TOEFL iBT Independent Writing, Improving facilities or hiring high-quality professors? -partly rewritten-

Writing Topic

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer. It is more worthwhile for a university to spend money on improving facilities than on hiring high-quality professors.

☆Let’s Think

This question is made up of a comparison. It compares the importance of facilities and professors for a university. Both of them are important for a university. With excellent facilities like beautiful buildings and sophisticated machines and equipment, students can make the most of the tough years of their academic life. On the other hand, professors are some of the best, or at least most interesting, minds students would meet in their whole lives. They are the top level researchers and teachers: human beings with amazing brains, often unforgettable personalities, and the same feelings as those of anyone else. Which is more worthwhile to invest in for a university?

Let’s think about the relation between facilities and faculty (professors) by analogy. Professors can be to facilities what the software is to the hardware of a system. Good software performs exquisitely even the hardware looks miserable as long as its speculations are above some level, while even the high-end hardware would be a piece of junk if the software is not good. Without good equipment, professors cannot perform well, but abundant information that the sophisticated machines can provide is useless without a person who knows how to utilize technology and how to interpret information they produce. The main purpose of a university is research and education. Then, good professors are more important for a university than anything else. Here is another often-used analogy: a top-class chef can prepare a good dish with only an ordinary pan and some leftover in the refrigerator.

On the other hand, a university as an entity to make profits needs a different perspective in investment. They need to attract as many students, their customers, as possible. They need to have features that attract most people. Students whose sole purpose is academic pursuit would choose a university with famous professors in the field of their interest, but you see only a few people like that. University facilities include those mainly for students such as dormitories, gyms, and so on. Good facilities can attract larger percentage of the young, especially those who go to university mainly to enjoy the last page of their adolescence. Students who live away from home might take good dormitory facilities into consideration in choosing a university that they should attend. Students who enjoy sports would choose the university with good facilities for sports. Then updating facilities would lead to banknotes.

☆Paragraph development

A paragraph of the body of an essay often develops its main idea as follows:

【Main Idea】 (主張)

【Explanation】 (主張の説明)

【Detail / Example in general】 (一般的な例)

【More Specific Detail / Example】 (より具体的な例)

【Conclusion】 (結論)

♦Your test paragraph development

Now let’s practice paragraph development. Choose one of the reasons you have come up with, make it the main idea, and develop it using the following form. As this is a tentative part of your real essay, use simple words and sentences for supporting details and focus on the logic and ideas.

【Main Idea】 (主張)

【Explanation】 (主張の説明)

【Detail / Example in general】 (一般的な例)

【More Specific Detail / Example】 (より具体的な例)

【Conclusion】 (結論)

♦Essay-writing procedure

Let’s review the procedure that could help you finish writing the full essay before the time is up, meeting the minimum 300-word requirement. One good point of this procedure is that with this you can avoid forgetting or missing time to write the conclusion.

1.    Read the writing topic carefully.

2.    Brainstorm, typing down the would-be points for the essay.

《The image of typing down the would-be points for the essay》

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3.    Put the points in order. (They will make the topic sentences of the paragraphs of the body.)

《The image of putting the points in order》

【Point 1】#`*&%#@&%

【Point 2】@@&!*&

【Point 3】$$$$$BB

4.    Write the topic sentences of the conclusion and introduction paragraphs.

For example.

1)    Write the conclusion topic sentence

【Point 1】#`*&%#@&%

【Point 2】@@&!*&

【Point 3】$$$$$BB

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】Because of #...and @,,,, it can be concluded that facility is more important than the faculty for today’s university.

2)    Write the introduction topic sentence

【Introduction = Outline】I think it is more worthwhile for a university to spend money on improving facilities than on hiring high-quality professors because of # and @.

【Point 1】#`*&%#@&%

【Point 2】@@&!*&

【Point 3】$$$$$BB

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】Because of #... and @,,,, it can be concluded that facility is more important than the faculty for today’s university.

5.    Develop body paragraphs.

The image of developing the first point (The first paragraph of the body).

【Introduction = Outline】I think it is more worthwhile for a university to spend money on improving facilities than on hiring high-quality professors because of # and @.

【Point 1】#`*&%#@&%. This means that #`****&###```&%%%%. For example, □△○. This is especially true in the case of □*△*○ because …. It cannot be denied that ■▲● happens, but in reality, □◎◎. Therefore, it can be said that #`*✿&%#@&%□☉✿.

【Point 2】@@&!*&

【Point 3】$$$$$BB

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】Because of #... and @,,,, it can be concluded that facility is more important than the faculty for today’s university.

6.    Develop conclusion and introduction paragraphs.

7.    Go over the whole essay, focusing on one thing such as a grammatical mistake you often make.

Note: You do not have to follow this procedure when you take the test. This procedure might be useful for a writing topic that is somewhat rather difficult to deal with. Also, you do not always have to stick to the basic essay and paragraph structures. The important thing to remember is to make the points clear before telling their details and to deal with the expected counterargument in an appropriate part of the essay..