Pre-TOEFL Writing, What change would make your hometown more appealing to people your age? - revised -

Writing Topic

What change would make your hometown more appealing to people your age? Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.

何を変えれば自分の故郷の町が同年代の人にとって魅力的になるでしょうか。具体的な理由と例を使って自分の意見を支持してください。

☆Let’s Think

What do young people like? What makes the young leave?

若者は何が好きだろう？何によって若者は去ってしまうのか？

☆Hints for Points

To make my hometown more appealing to people my age, I would …

自分の故郷の町が同年代の人にとって魅力的にするために私は．．．

1.    tackle air pollution seriously.

大気汚染に真剣に取り組む。

2.    increase facilities for entertainment/study/networking.

娯楽・勉強・つながり作りの為の設備を増やす。

3.    develop better transportation systems.

より良い交通システムを開発する。

4.    build community high schools and colleges so that the young do not have to commute every day.

若者が毎日通学しなくて済むように地域の高校と大学を建設する。

5.    establish scholarship and free tuition programs.

奨学金制度と授業料無料制度を確立する。

☆Sample Essay Structure エッセイ構成例

【Introduction = Outline】Making streets more attractive would appeal to the young.

【Point 1】Making the streets cleaner would make my town more likable.

【Point 2】I would also like new bulletin boards to be installed in some corners for information exchange.

【Follow-up】Appearance is not everything, but the first impression counts and streets are the face of the town. Also, this idea is more feasible in terms of cost than other ideas like adding facilities.

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】 I would like to make the streets of my hometown more beautiful and exciting.

【導入＝概要】通りをより魅力的にすると若者の心に訴えるだろう。

【要点1】通りを清潔にすると私の町はより好ましくなるだろう。

【要点2】また、情報交換のための掲示板を新しく街角に設置させたい。

【補足】見かけが全てではないが第一印象は重要であり通りは町の顔だ。また、このアイディアは設備を追加するといった他のアイディアよりも経費の点でより実行可能性がある。

【結論＝まとめ】 自分の町の通りをよりきれいでワクワクするものにしたい。

Your Sample Essay Structure

【Introduction = Outline】

【Point 1】

【Point 2】

【Point 3 / Follow-up】

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】

☆Sample Paragraph Development of Point 1 in Sample Essay Structure エッセイ構成例要点１の展開例

【Main Idea】Making the streets cleaner would make my town more likable.

【Explanation】Young people, especially young women, are sensitive to unclean environment.

【Example】However, there are some filthy back streets that few people walk into even during the day in my town. These back alleys are filled with cigarette butts and plastic bags.

【Follow-up】Regulation might not be necessary. Putting up posters with humor would do. Also, it is reported that placing a miniature Japanese shrine gate in the site stops littering. My town should try the idea.

【Wrap-up】As the saying goes, cleanliness is next to godliness, and many young people will visit my town if the streets do not look like hell.

【主題】通りをきれいにすることにより私の町はより好ましくなるだろう。

【説明】若者、特に若い女性は清潔でない環境に敏感だ。

【例】しかし私の町には昼間でもほとんど人が入らない汚らしい裏通りがある。これらの裏道は煙草の吸殻とビニール袋でいっぱいだ。

【補足】規制は必要ではないかもしれない。ユーモアのあるポスターの掲示で間に合うだろう。また、現場にミニチュアの鳥居を置くことでゴミ捨てが止むという報告がある。私の町はこのアイディアを試すべきだ。

【まとめ】諺にあるようにきれい好きは敬神に次ぐ美徳であり、通りが地獄のように見えなければ多くの若者が私の町を訪れるだろう。

TOEFL IBT Independent Writing, Technology always contributes to improving human society. - revised -

Writing Topic

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Technology always contributes to improving human society. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

☆Let’s Think

1.      How do the following two sentences differ? Which do you think describes sports less accurately?

a.    Sports contribute to friendship.

b.    Sports always contribute to friendship.

2.      What is the difference between “the world” and “human society”? Do they overlap?

3.      Do you agree with the statement? Why or why not?

Notes

The word “always” is a key to answer this question. There are not many things that always happen. You may say to your friend, “You are always complaining about your sister,” but you do not literally mean it. You know she does many other things. Most things have exceptions. If some exceptions can be cited about the statement in a writing topic, the conclusion will be negative. 

☆Hints for Points

1.      Technology has helped cook better meals, wear more comfortable clothing, and build a shelter to avoid elements. It also helps transportation and communication. It helps us import and export goods and services. It allows those who are away from each other communicate with ease. It saves us time by doing routines. Dangerous jobs are done by technology. Jobs that are impossible by human hand can be done by technology. Many kinds of technologies make our lives richer and longer than before.

2.      Even if technology causes a problem, it makes up for it. All in all, technology makes our world better.

3.      It is difficult to say that human society has been improved as technology improved. For example, Yuval Noah Harari says that we were happiest when we were hunting and gathering, before we came up with irrigation, rice-paddy technology, which stole most of our free time and healthy diet.

4.      Pollution has caused many suffering and deaths. Although not affecting our life before, global warming has started biting because human society is part of the world.

5.      Victims of technological development will be unhappy forever. For example, atomic bombs made the victims’ lives shorter and/or hard and nothing can make up for this loss.

                                                                                                        

☆Essay for Ideas and Expressions

When it comes to the merits and demerits of technology, I think the following quote says it all:

“Technology is basically neutral. It’s kind of like a hammer. The hammer doesn’t care whether you use it to build a house, or whether a torturer uses it to crush somebody’s skull.” － Noam Chomsky – I cannot totally agree with the statement that technology always contributes to improving human society because technology is created and used by humans and humans are both good and bad.

Technology in itself is neither good nor bad. A hammer is basically neither good nor bad. Man uses it to do either good or bad things. You could replace the word hammer in the quote above with, say, a jet engine, atomic energy, information technology (IT), and so on. Then you could make similar sentences for the same idea:

A jet engine doesn’t care whether you use it to fly an airplane to carry people and goods over the oceans, or whether someone uses it to have a plane smash into a huge commercial building.

 Atomic energy doesn’t care whether a government uses it for power plants to light up its cities, or whether a state uses it to destroy a whole city and eliminate almost all of its population.

 Information technology doesn’t care whether people use it to share information to improve each other’s situation, or whether some SNS users end up with driving an actor to commit suicide.

Our nature and ignorance make technology both a boon and a curse. Technology can be used in both positive and negative ways depending on us humans, and humans have both positive and negative sides. We can be ill-intentioned, weak, or careless. Therefore, technologies are often used negatively to the benefit of the human race.

Also, our ignorance has made technology go out of control. What science knows is only a fraction of nature and technology is part of our society, which we do not remember the last time we controlled well. Thus, technology often causes results that no one could foresee. Antibiotics were discovered and developed to save lives, but in decades their overuse has created viruses called super bugs, antibiotic-resistant viruses. The development of transportation, by which humans and things spread around the world and which contributed to the development of some societies, impoverished many societies, contributed to global warming, and spread microorganisms and fungi, causing numerous deaths and threatening the future of the earth. Technology is almost always related to both positive and negative changes of society.

It is true that we have used technology to make our lives convenient. It is also true that we have used technology to overcome difficulties caused by technologies. However, the fact that technology has been the cause of countless number of degradation of life and death will not disappear no matter how wonderful an improvement we use technology for. Therefore, it cannot be said that technology always contributes to improving human society.

☆Making the Framework of the Full Essay

The basic English essay structure is as follows:

【Introduction = Outline】

【Reason 1】

【Reason 2】

【Reason 3】

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】

Now let’s make the framework of your full essay. Write down key words and expressions. You can use them as the main idea and examples for each paragraph of your full essay.

Sample framework notes:

【Introduction = Outline】 Disagree: a double edged sward; he who uses it can be both productive and unproductive

【Point 1】can be a weapon  e.g. atomic energy

【Point 2】can bring about disasters  e.g. oil well drilling technology

【Point 3】can degrade some part of the population  e.g. SNS

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】often negative effects on the development of human society

Your framework notes:

【Introduction = Outline】

【Point 1】

【Point 2】

【Point 3】

【Conclusion = Wrap-up】

国際教養学部AO入試 reference, problems related to loss of indigenous language

Canadian film made in language spoken by just 20 people in the world

The film aims to preserve the endangered dialects of British Columbia’s Haida people

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/28/canadian-film-made-in-haida-language-spoken-by-just-20-people-in-the-world

Questions
1. What other social and health problems do you think are related to a people losing their indigenous language?
2. Do you think it is impossible to master English while maintaining fluency of your mother tongue?

TOEFL iBT Independent Writing, The mass media (television, magazines, newspapers, and so on) concentrate too much on the private lives of famous people - revised -

Writing Topic

Consider the following statement. The mass media (television, magazines, newspapers, and so on) concentrate too much on the private lives of famous people. Do you agree or disagree with this idea?

☆Let’s think

1.      What does the expression “too much” mean? When do we say it?

2.      Is the broadcasting time for gossip too much?

3.      How about the contents of the celebrity news? Do they focus on things that should be left untouched?

4.      Do you agree or disagree with the statement of the writing topic? Why?

Note: We say, “Too much!” when something is over the necessary or acceptable amount, when something is violating some rule, or when something is giving us or someone else pain.

☆Hints for Points

Agree:

1.    Most celebrity reports can be regarded as invasion of privacy.

2.    Celebrity journalism is doing harm to innocent people.

3.    Mass media sell unnecessary information, gossip, for profits.

Disagree:

1.    Gossip accounts for only a small part of the whole media coverage of current issues.

2.    Freedom of press should be protected by any means. It provides important information that we should know which is often hidden from the public.

☆Essays for Ideas and Expressions

Essay A  Writing for TOEFL iBT, Barrons # 28

...

Essay B

   When we say something is too much, we mean it crosses some line or it is doing harm, or both. Celebrity journalism makes illegal reports and makes celebrities suffer. In competition for higher ratings, its coverage will go over the top. Therefore, I agree with the statement that the mass media concentrate too much on the private lives of famous people.

   Most celebrity reports are illegal. While freedom of press is strongly protected, a person’s privacy is also protected by law unless hiding it is seriously against public interests. Then publicizing a famous person’s private information that has nothing to do with public interests is illegal. Just like other people, celebrities have no obligation to make their whole lives open to public. However, many reports invading celebrities’ privacy are being made just to satisfy curiosities of audience and readers. The reason why so few law suits are made is that there are too many cases and each case is too small, although not trivial, to file. But this does not change the fact that celebrity journalism goes beyond the bounds of decency.

   In addition, innocent individuals suffer because of celebrity journalism. Many famous people have had their lives irreversibly affected by media reports for which they were not accountable to the public. Some became mentally or physically ill, others died. It is clear that media coverage about famous people has gone too far. Some gossipers might quip that transparent private life is the price for being famous. However, the idea is only one side of a coin. For example, the fact that Queen Elizabeth’s face without make-up will never be in print shows that not all famous people have to show every aspect of their lives. On the other hand, it seems that paparazzi have no qualms about taking any kind of private pictures of pop stars. When you make some people, especially those you consider “weaker” or “lower” than you, feel pain while you do not do the same to the others, the action is called bullying. Gossiping can be a kind of bullying under the guise of attention.

   Mass media, except for independent media, are destined to focus too much on unnecessary topics. Like other profit-making entities, media pursue profits, in other words, higher ratings or circulation, and for that purpose they will do anything to attract attention. Also, like other companies, they produce demand. Just as other companies try to sell unnecessary things like potato chips with a new flavor, mass media try to sell insignificant information, gossip, of which we weak humans cannot stop taking a bite. They advertise gossip with sound bites and sensational pictures, while playing down serious matters related to their sponsors. To be precise, there might be nothing that does not matter at all in this world, but watching what kind of information we put in our head is as important as watching what we eat.

   Because most media attention on famous people is against the law, is doing harm to innocent individuals, and is the reflection of unscrupulous economic activities, it can be said that mass media concentrate too much on the private lives of celebrities. If the media, except for investigative journalism, reported only what celebrities want to share with their fans, we might become better people.

☆Making the structure of your essay

The following is the structure of Essay B, the essay above.

Introduction

Thesis: Agree Gist of Reasons: 1) illegal 2) harmful 3) providing unnecessary information for profits

Body

Reason 1: illegal; invasion of privacy e.g. coverage unrelated to the person’s job, beyond the bounds of decency.

Reason 2: doing harm to innocent people e.g. celebrities who became mentally or physically ill or died, a bullying.

Reason 3: providing unnecessary information e.g. pursuing higher ratings, producing demands for unnecessary information

Conclusion

Conclusion Because most media attention on famous people is against the law, is doing harm to innocent individuals, and is the reflection of unscrupulous economic activities, it can be said that mass media concentrate too much on the private lives of celebrities.

Your Essay Structure.

Introduction

Agree/Disagree Gist of Reasons: 1)                  2)                    3)

Body

About Reason 1)  e.g.

About Reason 2) e.g.

About Reason 3) e.g.

Conclusion

Notes 1) What you write in the introduction and the conclusion are the same but usually worded differently. Supporting details of each reason are provided in each paragraph of the body.  2) When you take the iBT writing test, writing a simple conclusion sentence before starting to write the whole essay would be a good idea so that you can avoid finishing the essay without Conclusion because of the time limit.

TOEFL iBT Independent Writing, English is the most important language to master in the world. ～. For example, SV …「～だ。例えば…だ。」 ～ such as -… 「例えば…の様な～」A, B, and C are some of the examples of ～「AやB、Cは～の例のいくつかだ。」

A.    Warm-up Game   Languages

1.    Guess the 10 most used languages.

1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10

2.    Guess the 10 most important business languages.

1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10

B.    Step 1 Composition

☆  ～. For example, SV …「～だ。例えば…だ。」

《注意》 for exampleは副詞です。必ず文中で使用しましょう。例えば、I like many kinds of animals. For example, I like dogs, cats, and birds. は正しい使い方ですが、I like many kinds of animals. *For example, dogs, cats, and birds. は非標準（口語）です。

1.      世界で最も重要な言語は主導権のある国の言語だ。例えば第２次世界大戦終了以来アメリカが最大の強国としてイギリスに取って代わるにつれてアメリカ英語が共通言語になってきている。

                                                                                               

                                                                                               

                                                                                               

1.    英語力によりインターネットの使用可能範囲は広がる。一方で、母国語の熟達度がインターネットの活用能力を決める。例えば、英語のみか英訳しか提供していないサイトが多い一方で、外国語での書類作成は豊富な母国語の語彙に助けられる。オンラインで適切な表現を見つけるのが容易になるからだ。

                                                                                               

                                                                                               

                                                                                               

                                                                                               

                                                                                                

☆  ～ such as -… 「例えば…の様な～」

2.      品物やサービスを国際取引している会社だけでなく他の多くの会社が意思疎通に英語を使用している。例えば大手電話会社のソフトバンクのような多くの日本の会社が英語を社内公用語にしてきている。

                                                                                               

                                                                                                

                                                                                               

☆  A, B, and C are some of the examples of ～「AやB、Cは～のいくつかの例だ。」

3.      多くの言語がサービス産業で使われている。中国語やスペイン語、アラビア語は英語以外で日常的にサービス産業で使われている言語のいくつかの例だ。標識やパンフレットはしばしばこれらの言語である。

                                                                                               

                                                                                                

                                                                                               

Answer Keys

A.    Warm-up Game  Languages

1.    10 most spoken languages

(in the order of the frequency of use, from left to right, top to bottom)

Mandarin Chinese	English	Hindustani(Hindi)	Spanish	Arabic
Malay	Russian	Bengali	Portuguese	French

2.    10 most important business languages

(in the order of the importance, from left to right, top to bottom)

English	Mandarin Chinese	Spanish	German	Portuguese
Arabic	French	Japanese	Russian	Hindi

B.    Step 1 Composition

2.    The most important language of the world is the language of the country with the hegemony. For example, American English has become the lingua franca since the end of WWII as the US replaced England as the biggest power.

3.    English ability allows for wider usage of the Internet. On the other hand, the degree of proficiency of mother tongue determines the ability to effectively utilize the Internet. For example, many websites are only in English or provide only English translation, while drawing up a document in a foreign language is helped by rich vocabulary in one’s mother tongue, which makes it easier to find appropriate expressions online.

4.    Not only companies trading goods and services internationally but also many other companies use English in their communication. Many Japanese companies such as Soft Bank, one of the biggest communications in Japan, have made English their in-house official language.

5.    Many languages are used in the service industry. Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic are some of the examples of languages apart from English used in the industry daily. Signs and pamphlets, for example, are often in these languages.