Can someone help me by correcting this essay? Please??? I am taking toefl® soon!!!

[Iris87]

Do you agree with the following statement? In a team, those who cannot accept other’s criticism cannot be successful.

Nowadays, more and more people desire a successful career. However, it is important to accept criticism from others with grace and appreciation in order to achieve the goals that have been set.

To begin with, people who don't accept others' criticism are usually selfish and they wrongly believe that they never make mistakes. Such a behaviour leads to a situation where a person is unable to correct his mistakes. Of course, this usually has a negative impact not only on that person but on the whole team as well. For example, it is very common when a coach gives criticism to a basketball team. The coach tries to assist each basketball player in order to improve the performance of the team. If just one player doesn't accept his advice and ignores him then the team is likely to lose the game.

Sometimes criticism comes from people that don't want to help but to harm others. This happens in cases that competition issues are being involved. In such cases, one must have the ability to distinguish the helpful criticism from the harmful one. For instance, let's assume that a professor assigns different projects to two separated teams and there is only one prize for the best project. The criticism that one team may give to the other is probably harmful considering the fact that the former want to win the prize. But a criticism that comes from the professor is definitely a helpful one as his goal is to assist his students-of both teams-to succeed in their projects.

To sum up, accepting criticism is significant and most of the times leads to a successful result. Nevertheless, one must be aware of who gives the criticism because not everybody has good intentions.

TOEFL listening discussions: Why did the professor ask to see the student?

[Justin_Huang]

[Iris87]

Thank you Justin! Well you are right about the common phrases that are being used by many people. However, I'll find new ones when I'll take the toefl...
I want to ask you, when we are referring to a team which probably has more than one member then do we use singular or plural? For example, we say "police are coming".
What about a team? "Team want" or "Team wants"?

Thanks a million!

[Justin_Huang]

Hi Iris,
I could not answer your question well. But I can provide you a link for reference.
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=198613

I suggested you use "wants" instead of "want" simply because "one team" was in the context.

Justin

[Justin_Huang]

Another link for you:
http://englishforuniversity.com/?tag=singular-or-plural

[Iris87]

Oh thanks! It's clear now. I appreciate that you searched for it. :)