Topic: It is more important to be able to work with a group of people on a team or to work independently? Use reasons and specific examples to support your opinion.
We all have experienced working alone or with a group of people; and we all have different perspectives about working independently or as a team. Some people like to do their tasks themselves because they do not like other people’s intervention. However I prefer to work as a team if I have a choice. I think that it is more important to do work with a group of people rather than working alone. I feel this way because most of the time, we succeed in our tasks working as a team; we develop many skills working together, and we make new friends and gain more knowledge by working with other people.
To begin with, chances to succeed the task are more in working with a group rather than independently. When we work with many people, our responsibilities are divided among the people of a group. We can distribute our work according to each person’s skills. If someone is weak in one point, we can give his work to another person of a group. By distributing work according to a person’s positive skills among a group members, we overcome the weaknesses of people in a group, and finish over tasks without any errors. For example, when I was in school, I was often given projects to do. Some of them were a team work, and others were given to finish alone. I always got high scores in the projects which I did with a group because in a team work, we students helped each other to finish the projects. On the other hand, I often got a low score in the projects which I did them alone because I got confused when I worked alone.
Thus a team work increases our chances to succeed in the tasks.
In addition, when we work in a group, we develop many skills, and this skills help us in our life. I would like to give an example to illustrate this point. When I was in college, one of my friends felt shy talking to new people. He could not ask professors if he had any queries related to subjects. Then he joined a student group to develop this skill. This made a huge change in him; his fear of talking to people went often doing a job for one month. Now he talk to people very easily and smoothly. Thus when we work with many people, we can overcome over weaknesses.
Last but not least, when we work in a team, we can make new friends; we can learn about their religious and cultures. This way we can increase our knowledge. For example, I have many friends from my school; we became friend while working as a team on a school projects. Furthermore, when we work in a group, we learn many things from the group members. we get a chance to know their different ideas and views on one topic. Thus we can broaden our knowledge when we work with a group of people.
To sum it up, some people prefer to work alone because they feel that other people interfere in work when they work as a team. However I feel that it is more important to work with a group of people because it increases our chances to succeed in the tasks, helps us develop new skills, and we can make new friends and expand our knowledge when we work with many people.
Thank you.
TOEFL listening lectures: A university lecture by a professor on the possibility of life on Mars
