TOEFL Independent Writing: An Opinion Essay
Essay Topic: Work and Social Life Matter to Happiness
Sample Writing by Jeenn Lee Hsieh 谢振礼
Essay Question:
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Your job has more effect on your happiness than your social life does.
Use reasons and specific examples (from your knowledge or experience) to support your answer (opinion).
>谢振礼原创范文 Sample Essay by Jeenn Lee Hsieh:
The job that you love should be ranked higher than your social life because, next to health, money from work is key to achieving happiness. For most people, much of happiness depends on money gained from work rather than on friendship and conversations or other social interactions. While work will not always bring you full happiness, there is no true happiness without enjoying a career life.
To begin with, like many other people you must work because you need money to live a happy life, if only for financial reasons. Once you have money, those other things related to a worldly kind of happiness are easier to get. Generally speaking, you will not have much of a social life if you cannot afford to do anything. Given that health is the most important factor contributing to happiness, sometimes you cannot even afford to be healthy if you have no money enough for health-care. So, in pursuit of happiness, it makes logical sense to get healthy in the first place; and in the next, to work for money; and then, to enjoy a social life. Just as healthy-looking people land better jobs, work-loving people stand better chances to becoming more successful (and therefore happier) due to the assumption that there is no real happiness without loving your job.
That said, it can be argued that your social life has less effect on your happiness than the job that brings you pleasure along with money. In a certain way, social life is simply an extended period of time of your working life, but not the other way around. Social life may seem inviting; nevertheless, only work gives you that kind of happiness which is often beyond having a lot of possessions. That is to say, if you could not enjoy your work, you would not enjoy your social life, either. Unfortunately, exist countless unhappy workers, reporting that they work solely for money, as if they were slaves to the jobs they love to hate. For that matter, the biggest obstacle to happiness is probably the belief that they are prisoners of work; and, this being the case, they turn (often in vain) to seek satisfaction in social life.
True happiness in life is not complete without enjoying your work, even though social life is necessary in its own way. Money is the most motivational factor that you work; and after work you may enjoy the most of your social life. Therefore, the top priorities of achieving happiness ought to be in this order: health, work and social life. (Essay created by Jeenn Lee Hsieh 谢振礼 批改重写英文作文 购买写作讲义人民币60元 询问 ielts360toef@hotmail.com )
海外教师谢振礼通信写作讲义 Tips from Jeenn Lee Hsieh
>Opinion essays are very common in the Test of Written English (TOEFL Independent Writing). An opinion is not a fact. Your opinion is arguable. A fact is not arguable.
Typically, each essay question asks for your opinion, and you are required to use specific reasons and include any relevant examples and/or explanations from your knowledge or experience to support your opinion.
It can be a bit confusing to work out different types of essay, so it is usually not necessary to know this. The important thing is to analyze each question as you see it and answer it. (The question=the topic+the task.)
>Though test takers are asked to write on a specific topic, parts of the topic may be treated by implication. Raters (readers) should focus on what the test taker does well. An essay at the top level (30) largely accomplishes all of the following: (demonstrating clear competence in writing on both the rhetorical and syntactic levels)
effectively addresses the topic and task
is well organized and well developed, using clearly appropriate explanations, exemplifications, and.or details
displays unity, progression, and cohesion
displays consistent facility in the use of language, demonstrating syntactic variety, appropriate word choice and indiomaticity, though it may have minor lexical or grammatical errors
>An essay (English composition) at the top level: (logical composition+grammatical English)
Logical Composition
Thesis--well focused
Structure--well organized
Content--well supported
Grammatical English
Rhetoric--language effectiveness
Syntax--sentence variety
Lexicon--word choice
