TOEFL Sample essay integrated essay from TPO2

The reading passage explains three advantages of teamwork in approaching a project. However, the lecturer finds all the ideas dubious and refutes them by presenting some examples of an empirical study conducted by a company that turns over a new project to teams of people to plan and get the work done.

First, the speaker states that group work wasn’t as rewarding as it was explained in the passage for the members. According to the example presented by the speaker, some members of almost every team got free ride and benefited from the recognition that team had got. The members who did the work well and provided a lot of insight on problems and issues felt exactly opposite of what explained in the reading because no names were named after the accomplishment of the project.

Second, the lecturer asserts the work wasn’t done as fast as it’s declared in the passage. Although the reading passage states that presence of a lot of people in the group leads to a quick doing of the project, the results of the experiment in the company show that reaching a consensus will take a long time. Since agreements on the issues, problems, and solutions required many meetings, the project progressed slowly.

Finally, the speaker clarifies a situation that contradicts the theory mentioned in the reading. He states that some influencers in the group urged the other members that the currently discussing idea will never work and the group quickly dropped it instead of debating. In another occasion, they convinced the group that their idea is highly creative. Moreover, he illustrates another occasion that some members of a group warned that the project might not work well but were ignored by others. Consequently, the failure of the project resulted in the blame being placed on all the members of the group. Therefore, unlike the aforementioned reading passage, spreading responsibility of risky decisions to all members of the group didn’t cause a surge in creativity in solving problems.