Employers should give its staff at least four weeks holidays a year to make employees better at their jobs. To what extend do you agree or disagree.

Due to the advanced technology and fast paced lifestyles, humankind is facing so many challenges. Busy work force has driven the stress and anxiety level to the top. We are living in a gyroscope world that’s like a gyroscope spinning faster and faster everyday that it is crucial for adequate rest to be rendered. . The cruciality for adequate amount of resting time can not be underestimated.

We are living in an era when where the job demands are demanding extent is greater than ever. People are working not only harder but also for extended hours to satisfy the employment needs. This ongoing trend creates a high level of fatigue and stress to the employees both physically and mentally. Some serious adverse impacts could be resulted result from the phenomenon. To name a few: high suicidal rate, mental illness and low quality of work performance etc.

In addition to that, the valuable family time is sacrificed even more. being more and more sacrificed. Parents are spending less and less time with their children. Families are not as close to each other as before. We all know that, parents are the first teachers of the children and how important a healthy family life is to the whole society. Therefore, needless to say, the more communication and interaction there is in a family, the more beneficial to the civilian.

To summarize, people need to take time off work for their own personal needs.; may it be, family vacation, self-meditation or higher academic study pursuits. According to the a scientific research, the happier the person, the better he will perform at tasks. I strongly suggest that at least 4 weeks of holiday in a year should be given to the employees. The outcome will positively affect the individuals, businesses and the society as a whole.

Hi, how are you?

You have a commendable range of vocabulary. There are wordy statements and a few errors in punctuation and word forms, but nevertheless, statements are admirably written. However, the structuring of the essay is problematic. There is a missing thesis statement and naturally, such being amiss, the body are not tied together properly. See the sample essays at the end of this document to see how thesis statements are essential in the coherence of an essay.

6 <--OVERALL BAND
5 TASK RESPONSE/TASK ACHIEVEMENT
• There is no thesis statement
6 COHERENCE & COHESION
• Ideas are reasonably paragraphed
• Main ideas do not progress accordingly throughout the essay
• Main ideas are not tied together
7 LEXICAL RESOURCE
• There is adequate vocabulary range
• There are redundancies and wordiness
6 GRAMMATICAL RANGE AND ACCURACY
• There is a mix of structures
• There is a significant number of sentences with errors
REVISED VERSION
The changes you find here are only grammatical and mechanical. Any change in content is for you to incorporate. Ideas set in bold (if any) are the ones that need to be improved, developed, or changed.


Due to the advanced technology and fast paced lifestyles, humankind is facing so many challenges. Busy work force has driven the stress and anxiety level to the top. We are living in a gyroscope world spinning faster and faster everyday that it is crucial for adequate rest to be rendered.

We are living in an era when job demands are greater than ever. People are working not only harder but also for extended hours to satisfy the employment needs. This ongoing trend creates a high level of fatigue and stress to the employees both physically and mentally. Some serious adverse impacts could result from the phenomenon. To name a few: high suicidal rate, mental illness and low quality of work performance etc.

In addition to that, the valuable family time is sacrificed even more. Parents are spending less and less time with their children. Families are not as close to each other as before. We all know that, parents are the first teachers of children and how important a healthy family life is to the whole society. Therefore, needless to say, the more communication and interaction there is in a family, the more beneficial to the civilian.

To summarize, people need to take time off work for their own personal needs; may it be, family vacation, self-meditation or higher academic pursuits. According to a scientific research, the happier the person, the better he will perform at tasks. I strongly suggest that at least 4 weeks of holiday in a year should be given to the employees. The outcome will positively affect the individuals, businesses and the society as a whole.

Good luck!

Tip for the day

Learning the Correct Essay Structure for Language Tests

Learning how to use the correct essay structure is the first step in increasing your Language test scores writing score. Whether that be TOEFL, IELTS, or others knowing the basics of structuring an essay is essential.

The language test essay is usually four paragraphs long and has three parts: the introduction, the body, and the conclusion. Each part of the essay has a different function, and readers expect certain information in each of these parts.

Learning the Correct Essay Structure

Here's a brief explanation of the three main parts found in the essay structure:

Introduction

The introduction is the first paragraph of your essay. The first few sentences of this paragraph simply introduce the reader to the topic. The last sentence is called the thesis statement and clearly states your opinion. This is the most important sentence in the essay.

Body

The body of the essay is usually two paragraphs long. Each paragraph begins with a topic sentence that tells the reader what the rest of the paragraph is going to be about. The remaining sentences are called supporting ideas because their main function is to "support" the topic sentence.

Conclusion
The conclusion is the last paragraph of the essay. It restates the thesis and gives the reader a brief summary of the essay's main points. This paragraph is usually about 3 sentences long.

Importance of the essay structure

Do not underestimate the importance of the essay structure. In fact, not using this structure is one of the biggest mistakes that you can make.

When you use this structure in your essay, your ideas will be presented in a clear and logical way. Your essay will really begin to flow, and this makes it much easier for the reader to understand. Even with mistakes in spelling and grammar, an essay written in this structure is better than one with perfect grammar that is not.

How to Write an Essay Thesis Statement

The thesis statement is the most important sentence in your essay.

After you have introduced the reader to the subject of the essay, you write a thesis statement. This is the last sentence of the first paragraph, and it should do two things:

• Directly answer the essay question
• Tell the reader what your opinion is

The thesis statement is the most important sentence in the essay. It does not include specific details that appear later in your essay, but it should answer the essay question clearly and directly. If somebody reads your thesis sentence, they should be able to answer these two questions:

• What is the essay about?
• What is your opinion?

Step one: get an opinion

If you do not have an opinion on the topic, it is not possible to write a thesis statement. The
thesis statement must give an opinion--it tells the reader exactly what you think. On the next
page we will take a look at some examples of good and bad thesis statements.

Examples of good thesis statements

As soon as you have decided what your opinion is, you can write your thesis statement.
Let's say you get this essay question:

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?

Police officers should carry guns.

Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

If you agree with the statement, your thesis could be as simple as this:

Police officers should carry guns.

On the other hand, maybe you would like to disagree. In that case, your thesis could be just
as simple:

Police officers should not carry guns.

These are both acceptable thesis statements. They are simple and direct, telling the reader what your opinion is and what the essay is going to be about.

It is good idea to write your thesis statement using key words or phrases from the original essay question. In one of our examples above, we simply copied the essay question directly!

We'll talk more about this later, but first let's take a look at a few thesis statements that are unacceptable.

Examples of bad thesis statements

Before we look at examples of unacceptable thesis statements, let's have another look at our sample essay question:

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?

Police officers should not carry guns.

Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

Now take a look at an unacceptable thesis statement:

Police officers work hard.

This thesis statement doesn't give us an opinion. It also doesn't tell us what the essay is about. In fact, it's not related to the essay topic at all. Here's another one that's not so good:

Guns help to protect police officers.

Unacceptable. It may be true that "guns help to protect police officers," but we still don't know what the writer's opinion is. And here's a third example:

Police officers don't need guns.

Again, it may be true that "police officers don't need guns," but what is the writer's opinion? Should police officers carry guns?

Strong thesis statements

Now that we've seen a few examples of both good thesis statements and bad thesis statements, the next question is this: how can we write a great thesis statement? Let's start with a thesis statement that we already know is good:

Police officers should not carry guns.

This is a good thesis statement, but it's not a great one. We can improve it by making the language stronger. Do this by using stronger language, words such as no or never. Here's what it looks like when we've made our improvements:

Police officers should never carry guns.

We could also say something like this:

No police officers should ever carry a gun.

If our thesis statement is a positive sentence, we can strengthen the language with a word like always. Here's an example:

Police officers should always carry guns.

Next we'll look at other ways of strengthening our the thesis statement.

Very strong thesis statements

Okay, we have written our thesis statement. Here it is:

Police officers should never carry guns.

It's already good, but we can make it even stronger by using a few phrases to emphasize our point. Here are some that we can use: regardless of, under no circumstances, at no time, without exception. This is what our final thesis statement will look like:

Regardless of the situation, police officers should never carry guns.

Or it could look like this:

At no time should a police officer ever carry a gun.

We can also use these same phrases to give the opposite opinion in our thesis statement, as in this example:

Regardless of the situation, police officers should always carry guns.

Continue to practice writing thesis statements--it really is the most important sentence in the
essay, and your hard work will be rewarded by a higher score!

How to Write an Essay Introduction

The introduction is the most important paragraph of your essay.

The introduction is the first paragraph of your essay, and it is important to make a good impression here. If you don't start out well, it will be difficult to convince your readers (or the assessor!) to take your writing seriously. Here's what you should know about the introduction:

• First paragraph of the essay
• Usually 3 to 5 sentences long
• Introduces the essay topic
• Clearly gives your opinion
• Has a strong thesis statement

All introductions must meet these five conditions. If it is missing one or two of them, then it is
a weak introduction.

Beginning the introduction

The best way to begin the introduction is with a general statement [HOOK] about the essay topic.

This explains what the essay is going to be about and mentally prepares the reader for the arguments that will follow. Do not give your opinion in this sentence--this is only a general
statement about the topic.

Here's an example of what a typical first sentence looks like:

Many communities have been discussing over whether or not police officers should carry guns.

You can see that there is no opinion in this sentence; it is only a general statement about the essay topic.

Developing the introduction

After we have written our first sentence, it is time to develop the introduction. We do this by
adding a few more general statements [ARGUMENT] about the topic. One strategy you can use is to explain both sides of the argument. Here's an example:

In some situations, guns protect the police officer as well as the public. However, guns often result in injuries and death.

By explaining both sides of the argument (this is called contrasting), you show the reader that you have thought carefully about the issue.

You should also know that when you contrast both sides of the argument, it is better to begin with the side of the argument that you do not agree with. This is more natural in English, and your essay introduction will develop logically toward the thesis statement.

Writing the thesis statement

Now it is time to write our thesis statement. This is the last sentence of the first paragraph. It is also the most important sentence in the essay. The thesis statement does two things:

• It directly answers the essay question.
• It tells the reader what your opinion is.

For our introduction, here's what the thesis statement could look like:

No police officer should ever carry a gun.

In this example, we have a strong thesis statement. It is simple and direct: it answers the essay question and tells the reader exactly what our opinion is.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the thesis statement is the most important sentence in the essay. In fact, if the reader has difficulty understanding the essay, he will often return to the thesis statement to be reminded what the essay is about. A bad thesis statement results in a bad essay.

Putting it all together

We've finally completed our essay. Here it is:
Many communities have been discussing over whether or not police officers should carry guns. In some situations, guns protect the police officer as well as the public. However, guns often result in injuries and death. No police officer should ever carry a gun.

In the first sentence we began the introduction with a general statement [HOOK] about the essay
topic. Then, in the second and third sentences [or could be compounded too], we contrasted both sides of the argument. Our last sentence was the thesis statement: this is where we answered the essay question and gave our opinion.

How to Write an Essay Body

The body is the meat and bones of your essay.

The body of the essay is everything that comes between your introduction and the conclusion. Here's what you need to know:

• It's usually 2 paragraphs long.
• Each paragraph has 1 topic sentence.
• Each paragraph has 3 to 5 supporting ideas.
• Its goal is to support thesis statement.

Paragraphs in the Body

Each paragraph of the body supports the thesis statement, and each paragraph has the same structure--1 topic sentence followed by 3 to 5 supporting ideas. Like this:

Topic Sentence (first sentence)
• supporting idea #1
• supporting idea #2
• supporting idea #3
• supporting idea #4

It's okay if you don't understand topic sentences or supporting ideas. That's what we'll look at on the next page. Read on.

The topic sentence

The topic sentence is the first sentence of the paragraph. This sentence should do 2 things:
• Give 1 reason to support your thesis statement.
• Tell the reader what the rest of the paragraph is about.

Supporting ideas

Everything that comes after the topic sentence is called a supporting idea. This is because it
"supports" your topic sentence.

A supporting idea could be almost anything: a story from your life, a philosophical argument,
a personal experience, or some statistical information. The important thing is that it explains
why you believe that the topic sentence is true.

How to Write Essay Topic Sentences

Topic sentences are important because they support your thesis statement.

First, let's have a quick review. We already know that the thesis statement is the last sentence of the introduction. We also know that the thesis statement is where we give our opinion. Here's the example we used:

No police officers should ever carry a gun.

It's a good thesis because it tells the reader what the essay is about and it gives an opinion.

Now the reader knows what our opinion is, but he doesn't know why. This is what topic sentence does--it tells the reader why.

Here's the minimum you need to know about what a topic sentence is:
• It is the first sentence of each paragraph in the body.
• It gives one reason why the thesis statement is true.
• It tells the reader what the rest of the paragraph is about.

A good way to write a topic sentence is to begin with a list of reasons that support your thesis statement. When you have your list, then choose the two best reasons. That's what we'll do on the next.

Writing a topic sentence

First we look at our thesis statement one more time:

No police officer should ever carry a gun.

Next we make a list of all the reasons why we believe our thesis statement is true. Here's what we have:

1. There is already too much violence in the world.
2. Police officers don't need protection.
3. Guns cause more harm than good.
4. Police officers like to shoot people.
5. Guns frighten people.
6. In most cases police officers don't need guns.
7. Violence of any kind is a bad thing.

Now we simply choose the best reasons. Let's choose number 3 and number 6. They look
like good reasons to me.

Now that we have two reasons that support our thesis statement, we are almost finished. We only have to put the finishing touches on, and we'll do that next.

Finishing the topic sentences

We have choses two reasons to support our thesis statement. These are our topic sentences. Here they are:

Guns cause more harm than good.
In most cases police officers don't need guns.

They already look good, but they could be better. We can improve them by adding a transitional phrase at the beginning of each. A transitional phrase helps the reader understand your essay. It also makes your essay sound more natural. For our first topic sentence, we can use the basic phrases* such as First, First of all, In the first place, To begin with, For one thing. This is what our first topic sentence might look like:

First of all, guns cause more harm than good.

For our second topic sentence, we can use these basic phrases*: Second, Next, In addition to the
previous point, More importantly. Like this:

In addition to the previous point, in most cases police officers don't need guns.

We're finished. Now we only need to write our supporting ideas!

How to Write Essay Supporting Ideas

They are called supporting ideas because they "support" the topic sentence.

Our essay's supporting ideas all come after the topic sentences. They support the topic sentence by telling the reader why we believe the topic sentence is true. Supporting ideas can be almost anything. The important thing is that they are all related to the topic sentence and that they support the topic sentence in some way. Here are some things we can use for our supporting ideas:

• A personal experience
• Something you've heard or read about
• A logical argument
• Statistical evidence
• Factual information
• Expert opinion

We can use any of these for our supporting ideas. However, most students use a personal experience or something they have read about. This is probably because it is easier to write
about these things. (given the time limit)

Writing supporting ideas

Before we begin, let's have another look at our first topic sentence. Here's what we have so far:

First of all, guns cause more harm than good.

Now let's use something that we've heard or read about for our supporting ideas. Our paragraph might look something like this:

First of all, guns cause more harm than good. There are often stories in the newspaper about people who are accidentally shot. Moreover, many of these stories involve police officers. If guns had not been involved, these accidents would not have happened. On the other hand, there are very few stories about how a gun has saved somebody's life.

In this example, our supporting ideas come from stories we've read in the newspaper, and they all explain why guns cause more harm than good.

We have also used a few interesting phrases at the beginning of some sentences: moreover and on the other hand. These are called transitional phrases. Transitional phrases makes the shift from one idea to another smoother and easier to follow. They are also called cohesion devices or strategies. There are other strategies used apart from transitional phrases, but more on that on another lesson.

Writing supporting ideas

Now let's take a look at our second topic sentence. Here it is:

In addition to the previous point, in most cases police officers don't need guns.

Now let's try using a personal experience for our supporting ideas. Here's one way we could write the paragraph:

In addition to the previous point, in most cases police officers don't need guns. My father, for example, has been a police officer for over 20 years, and he has never had to use his gun. In fact, he says that most people who break the law are unarmed. Thus, it is often unnecessary for police officers to carry guns.

There we have it! Again, our supporting ideas all tell the reader why our topic sentence is true. You will also notice that we've used a few more transitional phrases: for example, in fact, and thus.

We'll talk about that after we write the conclusion.

How to Write an Essay Conclusion

The conclusion is the essay's last paragraph. It restates the thesis and summarizes the main points.

The conclusion of your essay is probably the easiest part to write. Before we begin, here is what you should know about the conclusion:

• It's the last paragraph of the essay.
• It's usually 3 or four sentences long.
• It restates the essay's thesis.
• It summarizes the essay's main points.

The conclusion must restate your thesis statement and summarize the essay's main points. If it doesn't do this, then it's a bad conclusion.

In order to write the conclusion, we have to look at three important sentences in our essay. We look at our thesis statement and we look at our two topic sentences. This is what we'll do on the next page.

Writing the conclusion

First we have to look at our thesis statement:

No police officer should ever carry a gun.

Next we look at our two topic sentences:

First of all, guns cause more harm than good.
In addition to the previous point, in most cases police officers don't need guns.

Now we simply put them all into one paragraph, beginning with the thesis statement:

In conclusion, police officers should not carry guns. Guns usually cause harm to people. Moreover, police officers often don't need them to do their jobs.

Maybe you have noticed that we made small changes to the thesis statement and topic sentences. This is because it's not good to copy the sentences exactly--it's boring for the reader. These changes give our writing more variety.

We also added two transitional phrases to our conclusion: in conclusion and moreover.

We'll talk about these in a separate lesson. For now, let's see our
essay!

Our essay

We've finally completed our essay! Here it is:

Many communities have been discussing over whether or not police officers should carry guns. In some situations, guns protect the police officer as well as the public. However, guns often result in injuries and death. No police officer should ever carry a gun.

First of all, guns cause more harm than good. There are often stories in the newspaper about people who are accidentally shot. Moreover, many of these stories involve police officers.
If guns had not been involved, these accidents would not have happened. On the other hand, there are very few stories about how a gun has saved somebody's life.

In addition to the previous point, in most cases police officers don't need guns. My father, for example, has been police officer for over 20 years, and he has never had to use his gun.
In fact, he says that most people who break the law are unarmed. Thus, it is often unnecessary for police officers to carry guns.

In conclusion, police officers should not carry guns. Guns usually cause harm to people. Moreover, police officers often don't need them to do their jobs.

From
Some people believe that unpaid community service should be a compulsory part of high school programmes (for example working for the charity, improving the neighborhood or teaching sports to younger children). To what extent do you agree or disagree?

ARGUMENT: unpaid community service should be a compulsory part of high school programmes

QUESTION: To what extent do you agree or disagree? (clearly an agree/disagree type of task)

Now, let’s identify the central topic.

CENTRAL TOPIC: unpaid community service

Let’s identify controlling ideas.

CONTROLLING IDEAS: high school, program, compulsory,

Now, let’s write a hook about central topic in relation to the controlling idea.

HOOK: Unpaid community service is often encouraged among students.

Now, let’s rephrase the argument.

ARGUMENT: It is proposed that high school curriculums should include compulsory unpaid community service.

Now, let’s write the most important part of the essay—THESIS STATEMENT.

THESIS STATEMENT: I concur that unpaid community service should be made part of high school programmes.

Let’s write the introduction. Make sure to write it the shorted possible way, but still clear.

Unpaid community service is often encouraged among students that there are now propositions of making it a compulsory part of high school curriculums. I believe that doing is a good move.


Now, since this is an agree/disagree type of task, the body of the essay should contain reasons for your thesis statement. So, let’s try to list down reasons why we believe that making unpaid community service a part of high school programmes is a good move.

REASON 1: Doing so helps develop empathy among students.
REASON 2: Doing so will help students develop survival skills.

We are no longer going to do a counter argument because it will just east so much of our time. Besides, it is not really necessary.

Now, let’s write the topic sentences and our details with examples. The details are explanations of our topic sentence. Let’s start with reason 1.

TOPIC SENTENCE: Making unpaid community service obligatory in high school ensures that students also develop empathy as they go through their education.

DETAILS: schools are not only responsible for developing students’ academic performances; they are also supposed to bring out the human side of every student. An educated person is holistic, meaning he or she has both the brain and the heart to survive in this world, and a school is only successful in its endeavor to educate if its graduates are intelligent enough to innovate and at the same time empathetic enough to understand people’s needs.

Now, let’s do the second reason.

TOPIC SENTENCE (with transition): Apart from empathy, students need survival skills and with required community service, such skills are sure to be developed.

DETAILS: schools have to make sure that their students are survivors; that if met by tribulations, they will surely endure. Exposing them to the circumstances of communities allows them to understand difficulties faced by people in such places and the solutions applied on a personal level by these people to resolve such issues. Constantly immersing students in such conditions eventually uncovers their survival instincts, and they become stronger persons.

Now, let’s do the second reason.

TOPIC SENTENCE (with transition): Apart from empathy, students need survival skills and with required community service, such skills are sure to be developed.

DETAILS: schools have to make sure that their students are survivors; that if met by tribulations, they will surely endure. Exposing them to the circumstances of communities allows them to understand difficulties faced by people in such places and the solutions applied on a personal level by these people to resolve such issues. Constantly immersing students in such conditions eventually uncovers their survival instincts, and they become stronger persons.

Now, let’s put them together.

Making unpaid community service obligatory in high school ensures that students also develop empathy as they go through their education. It should be noted that schools are not only responsible for developing students’ academic performances but also in bringing out the humanity of these students. Clearly, an educated person is holistic with both the brain and the heart to survive in this world. A school, is therefore, only successful if its graduates are intelligent enough to innovate and at the same time empathetic enough to address people’s needs.

Apart from empathy, students need survival skills and with required community service, such skills are sure to develop. Schools have to make sure that their students, if met by tribulations, will surely endure and survive; otherwise, the school has failed in developing a strong citizenry. Exposing students to circumstances of communities allows them to understand difficulties faced by people every day and the solutions applied on a personal level by these people to resolve their issues. Constantly immersing students in such conditions eventually uncovers their survival instincts, and they become stronger persons.

Now, let’s write the conclusion. Remember that the conclusion has to reiterate the thesis statement, summary points, and make a proposition or any memorable line worth leaving.

THESIS REITERATION: Unpaid community service is indeed a suitable part of high school curriculums.

SUMMARY OF POINTS: It develops empathy and survival instincts among students.

PROPOSITION: The society needs not only intelligent people, but benevolent fighters of goodwill.

Let’s put them together.

Unpaid community service proves suitable as a curricular requirement in high school as it develops empathy and survival instincts among students, who need not only be intelligent. Ultimately, the society needs not only intelligent people, but benevolent fighters of goodwill.

Now, here’s the complete essay:

Unpaid community service is often encouraged among students that there are now propositions of making it a compulsory part of high school curriculums. I believe that doing is a good move.

Making unpaid community service obligatory in high school ensures that students also develop empathy as they go through their education. It should be noted that schools are not only responsible for developing students’ academic performances but also in bringing out the humanity of these students. Clearly, an educated person is holistic with both the brain and the heart to survive in this world. A school, is therefore, only successful if its graduates are intelligent enough to innovate and at the same time empathetic enough to address people’s needs.

Apart from empathy, students need survival skills and with required community service, such skills are sure to develop. Schools have to make sure that their students, if met by tribulations, will surely endure and survive; otherwise, the school has failed in developing a strong citizenry. Exposing students to circumstances of communities allows them to understand difficulties faced by people every day and the solutions applied on a personal level by these people to resolve their issues. Constantly immersing students in such conditions eventually uncovers their survival instincts, and they become stronger persons.

Unpaid community service proves suitable as a curricular requirement in high school as it develops empathy and survival instincts among students, who need not only be intelligent. Ultimately, the society needs not only intelligent people, but benevolent fighters of goodwill. (251 words)