TOEFL essay example: Playing a game is fun only when you win

English as a Second Language Preparation for and help with the TOEFL® Test and
1

hi guys,
I am new on this forum. I am from italy and I am supposed to do my TOEFL test on next saturday. I practised some weeks and now I am trying to focus on the parts where i am not good. I guess I am not so great on the writing part, especially in the essay part.

I would like to receive some comments and opinions about one of my essay.

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Playing a game is fun only when you win.

Nowadays people play in many different ways. Someone chooses to play a team sport, like soccer, rugby or volleyball and to organize match every week with his or her friends. Someothers prefer playing mental or intellectual games like chess. What is common in all the games is the fact that when you play you try always to win. There are several people that play games or team sports only in order to win. I am not totally agree with this behaviour and I will explore some of the most important reasons that support my point of view here.

The first point I would like to make is that games that involve teams and groups of people can improve your abilities of relationship with other people. As a matter of fact, playing with your friends you are forced to cooperate and work together in order to win the game. In this way, it is not important whether you win or you don’t, but everytimes you play you gain important experiences that can be helpful also in your daily life. In fact, if you were able to cooperate with your team in a football mach you could probably work better if you are required to complete some group task in your ordinary job.

The second important aspect of a game is that it opens up the possibility to meet a huge amount of people. For istance, I met most of my actual friends in my rugby team. Furthermore I believe that this kind of friendship is the most durable.

From what we have discussed above, we can safely draw the conclusion that we should play a game or a team sport not just for the plesure of the win. As a matter of fact, we can also learn how cooperate and work with other people. Moreover we have the possibility to meet many friends.

the other question that I would like to make is how are scored the reading and listening part. i mean, the points that you take are the exact proportion of the right answers you did? if i get 80% of right answers i will take 24 on 30 !?!?

thanks a lot for the help…
Byeeeeeee

Francesco

TOEFL listening discussions: What problem does the student have?

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Hi Francesco.

You have the makings of a very good essay here. Clearly there are some corrections needed for your language use, but I’d like to see you put some more detail into your second body paragraph first. In terms of the content and organization of your essay, a better second body paragraph would make it ideal.

Can you try re-submitting it with more content and detail for that 2nd body paragraph?

Also, did you take the time to edit this before you sent it in? There are some typos there that I am sure you can clean up and improve on your own.

Have a shot at expanding that 2nd body paragraph and then I’ll be happy to look at your essay and give you more thorough feedback.

Best regards,

Jason

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hey,
thank you for the reply. I did the essay in exactly 30 minutes and due to this I read it only one time (and i did not have the time to improve the second paragraph). i work in this way because i wanna arrive prepared to the “30 minutes” problem :D. Now i work on another essay and after i’ll check again this one.
thank you again.

anyway… what about the other question??

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Hi Francesco,

Okay, I understand. Based on your effort here for a 30 minute essay, I think it would rate about a 3.0~3.5 out of 5. There is not enough differentiation between the reasons expressed in the 1st and 2nd body paragraphs, leaving your argument essentially about relationships and meeting people. I’d like to see you explore a different reason in the 2nd body paragraph and develop it as well as you have in the 1st body paragraph. You’ll aslo lose points based on the language errors present.

There is perhaps too much content in your introduction, which in turn limited your time/ability to develop the body.

I’d advise writing a simple introduction and then really working on the body. If you manage your time well, you can go back and add some more to the introduction later.

Here is the model I often suggest for writing a good independent essay in 30 minutes.

  1. (2-5 mins) brainstorm/outline
  2. (15 mins) Very simple introduction + 2 in-depth body paragraphs + simple conclusion
  3. (5-7 mins) Expand and improve your introduction and conclusion (you already have a well-developed body section, so now it is easier to edit your intro and conclusion to keep all your ideas united and under control)
  4. (5 mins) Read over your whole essay carefully and correct punctuation and language errors (do this for the first and last sentences in each part/paragraph first - because those are the parts the essay rater first skims for and gets an immediate impression of your ability - then time allowing edit the other parts)

Essay writing is a very personal endeavour, and this model is basically just that: a model - that one person has come up with. It may work well for you but not others, or vice-versa.

As for your second question, I’m not exactly sure. I know some questions are weighted to be worth more points that others. But as an initial estimate, I think the percentage of questions you answered correctly will give you a good indication of what percentage of the 30 score overall you will achieve. Just remember, that’s an estimate.

The listening and reading sections are not my area of expertise, I know them well but focus these days a lot more on the challenges involved with the speaking and writing parts.

Hope this has been of some help.

Good luck with it,

Jason

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thanks again…
I tried to work as u told me and it is much better :D. I started to work on my writing skills 3 weeks ago. I had never studied how write in english before. the first 5-8 essays were a bit frustrating and i did not know what say in these kinds of questions. Now i can organize my essay better and have more time to reflect on what i wrote.
this afternoon i will show you the essay that i did this morning.
see you

tks