[TOEFL Writing]People who cannot accept others' criticisms cannot succeed in working in groups

[daisychang]

Topic: Agree or disagree with the following statement:
People who cannot accept others’ criticisms cannot succeed in working in groups.

Answer:
Criticisms sometimes are painful but helpful way to assist one grow effectively. However, people hold on different opinions on whether they can not accept others’ criticisms can not succeed in working in groups. As far as I’m concerned, I tend to agree with the statement for the following reasons.

To begin with, people need to be more advanced in order to succeed in groups, and accepting criticism from others is a essential way to make progress. That is to say, people sometimes find it hard to find out their drawbacks and criticisms can always remind them those disadvantages. For example, I always thought that I could speak English fluently at university. Before the TOEFL test, I organized a study group to help others conquer this exam and to my surprise, one of my members always teased my Taiwanese accent. At that time, I realized that I needed to work on removing my weird Taiwanese accent. Thus, I become more proficient in English because of the criticism from my member.

In addition, succeeding in groups means we should maintain good relationship between group members, and accepting criticisms is vital to keep a nice relationship with others. To further elaborate, if people always ignore criticisms from others, other people will not be willing to provide their own perspectives. Not long, a group will break up. Take my friend, Julie, as an example. She had a Biology final group presentation in her fresh year, yet one of her teammates always insisted that his idea was the best, and everyone needed to follow him. Many of teammates felt unhappy and they just stopped offering their opinions. In the end, their group only got B and no one wanted to have group work with that guy afterwards.

Last but not least, being successful in groups means people are capable of being a good leader in a group , and accepting criticisms is significant for a leader. To clarify this point, a leader need to negotiate with members, control the whole projects, and take any advice from members even if it’s a criticism. For instance, though my boss is a cleaver and well organized person, she can’t stand anyone’s complaint and any advice from her team members. Therefore, team member all think she is not a competent leader.

For those aforementioned reasons, I strongly believe that people who can not receive criticisms from others can not succeed in groups because they will not make progress, and they are unable to maintain good relationship with others. Also, they fail to become a good leader in a group.

// please give me some advice, thank you

[Luschen]

Hi, your English is very good and your sentences were generally clear.
I think your introduction could have been a little more creative though, with a stronger thesis statement. Your first body paragraph showed how the group helped you to improve, but did not really focus on how your ability to accept criticism improved the group work. I thought the second body paragraph was more effective, since it showed how failure to accept criticism reduced the quality of the group’s work. I am not sure I bought into your final paragraph though, since you didn’t really convince me that being a good leader is a requirement of being a good group member. Still, I liked the fact that you used personal and detailed examples. Here are some specific suggestions:

@daisychang

Criticisms sometimes are painful but [can be a] helpful way to assist one [to] grow effectively. However, people hold on different opinions on whether [those who] can not accept others’ criticisms can not succeed in working in groups. As far as [I am] {avoid contractions in TOEFL essays} concerned, I tend to agree with the statement for the following reasons.{I would not refer to “the statement”, it is more clear just to state exactly what your opinion is and your essay should be able to stand on its own without the reader having to refer back to the prompt}

To begin with, people need to be more advanced {“advanced” sounds pretty vague when talking about a person - what would make one person more advanced than another? Are they the latest model?} in order to succeed in groups, and accepting criticism from others is [an]essential way to make progress. That is to say, people sometimes find it hard to find out their drawbacks and criticisms can always remind them [of] those disadvantages. For example, I always thought that I could speak English fluently at university. Before the TOEFL test, I organized a study group to help others conquer this exam and to my surprise, one of my members always teased [me about] my Taiwanese accent. At that time, I realized that I needed to work on removing my weird Taiwanese accent. Thus, I become more proficient in English because of the criticism from my member.

In addition, succeeding in groups means we should maintain good [relationships] between group members, and accepting criticisms is vital to [keeping] a nice relationship with others. To further elaborate, if people always ignore criticisms from others, [others in the group] people {try to avoid this back to back repetition of “people”} will not be willing to provide their own perspectives. [Before] long, a group will break up. Take my friend, Julie, as an example. She had a [biology] {only capitalize course names, so you could say “Biology 101”} final group presentation in her [freshman] year, yet one of her teammates always insisted that his idea was the best, and everyone needed to follow him. Many of [the] teammates felt unhappy and they just stopped offering their opinions. In the end, their group only got [a] B and no one wanted to have group work with that guy afterwards.

Last but not least, being successful in groups means people are capable of being [good leaders] in a group , and accepting criticisms is significant for a leader. To clarify this point, a leader [needs] to negotiate with members, control the whole [project], and take any advice from members even if it’s a criticism. For instance, though my boss is a [clever] and well organized person, she [cannot] stand anyone’s complaint [nor] any advice from her team members. Therefore, [her] team [members] all think she is not a competent leader.

For those aforementioned reasons, I strongly believe that people who can not receive criticisms from others can not succeed in groups because they will not make progress, and they are unable to maintain good [relationships] with others. Also, they fail to become a good leader in a group.

[daisychang]

Dear Luschen:
Thank you a lot for all of the suggestions!!! It’s really helpful for me
I’ll keep working on grammar and convincing reasons