There has always been much interest in the question of whether we should join in a travel group led by a tour guide. I have a few competent friends who are loyal fans of the lonely adventure. They often climb mountains alone, or ride their bicycles for several days without companions. Loneliness never become their problem, and their lack of local knowledge can also get solved by adequate preparation and search engines. They may be right to think that travel alone is the top option. However, from my perspective, the best way to travel is in a team led by a tour guide.

The decisive factor is that my personal ability in many cases cannot substitute the role of a guider or teammate. Also, most of us do not possess that kind of incentive to face the unknown adventures alone. An official report shows that most of the accidents occurring during trips happened to single tourists and inexperienced teams. When troubles come, teammates can help us out of the crisis, and a good guider can protect us from potential danger.

People may argue that what if their purpose of travel is to relax and to obtain some exotic experience. It seems that a proper holiday and google are all they need. Nonetheless, if they expect to get sunburn and some fresh air, a tour guide also suits them well. A guider has the expertise in local restaurants, transportation, and accommodation. For example, my friend Mary plans to visit France this summer. The local tour guide can give her appropriate advice about the subway ticket, the local specialties, and the safest district to accommodate. Her teammates can share her expenses and make some brilliant adjustments to her tour plan.

Joining in a team and having a tour guide can benefit us under many different conditions. Therefore, I agree with the statement that the best way to travel is in a group led by a tour guide.

TOEFL Essay TOPIC: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Parents are the best teachers. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

Version III

We all agree that our parents were the first teachers we had. They taught us to walk and talk when we were infants. Parents, without doubt, are true of the most indispensable teachers in one’s life, but are they the best teachers? I mean, everyone in his/her lifetime will encounter dozens of teachers. Some of them are fantastic, yet some fail to fulfill their duties properly. There is no reason that one’s first teachers are absolutely the best teachers. Some parents are not even good people, so how can they be the best teachers?

A couple needs no training or examinations to become parents, so we cannot guarantee their qualification as parents, and thus leave open the possibility that those underqualified parents could possibly become their children’s best teachers. I heard that in some remote place a father taught his 2-year-old son to smoke, and a pair of parents told their primary school child to fight and hurt his classmates. For this kind of people, parenting is the last thing in the world they deserve. Unfairly, however, any couple can become parents by giving birth to a baby.

Some parents meet the preconditions to be good parents, and some are even excellent professional teachers though raising a child can still be a tough challenge. This is because parents who pursue a self-fulfilling life or a successful career, despite their individual excellence, often cannot take good care of their children. Parenting is a quite demanding task. Nearly all of the parents have their regrets for failing to better fulfill their parental responsibility.

Only painstaking and self-sacrificing parents have an opportunity to be the best teachers. They must have a strong spirit, positive attitude, and willingness to sacrifice their life after work and even their career to accompany their kids. Their fair personalities set good examples for their children. Therefore, these parents, beyond doubt, are the best teachers for their children.

TOEFL Writing Topic: It is more important for students to understand ideas and concepts than it is for them to learn facts.

version II:

We all have known that a man will never be too late to learn and learning is a life-long matter. But there are some disagreements when it comes to the exact content that people, especially students, should learn. Some people believe that understanding ideas and concepts is more important than learning facts, and some others hold the opposite view. From my own perspective, learning facts is an essential process of understanding abstract concepts and great ideas. I mean, without learning facts, students can never fully understand how the concepts and ideas work.

In school, we learn many concepts and ideas from masterpieces of famous scientists and artists, but it only completes half part of the learning process. Knowing the application cases of those concepts in real situations is the other half. Students’ fully comprehensive learning leads to appropriate application of their knowledge in the society. When we come upon the stage, at that time nobody will teach us concepts any more. We can only learn facts from our practice, or more often our mistakes. It will be a lot more cost because mistakes can be severe sometimes. We will realize by then that we should have done more practice when we are students.

In some specific circumstances, people failed to understand the concepts without learning the facts. For instance, learning English grammar principles in class plays a quite fundamental role in English writing skill building. For fully understanding, students will study a couple of example sentences under tearcher’s guidence. Then if they want to make sure of precise handling, they need to make their own sentences after class. By correcting their errors and polishing their essays day after day, those students can eventually develop their writing skill and become successful English learners.

Some ideas and concepts exist for application. without facts, those concepts have no reason to exist. As an example, law students study legal concepts or terms aiming to figure out the disputes in our society. In this case, just remembering the words cannot fullfill the purpose. Instead, they need to put them into real cases and practice properly in their later career. After practicing a few times, until then they can be sure of understanding and even mastering the legal concepts and system.

Learning is a life-long matter indeed, and it is more important for students to learn facts than to merely understand concepts and ideas. Only by doing so can we understand how the ideas and concepts work.