When people succeed, it is because of hard work. Luck has nothing to do with...

[Mashenka]

One can achieve greatness and success only through an enormous amount of hard work over many years. Not just any hard work, but work of a particular type that's demanding and painful. Look at students who are ambitious and determined at great doctors, scientists and athletes. They all succeeded because of hard work and dedication to their goal. I believe that every successful person in the world is not afraid of challenging work.

To start with, in order to become a doctor a student has to work arduously, getting knowledge and doing work experience. It is a ton of hard work. Moreover, that student has something within him that drives him to do hard work. That is a strong character that does not afraid of challenge. And even when he does become a doctor he still works hard on improving his qualification day after day after day. Hard work makes an ordinary doctor, a great and successful doctor.

Secondly, although scientists are called great after they succeed in the field they work, their success is the top of the iceberg called painstaking work and determination. Behind their success are all their time, strength and conscientiousness. For example, Dmitri Mendeleev was a Great Russian chemist who made lots of contributions to the chemistry. As he attempted to classify the elements according to their chemical properties, he noticed patterns that led him to postulate his Periodic Table. All that and more was achieved through hard work and dedication to the chemistry and made him one of the greatest scientists off all times.

Many great athletes are legendary for the brutal discipline of their practice routines. They understand that without it they won’t be able to achieve their goals. One cannot win Olympic medals or any other championship without hard and exhausting work. In particular Tiger Woods is a great example of that. His father introduced him to golf at the age of 18 month. He encouraged Tiger to practice intensively. Woods had racked up at least 15 years of practice by the time he became the youngest-ever winner of the U.S. Amateur Championship, at age 18. Also in line with the findings, he has never stopped trying to improve, devoting many hours a day to conditioning and practice, even changing his swing twice because that's what it took to get even better.

However, some people believe that luck is really a determined point in people's success. Some people just happen to make the right moves at the right time or happen to know the right people or end up in the right set of circumstances. In some cases, luck is meeting just the right partner at an early stage. It is remarkable how many successful people have come across as backup partner who provides the solidity and financial soundness to complement their entrepreneurial flair.

For example, Roman Abramovich would not become this incredibly rich if he never met Boris Berezovsky and Badri Patarkatsishvili in 1995. They became partners and during the next seven years, through the government auctions known as privatization, they would assume control of an astonishing part of state-owned companies, including the national airline, Aeroflot, and Russia’s leading television station, ORT. According to Forbes magazine, as of 11 March 2009, Abramovich had a net worth of US$8.5 billion, ranking him as the 51st richest person in the world.

To sum up, I believe that when people succeed, it is because of hard work, luck has nothing to do with it. Those who fail and claim that it is bad luck are just afraid of challenging, hard work and have a character flow. You do need to work hard in order to succeed in whatever goal you are trying to achieve.

TOEFL listening lectures: A university lecture on Animal Behavior by a professor of Biology

[Richard]

Hi Mashenka,
A good essay from my perspective!
keep up the good work!
Best of luck.
_________________
Who dares to teach must never cease to learn. -John Cotton Dana