Writing Topic
Do you agree or disagree with the following
statement? Grades (marks) encourage students to learn. Use specific reasons and
examples to support your opinion.
☆Let’s think
This topic might be difficult for many to
give a clear-cut answer. Most people have both experiences of being encouraged
and discouraged by grades. If the grades are high or higher than before, we are
happy. If we keep getting lower grades, we might decide we are not apt for the
subject and stop making efforts, or start cursing the system, or even get lost
in paranoia that something strange is going on in this world. When you can
think of both merits and demerits of a statement, you might want to use words
like “mostly agree”, “partly agree”, or “cannot totally agree” in the sentence
to express your opinion. If your stand is clear, you could use entirely,
totally, etc.
☆Ideas and
Expressions
For the statement:
1) Students can see objectively how much they have or have not made
progress.
2) Students can set the next goal by grades.
3) Competition makes students study harder.
Against the statement:
1) Some students get discouraged by repeatedly being told that they are
not good.
2) Grading force teachers to focus on making students get higher scores
on tests. This will lead to rote learning, depriving students of real knowledge
related to the subject, and make them less interested in the subject. For
example, making students memorize the titles of three most famous tragedies of
Shakespeare without having them read any part of his works doesn’t help them have
any feel of fun to read good literal works. Consequently, conventional teaching
often produces people who would never bother to read novels all through their
lives let alone a Shakespeare.
3) Grading instill students with the idea that society is nothing but
competition and students will miss experience joy of learning since it arises
when there is no pressure to learn.
☆Sample short response:
I cannot totally agree with the
statement that grades encourage students to learn because there are
people who are discouraged by competition. Grades make students compete against
each other. There are two kinds of people who dislike this situation: those who
are always at the bottom and those who just do not like to see themselves
competing against their classmates. Both types can lose interest in study the
moment they become aware that they are being made to race their classmates.
It is true that competition
raises levels of achievements on the whole and grading is a way to provide
students with objective means of reflection about their jobs, but learning is
primarily a personal activity, which is stimulated by pure interest in the
subject whether you have rivals or not. A student whose motivation to learn is
to defeat someone in tests would lose interest in learning if his target leaves
him. Students need more fundamental motivation to learn.
Thus, I think it is
important that teachers grade in reference to individual’s previous grades
based on absolute standards, not relative to other students.
☆Your short
response:
I totally /mostly /partly agree / disagree
with the statement that grades encourage students to learn because
It is true that
but
Thus,
☆Essay for Ideas and Expressions
(Barron’s, Writing for the TOEFL iBT, pp.285-286)
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Writing Topic 2
It is generally agreed that society benefits from the work of its
members. Compare the contributions of artists to society with the contributions
of scientists to society. Which type of contribution do you think is valued
more by our society? Give specific reasons to support your answer..
☆Let’s think
This writing topic consists of three parts:
a premise, an instruction, and a question. The first sentence is a premise that
any job is beneficial to society in general. By the second sentence, you are
instructed to compare contributions of two types of people: artists and scientists.
Because of the premise, you are saved from discussing if either or both of
these two occupations are not necessary. The third sentence asks you to judge
which job is valued more by our society. Thus, what you are supposed to do is
1) compare contributions of artists with those of scientists and 2) write which
job you think is valued more.
☆Note
It just happens that contribution to
society is not always valued rightly by society, so it does not matter if your
answer to the question doesn’t comply with the result of your comparison of
contributions of these two jobs. For example, you think artists contribute to
society as much as scientists, but you could conclude that society value
scientists more than artists for some reason.
☆Ideas and
Expressions
♦Contributions of artists to society
1)
They help us develop our
emotions and sense for beauty.
2)
They cultivate our imagination
and creativity.
3)
They ease our soul.
4)
They increase our knowledge
about the world and humans through their expressions.
♦Contributions of scientists to society
1)
They protect and develop our
life.
2)
They help us save our future.
3)
They increase our knowledge
about the world and humans.
♦Decisive factors on which type of contribution is valued more by our
society
1)
money paid for their work (e.g.
salary, government funding)
2)
tokens of respect they receive (e.g.
permanent resident status)
3)
the way they are treated in the
education system (e.g. the number of subjects, lessons, teachers, and
universities)
4)
whether most parents want to
see their children become artists or scientists
☆Essay for Ideas and Expressions
(Barron’s, Writing for the
TOEFL iBT, pp. 304-305)
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