TOEFL integrated writing: is group the best approach?

The reading passage claims that projects, when accomplished by a group of people, would exhibit several advantages. However, the listening passage casts doubts on those advantages.

First of all, the lecturer explains that only some of the group members and not the entire group, would be actually working extremely well. Consequently, the project would succeed as a result of them.. However this success would eventually render the group as a whole. On the other hand, the reading passage claims that individual members of the group could actually shine in a team, because the overall results of the project would be much more impressive than those, that would result due to the work of each member individually.

Secondly, the lecturer also refutes the point that is mentioned in the reading passage of how projects that are accomplished by a group team would be executed faster than those that are accomplished by separate individuals. According to the lecturer, such projects would be taking more time, because they would require many meetings to be arranged in order to reach satisfactory decisions.

Finally, the lecturer also points out that the presence of one to two influential people in a team would affect the overall group results. Thereby certain ideas would be dropped off or passed instead of being discussed, only because such influential people would not be interested in them. Moreover, when a project would fail due to the effects of such people, then all members of the group would be blamed. Nevertheless, the reading passage suggests that group members would always establish the best results and the most creative solutions, because they would be prompt to take risky decisions, which by they would never take them as individuals.