It is better for children to grow up in the countryside than in a big city. Do you agree or disagree? Use specific reasons and examples to develop your essay (full score).

TOEFL Writing Topic: It is better for children to grow up in the countryside than in a big city. Do you agree or disagree? Use specific reasons and examples to develop your essay. [full score]

I think that even if a person wishes to live and work in the city as an adult, it is usually better to grow up in the countryside. There are billions of people in the world who would disagree with my statement, but my opinion is based on my own experience.

My grandfather raised horses in a small village and my father also worked in this trade until quite recently. The economic situation in my region has changed a lot and naturally there are many more cars and fewer horses on the roads. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do!

I was very lucky to win a scholarship to study in Shenzhen. There were students from across the country in my university, but I was not surprised to discover that many of my classmates grew up near the city center. I noticed right away that these students tended to stay together in a group and they were much louder than those of us who came from the countryside. They got mad for no reason just like people do on television. Students who grow up in the city have different role models and I think growing up on a farm is less confusing for children.

If there are a lot of animals around it is not safe to get angry for no reason! But most of those students were only playing some kind of a city game. I guess I didn’t like it too much.

It is easier for a person to learn good manners in the countryside. The students from farms know how to help each other better. The students who grew up in the city didn’t help other students at my school very often. [288 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’]