TOEFL essay: Which place would you prefer to live in? Big city or small town?

hello, please rate my essay!

TOEFL Topic 010: Some people prefer to live in a small town. Others prefer to live in a big city. Which place would you prefer to live in?

Both big city and small town have separate/independent advantages and disadvantages. Which place people prefer to live depends on their hobby and job. Big city is noisier than small town with many restaurants, bars, cinemas, theatres, and parks. In contrast with hometown, there are hay hills, green meadows, wooden small house, and peaceful river. Therefore, small town is suitable for people who do not like noisy.

Moreover, small town is less companies and factories than big city. Big city is full of skyscrapers and vehicles instead of green trees, windy fields and pollute river like countryside. As a result, it is easy to face up with traffic jam in rush hour and polluted air with smoke from factories in the noisy era. Obviously, it causes more bad impact for people living in big city than ones locating in countryside. Perhaps, it is the reason of there is more hospital in big city as well.

The last thing but the most important thing is that there are more opportunities of job in city than in hometown. Logically, many youths leave from their small town to big cities for bright future. It is a public phenomenon in developing countries such as Vietnam - my country. In hometown, workforce is both lacking and unwell-trained. On the other hand, in big city, many unemployed lack of ability to afford jobs; they are odd workforce.

Consequently, city life is appropriate for young and healthy people; countryside life is good for the rest. On the other hand, in my opinion, it is necessary to have a balance between big city and small town. In addition, despite of disadvantages and advantages of big city, I would like city life than small city.

TOEFL listening discussions: How many types of IMA passes are available?

Hi thanhsoi. I’m from Vietnam too. Smile

I’ll be honest about your essay. It is not good enough, and i would give it a 2 out of 5. Sorry but it contains way too many flaws.

The first thing is you need to improve your grammar. Remember to include an article (a/an/the) right before some nouns like those ‘big city’, ‘town’ in your essay. Also pay attention to whether to use plural or singular nouns. (‘their jobs’, for example). You also have problems with your word forms.

Secondly, you are not writing about what the topic asks you to do. Read the instruction carefully. It asks you to tell the readers ‘do you prefer living in a city or living in a small town, and why’. In your essay you basically list the advantages and disadvantages of the two options. You’re completely off topic.

The most important thing in academic writing: organization. You need to have a fixed structure for your essays. In the introduction you introduce the topic, you need to include a thesis statement to tell the readers what you’re going to write about in the rest of the essay. The body paragraphs are where you put your supporting ideas. In the concluding paragraph you can paraphrase the introduction or draw some solutions/comments on the same topic.

Your writing style is not acceptable unfortunately. It’s too Vietnamese. Don’t think of it in Vietnamese and then translate your thoughts to English word-by-word using a Vietnamese-English dictionary.

Finally pay attention to your vocabulary and word choice. I would point out some vocab mistakes for you (sorry i’m too tired now to correct them for you)
peaceful river, noisy era, ones locating in countryside, public phenomenon, unwell-trained, odd workforce, separate/independent advantages

Hope that helps.

Truong Pham

thx u so much! i must learn as hard as possible!
thx u :X

I agreed with the second topic, You didn’t answer what you asked for. I have the same problems and my grammar is worse than yours. I have to improve it.

haiz, let’s try together!

Let’s !=)

So, Let’s try ! My theme of the essay for you is : How does a witty help you in your life? Discribe a situation when it helps you. You’ll write it and I check it,okey? And after that we change.

=)) approval!
U post ur essay, and I will read and comment on it, uki?

That’s suitable way for me=). I need some time for thinking and writing.

So, two years ago I worked for one of the best local retail firms which name is “Iceberg”. And in one wonderful day I was going to purchase goods (musical discs) but my boss doesn’t give me money for that because he hasn’t got one. Then I asked him what I should do if I don’t. I tried to explain him that my salary totally depends on it. Well, I tried to expand the situation through a fact that we haven’t got a new Madonna’s album due to which we could be increase our proceeds. When I understood that I have no chance to submerge him on the problem I was going to our partners end propose they to write some letter for my boss. The letter most contain a text of that you rose price for us. After all my boss left to me and said : “Andrew, what are you doing here? You must go and buy something for our business because we really less our profit!”

I’m sure that I have couple of mistakes above ! I’m waiting for your comments=) If honestly, I never do that before!
Many thanks in advance!

in my opinion, “so” and “and” standing as first words of 2 first sentence is too unformal, it is speaking English, not wirting one. secondly, the 1st phrase of the 2nd sentence is in past tense, but the 2nd one of the same sentence is in present tense, it is unlogical. It is a situation that you actually pasted, so you should use past tense.

Why dont you create a new topic for receiving more comments?

I’ll do that =) Thanks for you ! Sometimes I really don’t see the diffirence between tenses.