TOEFL Essay Writing Topics

TOEFL Essay Writing Topics

It is generally considered that practice is one of the best ways of TOEFL essay writing improvement. You should keep in mind that the more you would practice, the easier it will be for you to write your TOEFL essays. It is quite possible to have as much practice as you wish by using the following TOEFL essay topics, which are proposed below. • A good teacher is a strict teacher. • A job, which requires a lot of thinking, is much more difficult than a job, which does not require any thinking. • All animals should be free and not kept in zoos. • An intelligent person can be considered the one, who is educated. • A person always acts in his/her self interest. • A successful life is a happy life. • Boys are most influenced by their fathers, while girls are most influenced by their mothers. • Cars should be banned from the centers of the large cities. • Computers have made people’s lives much more complicated. • Education should become free for everybody, governments should pay for colleges and universities. • Extraverts come out to be better leaders in comparison with introverts. • Far not everything that we learn, is contained in books. • Governments of some countries should limit foreign imports in order to provide protection for jobs. • It is always important to try to keep up with the latest fashions. • It is always better and more useful to learn from one’s own experience, rather than from some book. • It is always better to have loved at least once in one’s life and lost, than not to have loved at all. • It is better to have a few close friends, than to have many acquaintances. • It is better to live in some small town, rather than in a big city. • It is better to learn by yourself, than with a teacher. • It is better to look for any information in the library, rather than on the Internet. • It is better to work for someone than to work for yourself. • It is extremely important to be actively involved in one’s community life. • It is much more important to study science and technology, rather than arts and humanities. • It is much more useful for a child to grow up in a countryside, rather than in a big city. • It is not acceptable to use animals to test any new drugs or medical treatments. • It is not important to be aware of what a politician does in his/her personal life. • It is not possible to buy happiness for money. • It is not possible to eliminate poverty. • It is not possible to get rid of the violence completely. • It is not possible to measure someone’s level of intelligence with the help of a written test. • It is only possible to achieve success through discipline and hard work. • It is quite acceptable for parents to apply some physical force to discipline their kids. • It is quite possible to get to know much about a person’s character by the way he or she gets dressed. • It is rather impolite to criticize other people. • It is very important and useful to know how to play at least one musical instrument. • Learning new things is always fun. • Life is much easier nowadays, than it was hundreds of years ago. • Magazines, newspapers and television pay too much attention to the lives of famous people. • Medical care should be free for every person. • Military service should become compulsory. • Modern movies and television influence the way we live and behave negatively. • Money is the best way to motivate people. • Our best teachers are our parents. • People have too much free time nowadays. • People should sometimes do things that they do not enjoy doing. • People, who are poor, have more difficult lives than those, who are rich. • People, who immigrate to some country should be forced to learn the language of that country. • Police officers should not be allowed to carry guns. • Practically all politicians are corrupt. • Religion should not be taught in public schools. • Scientific and technological advances are good and useful. • Some people have too much money. • Students, who study at universities, are to be required to attend all their classes. • Television violence is one of the main contributors to the violence in our society. • The best jobs are the ones, which pay a lot of money. • There are cases when making a bad decision is better than making no decision at all. • There are cases, when lie is acceptable. • There is no luck involved in success, everything depends purely on how hard a person would work. • There is nothing bad in working while attending school. • There should be no minimum age for drinking alcohol. • Watching television is a mere waste of precious time. • Women come out to be better teachers than men.

How to Write a TOEFL Essay Introduction

How to Write a TOEFL Essay Introduction

It is always necessary to keep in mind that the introduction is really not only the first; it is also the most important paragraph of your TOEFL essay. This is why it is extremely important to make a good impression in it. In case you fail to start out well, it may be very difficult to convince your reader, which is in a given case the TOEFL assessor, to take your writing seriously later on. Here are the facts you are to keep in mind about your essay introduction: • Introduction is the first paragraph of the essay; • Introduction is usually to be 3 to 5 sentences long; • Introduction should introduce the topic of your essay; • It is necessary to express your opinion clearly in the introduction; • Every introduction is to have a strong thesis statement. It is extremely important that all introductions are to meet these five criteria, mentioned above. Remember, if it happened so that your introduction is missing at least one of them, it can be considered as being a weak one. Every introduction consists of the following steps:  Step one: beginning the introduction Your introduction should begin with a general statement about the topic of your TOEFL essay. It is necessary to explain what the essay is going to be about in it, which helps to make your reader mentally prepared for the following arguments. Although, you should also remember that your opinion should not be expressed in this sentence, because it is only a general statement about the topic of your essay. Here comes a good example of a typical first sentence: Many communities debate whether or not police officers should carry guns. You see that there is no opinion of the writer, provided in this sentence, there is only a general statement about the topic of the essay. Step two: developing the introduction After your first sentence is written, the time of your introduction development comes. It is possible to do with the help of a few more general statements about the topic of the essay. One of the ways to do it is to discuss both sides of the argument. Here comes the example of how it can be done: There are situations, when guns help to protect the police officer, as well as the public; therefore, from the other point of view, guns can result in serious injuries and even death. When you explain both sides of the argument, the thing, which is called contrasting, you show your reader that you have though about the issue in the most careful way. It is also important to be aware of the fact, that in case if you are going to contrast both sides of the argument, you should better start with the side of the argument, you do not agree with. It is considered to be more natural in English, in addition, you essay introduction will develop in a logical order toward the thesis statement. Step three: writing the thesis statement After you have developed your essay introduction, it is time to write your thesis statement. This is considered to be the last sentence in you first paragraph. In addition, it is also the most important sentence in the entire essay, because it usually plays two roles: • It provides a direct answer to the question of your essay; • The reader gets to know your opinion. Taking into consideration the introduction, provided as an example, here what the thesis statement can look like: No police officer should ever carry a gun with him. The thesis statement here is rather simple and it is direct; it provides the answer to the question of the essay, as well as it tells the reader exactly what the author’s opinion is. It should also be mentioned without a sign of an exaggeration, that thesis statement is the most important sentence of the essay. Moreover, in case if the reader has some difficulty understanding the essay, he/she usually returns to the thesis statement in order to get reminded what the essay is about. There is no need to say that a bad thesis statement usually results in a bad essay.  Step four: putting it all together Here is the complete introduction to out essay: Many communities debate whether or not police officers should carry guns. There are situations, when guns help to protect the police officer, as well as the public; therefore, from the other point of view, guns can result in serious injuries and even death. No police officer should ever carry a gun with him. In our first sentence the introduction is begun with a general statement about the topic of the essay. After that, in the second sentence, two possible sides of the argument are contrasted. And, finally, the last sentence is called the thesis statement, because it is it, which provides an answer to the question of the essay, as well as gives the author’s opinion.

How to Write a TOEFL Essay Conclusion

How to Write a TOEFL Essay Conclusion

The conclusion is called the last paragraph of your TOEFL essay. The thesis is restated and all the main points are summarized in the conclusion. 
It should be pointed out that the conclusion is considered to be the easiest part to write. Still, it has some criteria to be kept to. These criteria are the following ones:
• The conclusion is the last paragraph of the essay;
• The conclusion usually consists of three or four sentences;
• The conclusion restates the thesis of the essay;
• The conclusion summarizes all the main points of the essay.

In case if thesis statement is not restated and the main points of the essay are not summarized in the last part of it, it can be considered that the conclusion is bad. 
In order to be able to write a good conclusion, it is necessary to take a look at four important sentences of the essay. These sentences are the thesis statement and three topic sentences.

So, the first thing you are to do is to take a look at your thesis statement. It is the following one:

 No police officer should ever carry a gun with him.
After that you should look at your three topic sentences:

 There exists too much violence in the nowadays world already;
 Police officers usually do not need any guns, especially for protection;
 Any kind of violence is a bad thing.
And the last thing to write a good conclusion is to put all these points together into one single paragraph, starting with the thesis statement. It would be good to add some transitional phrases, as in conclusion, to conclude, to summarize, finally, etc. 

 In conclusion, police officer should ever carry a gun with him. The main reason of it is that there exists too much violence in the nowadays world already. Besides, police officers usually do not need any guns, especially for protection and any kind of violence is a bad thing.

And, finally, you may take a look at the completed TOEFL essay. Here it comes:

Many communities debate whether or not police officers should carry guns. There are situations, when guns help to protect the police officer, as well as the public; therefore, from the other point of view, guns can result in serious injuries and even death. No police officer should ever carry a gun with him.
First of all, there exists too much violence in the nowadays world already. In addition to the previous point, police officers usually do not need any guns, especially for protection. To finish up with, any kind of violence is a bad thing.
In addition to the points, mentioned above, in the majority of cases police officers do not need guns. For example, my friend’s father has been a police officer for more than 25 years, and there was no time he had to use his gun. In fact, he considers that the great majority of people, who break the law, are not armed in any way. Thus, there is often simply no need for police officers to carry guns with them.
To finish up with, any kind of violence is a bad thing. Someone has told me that a car thief was caught by the policemen, and after they caught him, they simply shoot him, although he was not armed at all, he just said there was a gun with him.
In conclusion, police officer should never carry a gun with him. The main reason of it is that there exists too much violence in the nowadays world already. Besides, police officers usually do not need any guns, especially for protection and any kind of violence is a bad thing.

How to Write a TOEFL Essay Body

How to Write a TOEFL Essay Body

The body is really considered to be the meat and bones of any essay, and your TOEFL essay will not be exclusion as well. The body of the essay is called everything that comes between the introduction and the conclusion. Here are some basic rules of what your body is to consist of: • The body should be about 2 paragraphs long; • There is to be a topic sentence in each paragraph of your body; • There are to be 3 to 5 supporting ideas in each paragraph of your body; • The aim of the body is to support the thesis statement, which is provided by you in the introduction. As for the paragraphs of the body of the essay, you have already got to know that each paragraph of the body of your TOEFL essay should support your thesis statement, which is provided by you in the introduction. It should also be pointed out that each paragraph should be of the same structure, and it is to consist of one topic sentence, which is followed by 3 to 5 supporting ideas. In case someone does not understand what the topic sentence or supporting ideas are, he / she here are the examples of them, provided below: The topic sentence is how the first sentence of each paragraph called. This sentence has two aims: first of all it gives one reason to support the thesis statement and it also tells the reader what the rest of the paragraph will be about. Supporting ideas is called everything, which comes in the paragraph after the topic sentence. Supporting ideas has received its name because it is used to “support” the topic sentence of the paragraph. Practically everything can become your supporting idea, for example some story from your life, some philosophical argument, some personal experience of yours or of any other person, and even some statistical information. Therefore, there exists one important thing – it is that supporting idea explains why you consider the topic sentences to be true.

Common Spelling Mistakes in TOEFL iBT Essays

Common Spelling Mistakes in TOEFL iBT Essays

You will become able to improve your TOEFL iBT writing score, when you get to know about these common spelling mistakes and if you manage to avoid any of them. It is considered to be quite a wide – known fact that spelling is an extremely hard work in English. Therefore, there is good news as well – it is that you should not get worried too much about it, because everyone, including native speakers of English, has problems with spelling and makes spelling mistakes from time to time. From the point of view of theory, your TOEFL essay is expected to be simply perfect and, of course, it is to be free of any possible misspelling. As for the reality, it is clear that we all are living beings and we all can make different kinds of mistakes. Therefore, when a person is getting ready for his / her TOEFL iBT, it is much advisable to spend as much of his / her time as possible improving the reading, writing, speaking skills, as well as grammar. It should also be pointed out that there is a list of words, which should never be misspelled on the TOEFL essay, because in case if any of them is spelled incorrectly, this is considered to be a signal to the assessor that the applicant does not know English well enough. Here is the list of some of these words:  AccountYou should remember about the spelling rules of this word just as well as you do about the money in your bank account. Never write it with only one “c”: “account”.  BelieveYou should believe that lots of students make mistakes when spelling this word. They can write it either “belive” or “beleive”.  EveryEverybody is to keep in mind that the word “every” can not be written like “evry”.  IntelligentNobody would look intelligent enough, in case if he / she write this word like “inteligent”. It is always necessary to remember about double “l” in it.  ProcessNo doubt that it can be extremely difficult to learn something new. And there are cases when the learning process can take twice or even more as long as people expect. And it is also necessary to remember about not writing this word like “proces”, because it requires double “s” at the end of it.  Really If a student is really intelligent, he / she will always keep in mind that the word “really”, just as well as the abovementioned word “intelligent” are to be spelled with double “l” in the middle of them. And it is not acceptable to write this word as “realy”.  Responsible Any really responsible student will always keep in mind never to write “responsable”. In case if you wish to pass your TOEFL successfully, you should really be responsible and write this word with “i” instead of “a”.  Spelling You should never boast that you are rather good at “speling”. One of the signs of a good speller is this word, being written with double “l”.  Their Try not to write “ther”, as well as not to confuse this word with the word “there”. You should keep in mind that this is truly considered to be one of the most widespread mistakes.  Yourself It is greatly advisable and even necessary to keep reminding yourself that this word is not to be written like “your-self”. Remember also about such pronouns as “myself”, “herself”, “himself”, and so on.  Wherever No matter where you are, this word is not to be written like “whereever”

10 Tips to Improve Your TOEFL Essays

10 Tips to Improve Your TOEFL Essays

Follow this advice and you will be able to see a big improvement in your TOEFL writing scores. It is not a secret for anyone that there exist lots of different ways to improve your TOEFL writing, in addition it should also be noted that many of them do not involve any studying at all. And here is the list of the most useful of them: 1. Answer the question directly It is quite possible that you may know English grammar perfectly and that your ideas may be one of the best. Still, in case if you fail to answer the TOEFL question, nothing mentioned above would matter. If you see that the question asks you for your own point of view, you are to write about what you think and never ever about the opinion of other people. However, if you read the question which is about what other people think or do, there is no need to write about yourself. 2. Express your thoughts with the help of short and simple sentence You may have noticed that famous writers can easily express their complex ideas in some extremely simple way. In case if you feel yourself being able to do so, you will demonstrate strong writing skills. Besides, remember that short and simple sentences usually result in fewer grammatical mistakes. 3. Give your essays a beginning, which is called the introduction, a middle, which is called the body and an end, which is called the conclusion In order to be able to do this correctly, you should get to know about the TOEFL essay structure. It is a must that your essay consisted of an introduction, a body and a conclusion. In addition, with the help of this essay structure it will be easier for you to organize all your thoughts and ideas and you will make them easier for your readers to understand. 4. Have a thesis statement It is generally considered that the thesis statement is the most important sentence in the entire essay. This is how the last sentence of the first paragraph, which also has the name the introduction, is called. This is used to tell the reader exactly what the author’s point of view about the problem, discussed in the essay, is. In case if someone does not write a thesis statement, it will be considered as one of his / her biggest mistakes, which are only possible to make. 5. Use topic sentences The first sentence of each paragraph of the body of the essay is called the topic sentence. It is usually used to play double role: first of all it gives the reader a summary of what will be in the paragraph and it also gives one reason that supports the author’s thesis statement. 6. Get to know and use the conditionals like first, second and third widely In case if you learn the conditionals, it can possibly become even more helpful for you than studying all these complex tenses of the English grammar. Conditionals are considered to be especially useful when you are going to express your opinion and provides reasons – these are two things, which are a must in for any TOEFL independent writing task. Therefore, it is also necessary to point out that each conditional has somewhat different meaning. Everything depends on what the reality, possibility and time is. Before using them in your TOEFL essay, you are to get to know how to use conditional and practice them as much as possible. The reason of it is using the conditionals in an incorrect way is considered to be one of the most widespread mistakes, present in TOEFL essays. 7. You should never begin a sentence with a conjunctionSuch words as and, because, but, etc. are called conjunctions. In English conjunctions are used purely to connect sentences, and a sentence never begins with them. 8. Get to learn hot to use the comma in English correctly In case if you use commas in a correct way, this will bring your writing to life. There is the good news: lots of languages use the comma. And as for the bad news, the rules of how the comma is used are usually different from one language to another. In order to write your TOEFL essay successfully, you will have to be aware of the rules of using commas in English, because it will make your writing much easier to understand and you will be able to get more scores. 9. Use the active voiceYou have probably known already that there are two “voices”, used in English grammar: they are active voice and passive voice. And here they come:  Active voice: Children plant the trees.  Passive voice: The trees are planted by children. Therefore, it is necessary to keep in mind that the active voice is considered to be much stronger than the passive voice. This is why it is greatly advisable to use the active voice as much as possible while writing your TOEFL essay. 10. Use transitional words and phrasesIt should be pointed out that it becomes much easier to understand someone’s writing, if it goes with different transitional words and phrases. It is quite possible and easy to connect ideas and present then to the reader in a logical order. Here come several examples of transitional words and phrases: in addition…, in conclusion…, moreover..., in closing…, more importantly…, first of all…, etc.