Automobiles

I picked this topic from a list of TWE sample essays. To simulate the real test, I wrote it in about 30 minutes and with no dictionary or spelling aids.


"Choose one of the following transportation vehicles and explain why you think it has changed people's lives. * automobiles * bicycles * airplanes Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer."


Nothing compares with a romantic bicycle ride along a sunny country road. And nothing can make you travel as fast and as far as an airplane jet. Yet, the single vehicle that most changed people's lives is, in my view, the not-so-romantic (compared to a bike) and not-so-fast (compared to an airplane) automobile. Before cars spread out, at the beginnings of the 20th century, the most common individual transportation vehicle was... horses and donkeys. Otherways, you had to walk, or rely on collective transportation, like railways, river boats, horse-trolleys, or the like. Thanks to cars, people were free to go anywhere a road could take them, and the car engine didn't need to rest at night like a horse! Old times automobiles were not so fast, actually, but they seemed incredibly quick and powerful when they first appeared. They even inspired poets and painters.
Cars changed the way people live in many ways. One you can see in the movie picture "American Graffiti", set in California in the Sixties. Young people drove all night long to meet other friends or find a new boyfriend or girlfriend.
When automobiles became too many, too powerful, and were used carelessly, they got to affect our lives in a negative way, as everybody knows: traffic jams, pollution, deadly car crashes, and so on. They even caused people to get fat, as you can drive everywhere in a comfty car instead of walking or biking. So, I think, maybe it's about time to get rid of our beloved cars, or at least use them a bit less, and move on to other transportation vehicles,including bikes and feet!