Independent TOEFL essay -TPO 16: A/D? The best way to travel is in a group led by a tour guide.
People travel to see new places and learn new things. In my vantage point, it is worth to go somewhere with a group led by a tour guide. Although you may wait for other group members, the guided tour has specific advantages. In the following paragraphs, I will elaborate on my viewpoint for travelling in a group with a leader.
A tour guide knows everything about the destination. This means that you do not need to study or do anything to obtain the information about the place. Additionally, if you travel abroad, you can trust on the leader and do not need to learn a new language. For example, my friend is a tour guide in Turkey. She related the story of a tourist who bought a souvenir for his daughter but the salesman told the price higher than it was. As my friend had seen the price printed in the native language on the object, she interfered and hindered the traveler to pay the high cost.
Travelling in a group that has a leader costs less than travelling alone due to some reasons. First, the leader knows where to spend your money to stay, to eat, to purchase, and to visit. Most guides have contracts with hotels, know the hotel managers, transportation companies' managers, and the like, and can get discount for services. Furthermore, there is a rule in economics that the more the number of the customers is, the less the expenses would be. As there are many people travelling together in a group trip, the costs will be reduced.
When you travel alone, you have to spend some time on finding the places on the map and go to the destination. However, the guide knows the addresses and this will save some time for the traveler to visit more places. Additionally, the guides have the schedule which organizes your plan. Therefore, a guide leads you to stop by the more places to visit.
To wrap it up, group trips with a leader is the best way to travel. In fact, the leader will help you in the destination in many aspects like language, the expenses will be decreased, the time will be saved, and you can visit more sites.
flaws:
1. Need some comparisons for traveling alone. Try this pattern:
Para 1: introduction. my choice: A or B. agree or disagree. (suppose we support side A)
Para 2: First, reason 1 (1 sentence) + why reason 1(some arguments. 2-3 sentences) + examples for reason 1 (around 1 sentences) + small conclusions (like advantages of reason 1 or comparisons if not reason 1, 1-2 sentences).
Para 3: Second, reason 2, blabla... do the same thing as First
Para 4: Admittedly, there are some advantages of side B. first,....second...However, there is no causation/relation... Still I support side A, ...first,....second...
Para 5: Conclusion.
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2. No. of Words: 372 while No. of Different Words: 177
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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 22 in 30
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 372 350
No. of Characters: 1620 1500
No. of Different Words: 177 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.392 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.355 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.385 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 91 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 60 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 49 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 28 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.714 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 5.641 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.429 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.295 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.518 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.123 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5