TOEFEL ESSAYS (Is progress always a good thing?)

Is progress always a good thing?

  estimated score: 5.25/6.0:

Good ideas and good development and support, but needs smoother transitions and more even development. Some of the language and word choices are not quite right.

Original Essay

  Comments-àin red color

The nobleness & the use of progress in any field, to an individual, or to the society on the whole, will depend on what use the progress is being put to, and I feel, cannot be generalized as stated above.

One of the most common errors is committed in this introduction--failure to restate the topic.

Progress has been inherent with the human race. As the human brain developed, so has progress been achieved, in almost all fields known to man. The cultural progress over the ages, have made humans better and made this world, a better place to live in. Similarly, scientific progress has been effective in eradicating diseases, providing better food crops, facilitating transportation etc. Literary progress has helped us better document our history and has produced works that have made us think. Progress in communication techniques have converged this whole world of ours, into the 'global village'.

More specific examples would strengthen this paragraph. If we look at the above examples, we see that they are all aimed at the betterment of our world. Here progress is being applied for the society's good.

This paragraph seems like a topic sentence and should be included in another paragraph. The products from the same progress in the various fields, when in wrong hands, wreak havoc in the same society that they are supposed to make better.

Again, this paragraph is a topic sentence and might better be included with the following paragraph. Sophisticated arms & explosives in the hands of terrorists & children, science of human cloning in the hands of scientists, crop control technologies in the hands of corporations etc., are some of the examples of how progress can go wrong. Think of how much better the world would be, without nuclear and biological weapons, without mutated food grains et al. Think of how many people would not have died or maimed for life, if there had been no land mines ? After witnessing the destructive use the Dynamite could be put to, Alfred Nobel himself repented his own creation of Dynamite so much that he set up the Nobel prize, to be awarded to people who work for the betterment of the human society.

The ideas of this paragraph are good, but they could be better organized for smoother transitions. The example of the invention of dynamite is a good example, but the writer should explain how dynamite was considered progress in the first place. Therefore, it is my strong contention that progress is only good when it is put to the right use, for the betterment and upliftment of the individual and the society, on a whole. Progress put to any ulterior uses should be outrightly condemned. There are some language errors here, specifically the words upliftment and outrightly. However, this conclusion is good and the ideas are good.

  estimated score: 5.0/6.0:

Good ideas and organization, but too many spelling mistakes and not enough support or development for the ideas.

Alll over the world people are welcoming progress into their home, their business and their education. Larg corporations use progress in technology, industries use progress in their manufacture process. How ever, when we think about in larger picture, it is clear that progress can be damaging in some cases. We as asociety have to check ourselfs once and a while to make sure, that the progress is not making to much damage to certain communities around the world.

Speaking as a member of avery spacial community called a Kibbutz, which used to provid to our poeple from the agriculture products we grow in our own feilds, and sell in markets. When progress came to our country, many industries got stronger, and farmers like ourselfs found their selfs without a future for their agriculture investment, that they worked and built for years. In this case progress has damaged a larg community, and made them face a hard finencial fueture.

Another unfourtunate veiw on progress, is the use of computures to entertain children. In the year 2000, when every home has adopted the progress in computures, children find themselfs sitting long hours infront of the compure instead of playing outside or inviting friends over. This way of spending to much time on the computure is very damaging to thier social skills, and even a reason for weight gain amoung young children.

After looking at a differnt aspects of progress, i can say clearly, that progress has to be supervised. That in some cases progress is making a big damage for our society. People sould welcome progress in many feilds of life, but always have your eyes open for littel "land mines" that could make an unreversable situation and future.

  estimated score: 4.75/6.0

Good writing, but misses the point--the essay represents the disadvantage of progress as something that might cause jealousy or envy in others.

Progress is, by definition, an improvement or a gradual development in a status of something. I believe that progress is a good thing as far as it does not create enemies amongst people. In this essay, I am going to clarify this.

When someone takes a step forward in particular field, people say "He is doing a great progress!" For example, when somebody gets cured from certain illness and shows good signs of improvement in health, it is the progress in his health. Students make progress after working hard on the subject. Workers achieve a good position in the company. It is their progress which gives them satisfaction and a good pay scale. This way progress is a thing which gives man satisfaction, happiness, wealth, power or honor.

However, sometimes this progress may be an unpleasant thing. It can be a reason of antipathy towards somebody who is getting ahead of us. It has been observed in the organizations that some employees have intense dislike for their successful fellow employees. This feeling creates anger and in some cases eventually a crime. Here starts the race and worries to stay ahead in this race. Sometimes the situation is opposite. This means, when one of us reaches to a high position, he could get a feeling of too much self importance and show disregard towards others.

Well, as described above, in my opinion, progress is a pleasant thing until it does not create evils amongst us. We should admire others for their progress, then it is not too far from us also.

  estimated score: 4.75/6.0:

Good ideas, but the grammar mistakes and "non-English use of language" lower the score.

Some people say that progress is always a good thing. I think that it is not really true. I n this essay, I will argue against this view. I agree to that progress make our life good, but not ' always'.

The progress in technology sometimes give us negative impact on our life. Since industry revolution happened in Europe, Technological development has ever made our life more and more convenient, at same time, it also impact negatively on the world. Let us take automobile as an example. After automobiles were invented. the transportation has been improved very much, but simultaneously, our environment has been polluted badly with discharging waste gas, and situation becomes worse and worse. Second example is progress in chemical industry and medicine manufacture. These kinds of products provide us plastic products that have improved our routine life, such as plastic kitchen utensils and plastic bag used in supermarket. On the other hand, when these products were produced , a lot of waste material spewed out to atmosphere and into the river. this negative effect is great influence on our earth.

some technological progress will be subject to a disaster to human being. Everybody in the world has known that nuclear weapon that some country has kept can destroy our world many times. Majority of scientist just wanted to provided a new power resource for people's life, it will be a clean, free of pollution and high efficient power source in fact, it indeed is our current useful power power resource. However, huge threat is in front of us, a single disagreement between the super power countries can trigger the disaster. In this case, the negative impact of the progress in nuclear technology will outweigh the advantage of that.

Based on abovementioned, I will be in favor of that progress is not always a good thing, sometimes it will give us negative impact.

  estimated score: 4.25/6.0

Starts off strong, but does not show that progress is bad; shows only that progress is good.

Some people think that progress is always a good thing. I don't agree with this point of view. In my opinion progress is only a good thing under certain circumstances, not always. A progress may encourage people and may make people become more confident. In this case, it's a good thing. A progress may also give some guy a feeling that he's so good, then he just becomes arrogant and stops making efforts. If this happens, a progress may not be a good thing.

Almost all of us went to schools. I'll take a student as an example. If a student has been working very hard but he keeps receiving not so good scores, he may become diffident and lose his courage. It'll be a disaster for someone if he doesn't have his confidence and courage, which everybody will need to face some challenges sooner or later. He is bound to lose at school or later at career without confidence and courage. A better score is a progress for him, which will encourage him and help him to win his self-confidence back, with which he'll succeed.

If the student gets an excellent, better than ever score, he's made a progress. What does the progress reflect? His past efforts, helps from other teachers and classmates, etc. The progress only reflects the past, not the future. Some people just don't realize this and assume they'll be good for ever. If one stops making efforts, he's not going make any future
progresses. In another word, he'll lose his future successes.

In conclusion, it is my opinion that progress is sometimes a good thing, but it may also turn out to be a loss if it's not treated properly. Therefore, I disagree with the assertion that progress is always a good thing.

  estimated score: 4.25/6.0

On-topic and well-written, but needs development. This essay is essentially a good introduction.

Certainly, fifty years ago life was not as easy at it seems to be now. Communication, technology, medicine, living standards are incredibly different from the ones our parents and great parents got to know. Progress is a phenomenon that amazes us day after day and it is without hesitation a daily concern.

Our lives have turn to be easy going, not really demanding and comfort has just become a daily duty. Computers, cellular phones, and the most advanced technology is invading our privacy, and seem to be more than necessary to keep us going. Years, ago their needs were not as much as ours now, they could live, with
less comfort but with more peace, and the stress to obtain materials goods was not a priority in lives.

It is true the fact that progress changed our parents passive world into our daily active one, based in incomes and in competitions. It is good to feel we are part of this new world, capable to offer a great variety of options, capable to let us choose our best. Live without progress, in all senses would not be a life, and the challenging spirit of men would not be meaningful with not progress at all.

  estimated score: 4.0/6.0

On-topic, but but would be stronger with more development in the third and fourth paragraphs.

I disagree of that statement because progress brings whit it a lot of good things but it also brings wrong ideas about our world and ourselves.

Throughout the years the human beings have got a lot of progress both in science and technology, which it has increased the understanding of our world and it has made our lives easier and comfortable. Only if you think in your home and all of the things you have in there, like microwave ovens, blenders, washing and drying machines, etc, you can find many examples of what man has got with new inventions and technologies. So it is medical researches that have found the cure for so many diseases that were before a sure death .

However, progress has led to develop many devices not good for humanity, like the massive destruction weapons, that are opposite to the principal right of the human beings: the right to live.

Hence, that it is important to think about progress in both sides good and not so good things when you evaluate its role for the people.

  estimated score: 4.0/6.0:

Very well written, but misses the point somewhat. The second paragraph talks about the value of hard work and the third paragraph shows how success can lead to complacence.

No, I do not agree with the notion that progress is always a good thing. There is no doubt that progress is something everyone wants but this doesn't necessarily mean that it is always good. In my opinion progress can do as much harm as it can do good. It all depends on the way someone takes his progress.

For instance, if a hard working person, who has been no stranger to struggle and failure, achieves progress, he understands that the progress he got is due to his perseverance. He realized the fact that progress can be made by working hard. So he will be encouraged to work even harder and make even more progress. In this case, progress has made a good impact on the person's life.

Now let's visualize another case. Suppose another man, who is not hard working and has had everything easy in his life also achieves progress. This is rather unlikely but we cannot rule out the possibility. Now this progress can have adverse effect on his mentality. Because he hasn't worked hard for it he might take his success for granted. This might lead to negligence in his work and this will eventually lead to his failure in more demanding work. When the failure does come the man may realize his mistake, but by then it might have become too late. So, this man has been spoilt by his initial progress.

Now these are only two examples and there are many more people with different attitudes towards life and hence will be affected differently by progress. So, owning to the number of people on this planet it is not hard to realize that progress is not always a good thing.

  estimated score: 3.75/6.0

Some good ideas and writing, but "misses the point."

I don't think progress is always a good thing. Instead, it can be obstacles if we cannot deal well with it.

Sometimes, progress may keep people from learning from others. If we take too much pride in our progress, being too satisfied with it, we may stop improving. The thought of self-important may evokes, and thus keep us from being modest. People may begin to contempt the other people, not willing to listen to the ideas of others, and result in stay in the same position until they realize the problem. As we all know, China was once the leading country in the world in history, many nations admired the advanced technique in China at those days. So the kings took great pride in it, and became to be so self important that they decided to close the door to communicate with other countries during Qing Dynasty. Then we lost the opportunity to learn from others and we are left behind now.

The second, progress may cause jealousy from others and the progress-maker may be isolated. This happens most in the working environment. Progress will bring advantages such as position-promoted or salary-raised, this may caused trouble if the workmates envy you. That will be too bad.

So, if we make some progress, we must be aware of either ourselves or the people around us, to be modest, and to be alert with the potential plot lying ahead.

Don’t read this..just go thro this…shouldn’t write like this….(below)

  estimated score: ???/6.0: Off-topic

Does not address any topic in particular, some awkward language.

As there's an old saying "Practice makes perfect",I totally agree with the statement. Quiet a few peole may disagree with it because of its long period to make things right,and other petty things though.

I've experienced lots of events or some meeting situations,since I've been a captain in my class,and it was a really tough thing to make my friends harmonious. That means that whenever I had to extract only one opinion out of fifty friends' of mine, I felt the limitness of my ability to control my class. Because I wanted my friends to follow my opinion to make progress simple and easy, I usually quarrel with them,and make things scattered and more confused.

Therefore I realized that the progress is inevitable in social life and I changed my thought. After that, I could control my class much more easier than before actually. Through several discussions and debates,my friends and I could learn to repect other people's opinions and that make things much better and easier after all ,which means we managed to sustain generosity in our minds that made the whole situation smoothe and cheerful.

Therefore I think progress is always a good thing in retrospect of my past experiences that I refered above.

What to write about for a good score:

Like most things, progress is neither all good nor all bad. Progress has brought great advancements in standards of living, but it has also caused great damage to the Earth and its people in the form of environmental damage and more effective weaponry.

Most common error with this essay topic:

"Missing the point."

Some essays claim that progress is always a good thing, for example, in school or in one's career, but fail to talk about the sacrifices or disadvantages involved in making that progress.

Other essays missed the point in another way--they discussed how advancing in one field might coincidentally lead to misfortune, for example, moving to a new city because of a promotion at work and dying in a car accident in the new city. Such an event is not truly related to the progress; rather, it is simply an unfortunate coincidence.

Still other essays did not discuss "progress;" rather, they discussed "success" and the advantages and disadvantages of success rather than the advantages and disadvantages of progress.

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