Question: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?It is more important to set realistic goals than ambitious goals.Use specific reasons and examples to support your response.

Essay topics:

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?

It is more important to set realistic goals than ambitious goals.

Use specific reasons and examples to support your response.

Although some people tend to believe that it is better to set ambitious goal, I am prone to think that setting realistic goals is more reasonable. The reasons for my opinion will be discussed in details below.

My position is based on my own experience. Once you are sure that your goal is achievable you can design a plan which will organize your actions. For instance, after I gave up smoking, I got excessive weight, in fact I used to weigh 71,5 kilograms but after the change my mass increased up to 116 kilograms. I set a realistic goal to lose within three months 12 kilograms. In order to achieve this result, I created a detailed plan which was a guideline for me. I counted how many calories I ought to consume per day and how many of them I should spend in a gym. The goal was achieved. However, I am sure that

The second reason to set realistic goals is motivation. If you have an achievable goal, the first positive results which you get will motivate you to continue. To support this idea, I might return to my previous example, after I lost my first 3 kilograms, my spirit was up and my motivation was growing with each lost kilogram. Interestingly, then more kilos I lost, then harder and stubbornly I worked with my body. I am completely sure that if a goal had been ambiguous, for instance, I wanted to lose 35 kilograms at once, I, would not have achieved the result and probably I would have given up the idea.

Finally, I think that setting unrealistic or ambiguous goals is not only often useless but might be harmful. Once, when I was a student at university, I decided to write a research for psychology within unreasonably short time – two days. Because the goal was too ambiguous, I could not create a plan which I might use, as a result, my sprit fall as well as my motivation. The research was not written in time and I got a negative score. At the same time, I dare aver that if I set a realistic goal, for instance, I requested two weeks, the result would have achieved and my mark would have been high.

In conclusion, my own life experience suggests that having in mind realistic and achievable goals is more beneficial because it allows developing a plan and creates motivation which feed person’s desire to work harder.

Votes
Average: 7 (3 votes)
Essay Categories

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 44, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “Once” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...position is based on my own experience. Once you are sure that your goal is achievab...
^^^^
Line 3, column 610, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...al was achieved. However, I am sure that The second reason to set realistic goals...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 171, Rule ID: A_UNCOUNTABLE[1]
Message: Uncountable nouns are usually not used with an indefinite article. Use simply 'research'.
Suggestion: research
...udent at university, I decided to write a research for psychology within unreasonably shor...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 225, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...ed person's desire to work harder.
^^^

Discourse Markers used:
['but', 'finally', 'first', 'however', 'if', 'second', 'so', 'then', 'well', 'as to', 'for instance', 'i think', 'in conclusion', 'in fact', 'as a result', 'as well as']

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.17316017316 0.229887763892 75% => OK
Verbs: 0.181818181818 0.158761421928 115% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0800865800866 0.0866891130778 92% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0627705627706 0.046263068375 136% => OK
Pronouns: 0.11038961039 0.0685040099705 161% => Less pronouns wanted. Try not to use 'you, I, they, he...' as the subject of a sentence
Prepositions: 0.0952380952381 0.118717715034 80% => OK
Participles: 0.0324675324675 0.0351676179071 92% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.68487708294 2.67179642975 100% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0324675324675 0.0309702414327 105% => OK
Particles: 0.004329004329 0.00188951952338 229% => OK
Determiners: 0.0627705627706 0.0887237588012 71% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.030303030303 0.0209618222197 145% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.017316017316 0.0139019557991 125% => OK

Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 2274.0 2387.08602151 95% => OK
No of words: 411.0 408.028673835 101% => OK
Chars per words: 5.53284671533 5.86048508987 94% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.50256981431 4.48200974243 100% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.279805352798 0.338922669872 83% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.221411192214 0.251872472559 88% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.16301703163 0.174417080927 93% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.111922141119 0.112833075102 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.68487708294 2.67179642975 100% => OK
Unique words: 208.0 212.727598566 98% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.506082725061 0.524397521467 97% => OK
Word variations: 56.1428114381 59.2087087015 95% => OK
How many sentences: 20.0 20.6684587814 97% => OK
Sentence length: 20.55 20.5533526081 100% => OK
Sentence length SD: 50.9370935567 48.84282405 104% => OK
Chars per sentence: 113.7 120.699889404 94% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.55 20.5533526081 100% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.8 0.644075263715 124% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.5376344086 110% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 5.54480286738 72% => OK
Readability: 42.6911192214 45.7405998639 93% => OK
Elegance: 0.84756097561 1.45489161554 58% => OK

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.279298452832 0.300154397459 93% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.0595312626885 0.103427244359 58% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0538944245494 0.0752933317313 72% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.427648097215 0.497263757937 86% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.186542104991 0.151897553556 123% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0961478302573 0.114077575197 84% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0660576234981 0.0781384742642 85% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.296673921063 0.336927656856 88% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0928038904443 0.067059652881 138% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.19149460432 0.210909579961 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0566413056043 0.0618886996521 92% => OK

Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 11.8870967742 84% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 3.86379928315 104% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.91756272401 122% => OK
Positive topic words: 5.0 8.42114695341 59% => OK
Negative topic words: 3.0 2.4623655914 122% => OK
Neutral topic words: 4.0 2.75985663082 145% => OK
Total topic words: 12.0 13.6433691756 88% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

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Rates: 70.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 21.0 Out of 30
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Note: This is not the final score. The e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.

Sentence: Because the goal was too ambiguous, I could not create a plan which I might use, as a result, my sprit fall as well as my motivation.
Error: sprit Suggestion: No alternate word

flaws:
1. To get a higher mark, better not use personal experience as examples. follow this user by three reasons but less examples:
http://www.testbig.com/users/ftn

2. No. of Words: 410 while No. of Different Words: 202
We are expecting:
No. of Words: 350 while No. of Different Words: 200

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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 21 in 30
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 410 350
No. of Characters: 1791 1500
No. of Different Words: 202 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.5 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.368 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.548 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 112 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 87 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 61 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 39 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.524 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.565 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.524 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.366 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.521 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.113 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5

First of all, I want to thank you for your help.

I included so much personal details because authors of a textbook(Colling's ibt skills) which I use for preparation strongly recommended it.

I would like to know more about ETS' requirements to a good independent toefl essay. Could you give me a link to this information? and how can I make my essay better?

Thank you again. I am nervously waiting for your answer.

Eugene.

p.s. Might you recommend me a good textbook which I can use for improving my essays?

There are no such links or good books for writing good essays. They have different ideas her or there. ETS's requirements are not specific whether we should contain personal experiences or not.

But there is a simple rule for you to get high marks:

take TOEFL independent essay as GRE issue essays. That's: more arguments, less examples. then you can be outstanding in TOEFL essays.

Hello, my reader.

Thank you for a quick respond.

I completely agree that it is difficult to find a really good textbook but may you point out on a textbook or an article about TOEFL independent essay? I ask you this information because I am quite short of time and I do not have expertise to distinct a good textbook from a bad one. Consequently, I just waste my time on useless or even harmful textbooks.

I have another idea how to improve my score at this part of the test. I would like to analyze good essays which were written by different authors. Might you recommend me several authors whose essay you consider as good ones? I have looked at the top list but many of the listed essays are old and therefore may not comply with a current requirements to a good essay.

p.s. I am asking this information, in particular, a textbook because my test is scheduled on Dec. 3 and I have only a couple of hours to study per day. Thus this information will be a tremendous help.

Eugene.