It has recently been announced that a new restaurant may be built in your neighborhood. Do you support or oppose this plan? Why? Use specific reasons and details to support your answer. (Full Score)

TOEFL Writing Samples: It has recently been announced that a new restaurant may be built in your neighborhood. Do you support or oppose this plan? Why? Use specific reasons and details to support your answer. [Full Score]

I don’t think that allowing a restaurant to open is really a controversial decision in most towns and cities, but I also believe that it would be very difficult to start a successful restaurant in my neighborhood for the reasons noted below. I would certainly not have any objection especially if the restaurant specialized in Asian food, which might help to make our community a bit more multicultural.

In any case, assuming that the owners were able to obtain the necessary licenses and permits, and if they managed to locate and rent a suitable building for their business, then in reality community support might not be entirely relevant. There is generally not any discussion within our community concerning whether or not to allow a restaurant to open, for instance, since these decisions are made at an official level. In other words, the citizens very often have an opinion about this question but they are not frequently consulted. Also, the needs of different communities vary and so this question appears to be rather subjective.

Based solely on my own situation, I would reply that there are probably opportunities to use the proposed restaurant space for some purpose that would prove more valuable for the neighborhood; for instance, a community center with music and public speakers would be better than an American fast food restaurant.

I live in a European city that has many famous restaurants. Some of them have been in business for more than 200 years. So, in my opinion it would be acceptable if another restaurant opened in my community, but I would rather see additional recreational and/or training services provided for the young people [and the elderly] who live in our city. [285 words]

Notes:

1. All of the prompts are from former TOEFL exams.
2. The information available online, i.e., Google search results, is either misleading or wrong relative to length: [an organization] states independent essays should be between 280-320 words. More words than needed is equivalent to more opportunities to make a mistake. Students should be informed re: word count, i.e., MORE WORDS does not mean a higher score.
3. Information concerning paragraphs/content available from [a TOEFL training school], etc. is also wrong: the number of paragraphs is irrelevant and the only important issue re: content is to RESPOND DIRECTLY to the prompt, i.e., the raters/software doesn’t care about structure or content except the latter must Make sense and Must directly respond to the prompt [to preclude prepared essays].
4. UK usage/spelling is entirely acceptable.
5. AVOID complex grammar; avoid ‘Chinese English’ usage; 5 tenses: present, past, future, present perfect [have done/has been], and conditional [would go/could do it] are OPTIMAL.
6. Don’t rewrite the prompt in the first paragraph of your essay…it’s okay to paraphrase [use words that mean the same thing].
7. Recent TOEFL change…students found test takes too long, so there are fewer multiple-choice questions, i.e., essays are now more heavily ‘weighted’]