, but they aren't always the best teachers . Fortunately, we have many teachers
in our lives. Our parents teach us, our teachers teach us, and we learn from our
peers. Books and newspapers also teach us. All of them are valuable.
3 EX Nowadays food has become easier to prepare. Has this change
3 EX Nowadays food has become easier to prepare. Has this change
improved
the way people live? Use specific reasons and examples to support
your answer.
Food
is a basic part of life, so it follows that improved methods of food preparation have made our lives better.
Nowadays we can prepare meals much faster than we could in the past. We can also enjoy a
greater variety of food and eat more healthfully, all because of modern methods of food preparation.
Microwave
ovens have made it possible toprepare delicious food quickly. People these days rarely have time to
shop and prepare meals the oldfashioned way. We live very fast lives. We are busy
working, caring for our families, traveling, playing sports, and many other things. Because of
microwave ovens, we have time to enjoy a good meal with our family and then play
soccer, go to a movie, study, or do anything else we want to afterwards.
Modern
methods of preserving food have made it possible to enjoy a wide variety of food. Because of refrigerators, freezers, canning,
and freeze-drying,we can eat fruits and vegetables that come from far
away places. We can prepare a meal one day and save the leftovers in the
refrigerator orfreezer to eat at another time. We can keep different kinds offood in the refrigerator
or on the shelf It's easy to always have food available and to be able to eat completely
different meals every day.
Healthful
eating is easier now than it ever was. Because of modern transportation methods, fresh fruits and
vegetables are available all year round. Modern kitchen appliances make it easy to prepare fruits and
vegetables for cooking. Bread machines make it possible to enjoy healthful,
home-baked bread whenever we like. We can eat fresh and healthful food everyday because
modern methods have made preparation easy.
Our
lifestyle isfast, but people still like good food. New food preparation methods have given us is more choices.
Today we can prepare food that is more convenient, healthier, and of greater variety
than ever before in history.
4
PR It has
been said, “lNot
everything that is learned
is contained
in books.” Compare
and contrast knowledge gained from experience with knowledge gained from books. In your opinion, which source is more important? Why?
"Experience
is the best teacher" is an old cliche, but I agree with it. We can learn a lot of important things from
books, but the most important lessons in life come from our own experiences. Throughout the
different stages of life, from primary school to university to adulthood, experience teaches
us many skills we need for life.
As
children in primary school, we learn facts and information from books, but that is
not all we learn in school. On the playground we learn how to make friends. In our
class work, we learn how it feels to succeed and what we do when we fail. We start to learn about the things we like
to do and the things we don't. We don 't learn these things from books, but from 'our
experiences with our friends and classmates.
In
our university classes, we learn a lot of information and skills we will need
for our
future careers, but we also learn a lot that is not in our textbooks. In our
daily lives both in class and out of class, we learn to make decisions for
ourselves. We learn to take on responsibilities. We learn to get along
with our classmates, our roommates, and our workmates. Our successes and
failures help us develop skills we will need in our adult lives. They are skills that no
book can teach us.
Throughout
our adulthood, experience remains a constant teacher. We may continue to read or take classesfor
professional development. However, our experiences at work, at home, and with our
friends teach us more. The triumphs and disasters of our lives teach us how to improve our
careers and also how to improve our relationships and how to be the person each one
of us wants to be.
Books
teach us a lot, but there is a limit to what they teach. They can give us
information or show us another person s experiences. These are valuable
things, but the lessons we learn from our own experiences,
from childhood through adulthood, are the most important ones we learn.
5 PR A company has announced that it wishes to build a large factory near your community. Discuss the
advantages and disadvantages of this new influence on your community. Do you
support or oppose the
factory?
Explain your position.
People
like factories
because they bring new jobs to a community. In my opinion,however, the benefits
of a factory are outweighed by the risks. Factories cause pollution and they bring too much growth. In
addition, they destroy the quiet lifestyle of a small town. That is why 1 oppose a plan
to build a factory near my community.
Factories
cause smog. If we build a new factory, the air we breathe will become dirty. Everything will be covered
with dust. Factories also pollute rivers and streams. Our water will be too di11y to drink. The environment will be
hurt and peoples health will be affected by a factory.
Some
people will say that more jobs will be created by a factory. However, this can have a negative result. Our
population will grow quickly. Many new homes and stores will be built. There will be a lot
of traffic on the roads. Fast growth can cause more harm than good.
Our
city will change a lot. It is a pleasant place now. It is safe and quiet.
Everybody knows everybody else. If
afactory brings growth to the city, all of this will change. The small-town feel will
be lost.
A factory would be helpful in some
ways, but the dangers outweigh the benefits. Our city would be changed too much
by afactory. 1cannot
support a plan to build a new factory here.
6
MA If you could change one important thing about your hometown, what would you change? Use reasons and
specific examples to support your answer.
If 1
could change one thing about my hometown, 1 think it would be the fact that there is no sense of community
here. People don't feel connected, they don't look out for each other, and they don't get to
know their neighbors.
People
here don't feel connected to the community. They come and go a lot. They change jobs frequently and move on. This
means that they don't put down roots in the community. They don't join community organizations and they
don't get involved in community issues. They don't participate in the schools or try to beautify the neighborhoods.
They don't feel like community members.
People
don't try to support others around them. They don't watch out for each others'
children or check in on elderly neighbors. They may not know if a neighbor
loses a loved one. There's not a lot of community support for individuals.
Neighbors
don't get to know each other. When neighbors go on vacation, no one watches
their house for them. When neighbors' children ride their bikes through
someone's garden, there's no casual, friendly way of mentioning the problem. A
simple problem becomes a major disagreement.
My
hometown is a nice place to live in many ways, but it would be much nicer if we
had that sense of community.
7 EX How do movies or television influence
people's behavior? Use reasons and
specific examples to support your answer.
Television
is a big influence in the lives of most of us. We spend hours every week
watching television programs, so of course this will affect our behavior. Unfortunately, the effect of
television is usually negative. Television makes people more violent, more
inactive, and less imaginative.
Many
programs and movies on television are violent. The more we see violence on
television, the less sensitive we become to it. Eventually violence doesn't
seem wrong. This is especially true because violence on television doesn't seem
to have consequences. Actors can be killed and come back for another movie.
Sometimes we corifuse that with reality and weforget that killing someone is
permanent.
Watching
television makes us less active. The act of watching television requires almost
no activity on the part of the watcher. We just turn it on and change the
channels.In addition, all the time that we spend in front of the television is
time that we are not spending moving around, playing a sport, or taking a walk.
When
we watch television, we don't exercise our imagination. All the stories are
told for us. We don't even have to imagine what a character or a place looks
like because everything is shown to us.
When we have television, we don't 'have to invent a way to spend a few free
moments. We just turn on the television and watch.
Television
is a big influence in modern life and it can be a valuable educational tool. The other side of
television, however, is that it has a strong negative effect on our behaviour, encouraging us to accept
violence and to be inactive and unimaginative.
8
AD Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Television
has destroyed
communication among friends and family. Use specific reasons
and examples to support your opinions.
Some
people believe that television has destroyed communication among friends and family. In my opinion,
however, the opposite is true. Television can increase communication. News and other information we see
on TV gives us things to discuss with our friends and family. TV also
helps us understand each other better because we all have access to the same TV programs. Finally, TV can help us
share our interests with other people.
Television
programs give us things to think and talk about. These days it is always possible to hear up-to-the minute
news every time we turn on the television. We hear about things happening all around
the world that directly affect our lives. Everybody has opinions about these things
and everybody wants to discuss their opinions with other people. So, TV news and
information programs encourage us to discuss our ideas with our friends and family.
No
matter 'lphat city you live in, you have access to the same TV programs as people in other parts of the country.
When you go to a new city to work, study, or take a vacation, you will already have
something in common with the people there. When you meet new people, you will
probably be familiar with at least some of the same TV programs. This gives you something
to talk about and a way to begin new friendships.
Most
people use TV as a way to pursue their interests. People who play sports usually like to watch sports on TV. People who like to cook watch
cooking shows. If your friends and family watch some of
the same programs as you do, they can learn more about the things that interest
you. This is an excellent form of communication that helps people understand each other
better.
TV
is a tool that gives us access to information, entertainment, and education. When we watch programs that
interest us, we want to share this interest with other people. That is why I believe TV
encourages communication among people.
9 PR Some
people prefer to live in a small town. Others prefer to live in a
big
city. Which place would you prefer to live in? Use specific reasons
and
details to support your answer.
I
grew up in a small town and then moved to a big city. I didn't think I would
like living
here, but I was wrong. I think life is much better in a big city. Transportation is much more convenient, everything
is more exciting, and there is a greater variety of people. I can't imagine ever
living in a small town again.
Transportation
is easier in a city. In a small town, you have to have a car to get around because there isn't any
kind of public transportation. In a city, on the other hand, there are usually buses and
taxis, and some cities have subways. Cities often have heavy traffic and expensive
parking, but it doesn't matter because you can always take the bus. Usingpublic transportation
is usually cheaper and more convenient than driving a car, but you don't have
this choice in a small town.
City
life is more exciting than small town life. In small towns usually nothing
changes. You see the same people
every day, you go to the same two or three restaurants, everything is the same. In a city
things change all the time. You see new people everyday ..
There are many restaurants, with
new ones to choose from all the time. New plays come to the theaters and new musicians
come to the concert halls.
Cities
have a diversity of people that you don't find in a small town. There are much fewer people in a small town
and usually they are all alike. In a city you can find people from different
countries, of different religions, of different races-you can find all kinds of people. This
variety of people is what makes city life interesting.
Life
in a city is convenient, exciting, and interesting. After experiencing city
life, I could never live in a small town again.
10
AD “When
people succeed, it is because of hard work. Luck has nothing to do with success.” Do you agree or disagree with the
quotation above? Use
specific reasons and examples to explain your position.
When
people succeed, it is because of hard work, but luck has a lot to do with it, too. Luck is often the final
factor that turns years of working hard into success. Luck has helped people invent and discover
things, it has helped people become famous, and it has helped people get jobs.
Many
people have discovered or invented things with the help of luck. Columbus worked hard for years to prepare
for his trip around the world. Many thought he was crazy, but still he was able to
get support for his endeavor. He worked hard to be able to make his trip to India, but it was
because of luck that he actually found the Americas.
Luck
can help people become famous. Consider movie stars. Many work hard to learn how to act. They take acting
classes. They work at small, low-paying jobs in order to gain experience. Then one day a
lucky actor may be given a certain part in a movie, and he gets noticed for it. Or he
meets a movie director at the right time and place.Years of hard work bring him
close to success, but that one lucky chance finally helps him succeed.
Because
of luck, many people find jobs. A person may spend weeks writing and
sending off resumes, looking at
help wanted ads, and going on job interviews. But often it is because of luck that a job
hunter meets the person who will give him or her a job, or hears of an opportunity that isn't
advertised in the newspaper. Being in the right place at the right time is often what
gets a person a job, and that is all about luck.
It
is certainly difficult to be succesiful without hard work, but hard work also
needs to be helped by a little
luck. Luck has helped many people, both famous and ordinary, become succesiful. I
think that luck and hard work go hand in hand.