Please give me some comments on my writing exercise. Thanks a lot
Topic: Government funding in university should be provided for scholarship for the best students. All other funding can find from student fees and private organization. To what extent do you agree?
My essay
Some people believe that student grants from government financial assistance should be only given to top students and all other funding can be derived from tuition fees and non-governmental organization. While I disagree that the highest achievers are the only people getting the government-sponsored scholarship, I contend that school fees and private corporations can contribute other funding in universities.
On the one hand, there are two main reasons why awards should be not only distributed to students with excellent performance but also students with poor background finance. The main explanation is that without government support, students from low-income backgrounds fail to pursue higher education. Obviously, being unable to widen their knowledge together with nurturing soft skills through university education, these students might have considerable difficulties in getting high paying jobs in a fierce job market. As a result, these individuals can not improve their current living standard. Secondly, it is common knowledge that many elite students living in many affluent families can find it easy to afford school fees, therefore governmental scholarship might be unnecessary to them.
On the other hand, given that operating expense of universities is considerably higher than the government funding, universities can derive tremendous benefits from tuition fees and non- governmental corporation contributions. Firstly, utilizing other funding sources would decrease an enormous strain on governmental budgets. It is clear that if there is no financial support from tuition fees and private organizations, the authorities would struggle with investing money in many aspects such as state-of- the–art facilities, reference books, and other educational necessities to ensure the best study condition for all students in universities in the long. Another advantage of the other funding sources is that only by making use of enormous funding from school fees and independent organizations, could more universities and colleges be founded to allow more students not only to get access to tertiary education but also have more options to follow their preferred majors.
In conclusion, I believe that scholarship in universities from funding by the state should be offered to both the most remarkable students and children suffering finance hardship and universities should utilize other contributions from tuition fees and private associations for other expenses.
Hi Th Bui, I don’t really like this prompt very much. It is confusing to me exactly what the two options are, because as you say, you can disagree that scholarships should only be for the best students, but also agree that funding from student fees and private organizations should be used, and furthermore agree that government funding is also critical.
Your thesis statement was confusing to me, partially because the prompt itself is confusing. Your essay seemed to make a lot of sense though.
Here are some specific suggestions:
Hi Luschen
I highly appreciate your comments and useful advice. Actually, I don’t really understand the issue question since it is too tricky for me. I have still 2 questions.
This question is a two-view essay, isn’t it? View 1: Government funding should be provided for scholarship for only the best students. View 2: Other funding can find from student fees and private organizations.
I think I have a problem with my essay introduction. My opinion is that I party agree with the view (disagree with view 1 and agree with view 2).
Please answer my questions. Thanks very much.
Have a nice day.
Hi Th Bui, I agree that this question is very tricky, or at least somewhat ambiguous. Originally I thought this was just a straight agree/disagree prompt.
This is what I said previously in another thread on this same essay topic: "Here the government has two choices - 1. the government can give money in the form of scholarships to the top students, which the students then pass on to the university, with this being the sole government support the university gets. Or 2. Some other funding method - probably the government gives a lump sum to the university for the university to use at it sees fit. " But after your comment, I agree that it can also be seen as a two part prompt. I found this sample essay that I think is very good. A lot of “sample essays” on the internet are full of errors, but this guy seems to really know what he is doing and I agree that this essay would score at a high band: Task 2 Sample Answer - TED IELTS
You can see that in his introduction, he treats this as an agree/disagree style prompt, but as you suggest doing, he says he “agrees up to a point”. Usually for agree/disagree essays it is easier if you strongly support one side or the other and just argue for that side. But here, it is clear to me that both sides have strong advantages and really are not mutually exclusive - colleges should obviously give smart kids scholarships, but poor kids should get scholarships too, and government funding does not need to be limited to these scholarships. You can see that this sample essay has body paragraphs that read more like a two-part essay, with part one explaining why other scholarships should also be given, and part two discussing the effects of different funding sources on universities. I think this prompt and sample essay shows that trying to “cram” an essay into a specific template does not always work. Sometimes you just need to write about the topic, and as long as you cover the points mentioned in the prompt and have a clear format that makes sense and is easy to follow, you will be ok.