TOEFL iBT Independent Writing, Do you think watching TV is a useful or enjoyable way of spending time? - rewrite -

Writing Topic

Some people think watching television is enjoyable and educational, while others think it is a complete waste of time to watch television. Do you think watching TV is a useful or enjoyable way of spending time? Use specific details and examples in your answer.

☆Let’s think

1.      What is the difference between the following two sentences?

a.    Listening to music is the best way to release stress.

b.    Listening to music is a good way to release stress.

2.      What are useful and enjoyable ways of spending time? What do you usually do when you have some free time and try not to waste it? Do you read, listen to music, watch a movie, work out, do something creative like painting, or hang around with your family or friends?

3.      Is watching TV as worth spending your precious time on as other choices?

Note: “A” useful or enjoyable way of spending time means that, although it is not “the” best, it is as useful or enjoyable as activities that are considered good.

☆Ideas and Expressions

TV watching is useful or enjoyable.

1.    As long as you keep an eye on how you use it, TV can be an inexpensive, handy tool for fun or relaxation.

2.    Through TV shows, you can learn the norm, culture, language, or trend of the society.

3.    Some special programs such as live broadcasts of sporting events, documentaries, and foreign language programs are hardly available elsewhere.

4.    Popular TV programs or ads provide conversation pieces, which are good icebreakers.

5.    One good thing about TV watching is that it allows you to learn things that you did not intend to. By keeping TV on or zapping channels, you can come across interesting people, useful information, or moving stories. It is like taking a walk in an unfamiliar neighborhood and finding a lovely garden or sitting among strangers and hearing an eye-opening story.

TV watching is a waste of time.

1.    Most of the time spent watching TV is spent watching TV ads, TV advertisement or TV commercials, which are aimed to make you want needless goods or follow fashion trends obsessively.

2.    It is a passive activity. You just sit and watch, while you should be doing something more important.

3.    TV can make you narrow-minded or brainwashed, not aware of what is really going on in the world because it is sponsored by corporations, which can manipulate the content.

4.    It is not a good information source anymore. The quality and quantity of information provided by most of the TV programs is inferior to those of other media. Also, TV news is not really new as the information on the Internet is updated by the minute although it might be more trustworthy.

☆Essay Structure

Sample

【Main Idea = Outline】In moderation, watching TV is useful and enjoyable.

【Good Point 1】Watching big events on a large screen at home is enjoyable.

【Good Point 2】 TV-watching is useful for spending time with others because it is inclusive.

【Counterargument-treatment】It is true that TV is addictive and time-wasting, but if you can control yourself, TV poses no problem just as alcohol and gambling helps you enjoy life unless you indulge yourself in them too much.

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】There are many TV programs that are good, educational, or only on TV. Therefore, TV can provide a good time if used wisely.

Your essay structure

【Main Idea = Outline】

【Good/Bad point 1】

【Good/Bad point 2】

【Counterargument-treatment】

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】

☆Paragraph development

Sample 1

【Main Idea】 TV-watching is useful for spending time with others because it is inclusive.

【Explanation】You can usually share the content of TV with others and with anyone.

【General Example】 You can enjoy an evening with your family or friends watching programs most people like.

【More Specific Example】TV is especially useful when you spend time with someone you know little about. Popular TV programs are often used to entertain guests. You just watch TV together, and in time you can laugh together or pick up a conversation piece from the content of the program such as an idol singer or a succor game result.

【Follow-up】If your guest says that the only program he watches is FoxNews, you could just watch the ultra-right-wing news show with him and learn what the Right have to say.

【Conclusion】 TV is a good medium for relationship-building.

Sample 2

【Main Idea】TV is addictive.

【Explanation】For many people, the act of watching TV itself is the objective.

【General Example】Many just automatically turn on TV when they have some free time and keep it on, without selecting programs.

【More Specific Example】 Even when they select a program, in a few minutes, they get hypnotized and keep staring at the screen for hours while remembering little of the content.

【Follow-up】Conscious use can avoid such behavior but the problem is that TV makes us believe doing something productive when in fact we could be doing something more memorable such as listening to a good piece of music or talking with someone.

【Conclusion】TV-watching is detrimental to our life itself.

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 sketch of a part of your real essay, use simple words and sentences for supporting details and focus on the logic and ideas.

【Main Idea】

【Explanation】

【General Example】

【More Specific Example】

【Follow-up】

【Conclusion】

上智大学国際教養学部公募推薦入試 練習問題 aging society and migrants/immigrants

Write an essay answering the following question.

What impacts can we expect in accepting immigrants? Your answer may discuss ethical, social, political, economic, cultural, and/or other impact.

Hints for Points

1.    労働力不足対策として本格的な移民受け入れ開始

人権問題 (家族は受け入れないのは人道的に問題ではないかどうか 単純労働→差別・搾取の対象になりやすい 2世以降 日本社会からの孤立 生活保護等対象 不満・暴動等)

2.    外国人排斥運動の懸念（仕事を奪われる、テロ等への恐怖等）

3.    新しいタイプの人・文化・アイディアが日本を生まれ変わらせる （サッカーが強くなる、発明・発見、新しい言語文化等）

《参考》

日本を守るために必要な移民政策の｢鉄則｣  外国人差別はNGだが｢自国民優先｣は当然だ 

東洋経済 https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/240476

フランスと移民・難民問題  鈴木　宏昌  http://www.alter-magazine.jp/index.php

Immigration & U.S. Nationalism  Fareed Zakaria, GPS

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2018/06/25/exp-gps-0624-take-trump-immigration-trap.cnn

How Japan can cope with the 100-year-life society
Shinzo Abe must be bolder if a society of centenarians is to stay solvent

The Economist   2018/11/15
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/11/17/how-japan-can-cope-with-the-100-year-life-society

あんた、ここに来ないかね」日系ブラジル人が過疎地の農家になる日　受け入れ30年「共生」の現実

Withnews　　11/24(土) 14:00配信https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20181124-00010000-withnews-soci&p=1

TOEFL iBT Independent Writing, How do you think computers have affected the world we live in? - rewrite-

Writing Topic

Many people feel that computers have been the biggest change in human life in recent decades. How do you think computers have affected the world we live in?

☆Let’s think

1.      What is the difference between the following two questions?

a.    Is it a good thing that computers have changed human life?

b.    How do you think computers have changed human life?

2.      Name the biggest changes in human life in the 20^th century other than the spread of computer.

3.      Where are computers? In other words, where in our lives are computers working?

Notes:

1.    The question starts with the word “How.” This word is about scales and characteristics. Thus this question is not about right/wrong but about quality and quantity. Although of course good/bad effects can be included in the list of changes caused by computers, you do not have to decide whether the development of the computer-based world is good or not.

2.    The expression in the first sentence “the biggest change in human life” means a large scale of impact on our lives like those of typography, electricity, or penicillin that brought fundamental changes in man’s life. The first sentence, therefore, means that the influence of computers on human life is comparable to these revolutionary changes.

3.    Computers are not only desktop/laptop computers but also those embedded in other machines: cell-phones, electric dictionaries, elevators, ATM, industrial robots, etc.

☆Hints for points

Examples of changes:

Study paper dictionary → electric dictionary;  research at the library → on the web (e.g. Wikipedia)

Business making documents with pen, scissors, and paste → on a desktop, laptop, tablet, or smart phone; storing documents in cabinets → in servers; R&D, production, or distribution by humans → computer networks and robots

Travel travel agents making arrangements for you → buying tickets and making hotel reservations directly online by yourself

Household work by hand  or machines without computers → machines with computers; information through family members and neighbors → the Internet

Communication letter → e-mail/text-messaging; international phone call → Skype; fixed phone → mobile phone; direct (face-to-face or on the phone) → indirect (through mails/texts/social networking services like Facebook)

Entertainment board game → video game, CD → iPod, handmade animation → CG, video shop → YouTube free download

Medicine much faster research and development, equipment with built-in computers such as hospital facilities and artificial arms and legs, treatments of patients in remote areas through the Internet

The characteristic of the changes brought by computers:

faster/more efficient, more accurate, better designed, more entertaining, compact, interactive (e.g. TV viewers passively receiving information actively participating in the programs by commenting through Twitter), more open/inclusive/democratic/decentralized (e.g. more information is available to the public and more people can participate), global, much larger scale (e.g. thousands of documents → a memory stick and some CDs), more dependence on technology (spell-checkers, navigators), change of thought (e.g. communication only by e-mails/texts, concept of friends through social media sharing the same culture worldwide on YouTube)

☆Essays for ideas and expressions

Essay 1   (Barron’s How to Prepare for the TOEFL Essay)

    .....

Essay 2

The impact of the computer is like that of electricity. Supply of electricity has totally changed all people’s lives, from dark to light, from tiresome to easy, or from unthinkable to possible, and opened a new era. Computers have transformed the world dramatically into the one where we can no longer live without them; different lifestyles and new things are created; and more democratic society has become possible.

     Just like electricity, computers have become ubiquitous and indispensable. They are in almost all kinds of machines such as cell-phones, TVs, elevators, cash machines, factory robots, medical equipment, and air traffic control systems. A day would not pass without them. Also, the computer has become part of infrastructure. The Internet connects the world and facilitates business, communication and many other activities. No organization can function well, totally cut off from the Internet any more.

     The computer has changed how things are done and has created new things. It facilitates faster, more accurate, and better designed jobs from calculation and document-making to trading to spaceship building. Household work is not an ordeal anymore thanks to electric appliances with built-in computers. As the computer evolves, scientific research and development is exponentially expedited and art and entertainment create things that did not exist in the pre-computer age. The World Wide Web has globalized everyday communication. People can now receive and, more importantly, send out information across the world.

     The computer has given people chances to change systems for the better, into more decentralized and transparent ones. In business, small business owners can now sell their products directly to consumers online, thus reshaping the distribution channels. In politics, government employees or officials who happen to find concealed information that the general public should know such as war crimes or corruptions can reveal it through whistle-blowing websites such as WikiLeaks by sending massive amounts of raw data anonymously, and people who are more informed now owing to such leaks can organize nationwide demonstrations with worldwide supports to stand up against corrupt leaders using social networking services such as Twitter and Facebook.

     I think it can be said that many people’s lives have changed drastically since personal computers and Windows 95 became widespread on the market and fiber-optic cables connected continents. There are concerns about problems related to computer such as tendency to allow monopoly in the IT industry and occasional nostalgia for life before computers while the technology keeps breaking new ground and benefitting people. It is a phenomenon of the scale that involves all the people on this planet whether they have it or not and whether they like it or not.

☆Sample Essay Structure

【Main Idea】We can no longer live without computers.

【First Notable Change】 Computers have become ubiquitous and indispensable.

e.g. cell-phones, TVs, elevators, business, communication, etc.

【Second Notable Change】 The computer has changed how things are done and has created new things.

e. g. faster and better jobs, R & D, interactive communication, etc.

【Third Notable Change】The computer has given people chances to change systems into more decentralized and transparent ones.  e.g. direct transaction, social media, etc.

【Conclusion】People’s lives have become more colorful and freer than before.

Your Sample Essay Structure

【Main Idea】

【First Notable Change】

【Second Notable Change】

【Third Notable Change】

【Conclusion】

☆Paragraph development

【Main Idea】Computers have made people’s lives easier and lighter.

【Supporting Details】 They have made it possible to do activities more efficiently, for instance. They help us with household work, study, and almost all kinds of jobs. Computers embedded in appliances support our cleaning, washing, and cooking. The Internet enables students to do research faster and more extensively, and various applications help make documents and charts, calculate, or manage schedule.

【Follow-up】It is true that not all people benefit from computers and there are many drawbacks in life with computers. Still less than only 30 % of the world population actually have computers. Only rich countries benefit from computer technology to the full, and climate change and much of environmental destruction have been accelerated by the technology made possible by computers. However, it is also true that people in poor countries are indirectly helped by the computer. For example, even people in remote areas in Africa and Asia now have cell-phones, supply of goods has been expedited by computers, and Arab Spring would not have been possible without WWW.

【Conclusion】 Both directly and indirectly, computers have been powerfully supporting lives of people all over the world.

Your test paragraph development

Now let’s practice paragraph development. Choose one of the points you made in Your Sample Essay Structure 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】

【Supporting Details】

【Follow-up】

【Conclusion】