TOEFL® essay sample: Uncertainty

[CorrieSam]

Hello everyone,

My name is Samantha and I am a grade 12 student attending Heritage Woods in British Columbia. For those of you who does not know where is British Columbia is, it is in Canada. The reason why I joined this forum is because I need some help with writing an essay for my final exam. My final is in less than 3 weeks and I really need to improve on my grammar and my thinking process. I have a practice essay I wrote yesterday and I would like to have someone to critique it. The essay topic is called "Uncertainty"

Uncertainty

Uncertainty, what can I write about it? For once, I am really uncertain what to write about. I simply can not think of anything to write about it. The more I think about it, the more angrily and frustrated I am. I have been pondering for 10 minutes and I still can not come up with anything. Since I can not come up with something, I can write about my struggle with uncertainty.

Before I got to the essay section, I thought the entire exam was a little challenging yet manageable. Everything was fine until I looked at the essay topic. First I thought it was easy, piece of cake; unfortunately, I was wrong. This essay topic is by far the most difficult one I have ever written. I simply got stumped by the word “uncertainty”. I thought about how uncertainty runs through our lives, but, I was not sure if it is right. The first idea was about how people were not sure about deciding on certain things. Well, that’s one thing about uncertainty; I know there is more to it than just deciding on something. Just thinking about uncertainty makes me feel baffled. I am not sure if baffled is the right word to describe my feeling towards this essay. Well, the simplest word to describe my feeling toward this is UNCERTAIN!

Usually when I encounter uncertainty, I would simply give up and try to run away from it. I guess my middle name should be called Uncertainty because I am always uncertain about things. Uncertainty seems to always find me when I am dealing with tricky situations. I am just kidding; usually when I am uncertain about something, I seek for help from others. Unfortunately, I can not ask for help this time since this is an exam essay. If only I had someone here who can help me and guide me through it. On second thought, I take that back; if I had someone with me, that would make me a cheater on the exam.

Dealing with this essay is troublesome because I am still uncertain if this essay is right. Basically, this essay is jeopardizing my future. I am counting on this essay to determine my future which is going into a university to pursue my pediatric nurse degree. I am really scared that my goal will not be reached and I will disappoint myself and my family for not trying. I guess the only thing I can do right now is to try my best and hope that my effort will be good enough to determine my goal.

[EnglishRaven]

Hi CorrieSam,

Are you sure this is a TOEFL essay topic (or sample)???

In my opinion it is a rather different genre of writing, with considerable scope for a creative element or approach.

Personally, I think your essay is pretty cool and interesting to read. It's extremely personal and honest, which is great and usually has a positive impact on readers.

Where I think you could perhaps make improvements here is in terms of:

1) Being careful not to repeat essential ideas too often, and avoid producing strings of sentences that are repetitive in nature and do not really develop a clear idea for the reader to grasp.

2) Change some of the content in the 1st body paragraph to being more about a creative description of your feelings when dealing with uncertainty. How does uncertainty impact on you physically or mentally?

3) Provide an example in the 2nd body paragraph of another time or situation when you exhibited strong uncertainty, and how that correlates to your feelings/situation when writing the essay.

Hope those points give you some ideas for adapting your approach...

And GOOD LUCK in your finals!

Best,

Jason