TOEFL® essay: If you could change one important thing about your hometown,...

[Florired]

If you could change one important thing about your hometown, what would you change?
Use reasons and specific examples to support your answer.

I lived in a beautiful, large town in Romania, called Galati. It has a great location on the Shore of Danube River that inspired many musicians and poets in their works. I will always love my hometown, and it hurts me to see how it looks today compared with how it used to be when I was a child. If I could change something about my birthplace, I would try to get people involved in community work and volunteering activities.

There was a time when I was in school, and periodically, our class had different assignments in the city to clean a particular area, to plant flowers and trees. We took pride in doing it, telling ourselves how beautiful the street looked after we finished. We also learned to appreciate and to respect other’s work and to keep our neighborhood clean. For example, we would put the trash in the trash bin, and we would not live it down the street. Moreover, as a child I learned not to pick up the flowers or to rip the trees. Early lessons like these one helped my generation respect the nature and trying to transmit it to the new generation.

I believe that a great idea to involve people to keep our environment clean is by reintroducing in schools these kinds of activities and even contests in order to educate young children to value our beautiful surroundings. There should be a way to make them motivated to actively participating in environmental activities, like we did when we were students. Moreover, in my country, community work of any kind does not exist, and it is a shame as many things can be done when people work together, taking pride in their nonpaid work, helping poor people, elderly, orphans, or just cleaning the streets. .

In summary, great things can be realized through volunteering work. It will be a big asset for my hometown if teachers would get the students involved in community work of any kind. I wish I could introduce volunteering activities in schools.

TOEFL listening discussions: Which best describes the student's current activity?

[Kitosdad]

and we would not live it down- on/in the street. Moreover, as a child I learned not to pick up the flowers or to rip the trees. Early lessons like these ones helped my generation to respect the nature and trying to transmit it to the new/ next generation.

Underlined, not required.

Another good essay Florentina.
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Keep it simple ... Keep it interesting.

[Florired]

Thank you so much!
Sincerely,
Florentina

[Kitosdad]

Florentina, your love of your town shines right through your essay. It shows just what a thoughtful and intelligent person that you are. We Westeners are often shown foreign lands in a bad light, but your description of your town and your childhood there changes the picture that I have held in my mind for a very long time of Romania.

Thank you for painting a completely different scene for me.

Bill.
_________________
Keep it simple ... Keep it interesting.

[Florired]

Dear Bill,

I have always felt proud of being a Romanian. I was born there, being educated by great teachers and wonderful parents, and I still have many Romanian friends.

This is my first forum in which I take part, and so far, I really had a great experience! You have been helping me a lot! Thank you so much for everything!

Sincerely,
Florentina

[Nhat Khoa Ngo]

I'm Nhat Khoa Ngo, a new member of this club. Here is my essay for the topic above. Please correct it if there is any mistake. Thank you.
In my country, there are many things need to be changed. But I think the most important thing that I would change first if I could is the sense of civic responsibility.
I'm a Vietnamese and I strongly love my country. Therefore, I want to do anything that I can to improve it. Every day, I go out and easily see someone throw garbage into the streets. What's more, it is really dangerous while a walker walk on the pavement because there may be some crazy motorbike drivers who want to show how perfect their driving skill are. Many foreigners coming to Vietnam are concerned about that, and many other problems happening everyday. If I could do something, I would build more waste baskets on the pavements to prevent civils from throwing trash. Moreover, I would enforce some hard law in traffic to ensure the safety for everyone. I'd also invite some foreign professors to decide an education program for civils, and guide them how to protect the environment and how bad it is while someone pick the flowers or spit into the streets.
In conclusion, I think my nation will develope more if anyone is responsible in making it more beautiful, cleaner and also safer.

[Kitosdad]

In my country, there are many things that need to be changed. But I think the most important thing that I would change first, if I could, is the sense of civic responsibility.( Excellent suggestion.)

I'm a Vietnamese and I love my country. Therefore, I want to do anything that I can to improve it. Every day, I go out and see someone throwing garbage into the streets.

What's more, it is really dangerous for a walker to walk on the pavement, because there are some crazy motorbike drivers who always want to show how perfect their driving skills are. Many foreigners coming to Vietnam are concerned about that, and many other similar problems which occur everyday.

If I could do something, I would build more waste baskets on the pavements to prevent people from throwing their trash onto the highway. Furthermore, I would introduce severe laws regarding road users and their irresponsible actions, in an attempt to ensure the safety of pedestrians and other road users..

I'd also invite some foreign professors to design an educational programme for people, outlining and demonstrating ways of protecting the environment.

In conclusion, I think my nation will develop more rapidly if everyone is responsible for making it more beautiful, cleaner and safer.

I really enjoyed this little essay, and it clearly illustrates just how effective a short essay, without the window-dressing of unnecessary " long words" can be.

Very well done my friend.

Kitos.
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Keep it simple ... Keep it interesting.

[Tictocndv]

Hi. I'm a new member on this forum. Although this topic may be old (i mean you post your essays in 2009), I hope to get your correction to my essay. It is a little bit clumsy and I hope you will spend your valuable time to check it. Thanks :)

One thing I always feel unpleasant about almost schools in my country is that the study hour begins too early in the morning, which results in some negative effects on students, included myself. If I am fortunate to be offered an opportunity, I will immediately modify the schedule of schools in my country to aid students study better and have spare time participating in out-door activities. This will be clarified in my essay.

To begin with, the study hour at schools in my country is often from 6.45 a.m to 11.20 a.m. This means students have to get up early, maybe 6.00 a.m or earlier, to do personal hygiene as well as prepare for their breakfast. To get up at such an early time, those students must not stay in bed late in the previous night, which they could hardly do because of a great amount of homework need to be completed. Hence, when waking up in the following morning, there are some quite considerable consequences that may negatively affect the students as well as their learning process.

First of all, some students may get up late and they do not have enough time having breakfast before the first class commences. Thus an adequate amount of energy is not provided for the activities in the first three classes until the break time. Some even faint in the class because they are not able to suffer the starvation further. Although this only discontinues their studying temporarily, they may miss some important points in their lessons.

Second, some are deprived of sleeping in the last night may feel drowsy in classes and cannot absorb the lectures as thoroughly as others can. For instance, once I had sleep in a soporific literature class due to lacking sleep, I did not remember anything mentioned in the lecture. Even though I borrowed my classmate’s notebook to review main point, I could not understand carefully and performed quite bad in the 15-minute test in the next literature class. In short, if sleep deprivation lasts for a long period, it will apparently have detrimental influences on the students’ performances.

In conclusion, the more I love my country, the more I need to improve it for a better one. Hence, I will definitely change the study hours to begin at 9.00 am and end at 3.00 pm including some extra classes as well as out-door activities to help students improve their school performances and be more active and vigor.