Could somebody review my essay

Question

Topic: Forests are the lungs of the Earth. Destruction of the world's forests amounts to the death of the world we currently know.

To what extent do you agree or disagree? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant expamles from your own knowledge and experience. Write at least 350 words.

My essay:

To achieve more, we must lose more. However, it is by no means a reasonable bargain, according to my opinion, when we massively denuded many lands of vegetation for the sake of industrialization as it will pose a major threat to our lives.

First and foremost, trees are of paramount import to human beings, as it gives out oxygen through a process called photosynthesis and absorb heat radiation from the Sun, thus alleviating the effect of pollution and global warming. However, we cannot imagine a day when all trees on Earth being cut down gives rise to the increase in overall temperature, the dwindling amount of oxygen gradually smothering us, driving the most intelligent animals ever to the edge of extinction as a absurb result of their fools.

Moreover, forests provide many habitats as well as food for animals to escape from the hustle and bustle full of human's maltreatments. We are, nevertheless, so greedy as to devastate even the animal's last resort, which results in particular species teetering on the brink of extinction or even worse counterattack on human. It is once reported by the police that herd of elephants debilitated a small village and killed many people because they were driven to the wall by many poachers and had no alternative but to go crazy.

Last but by no means least, with many trees being chopped down, as it will take a not inconsiderable amount of time for afforestation, the denuded land, no matter whether its terrain is plateau or mountainous, will definitely suffer from heavy precipitation and colossial floods are on the horizon. Destructive landslide is not an exception for mountainous area. These are not natural disasters but rather artificial ones. Altogether, we sacrifice the Earth's lungs, in other words, our animals, safe havens from calamities and little precious but all-important diatomic molecule, namely oxygen, on the altar of modernisation.

In summary, we, mere mortals, and nature are co-existent. If the balance is not maintained for so-called state-of-the-art technology, our effort put into progressive advancement will turn out to be retrogressive ones or what is worse, mark the ending watershed to our existence.

And I want to ask whether the idioms I used in the essay is formal or not, such as:

- teeter on the brink of

- drive to the wall

- on the horizon

- sacrifice sth on the altar of sth

Many thanks !

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

Cao Minh Ð?ng,

Are you practicing for the IELTS exam? If so, you had better learn the parameters of the test, or you will be practicing the wrong thing.

I found this topic on another website

IELTS Writing Task 2 essay

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task. Write about the following topic

Forests are the lungs of the Earth. Destruction of the world's forests amount to death of the world we currently know. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Write at least 250 words.
That is the IELTS Task 2 standard. For TOEFL, the recommended length is 300 words.

You wrote more than 360 words.

You will not lose points for writing more than the minimum; however, longer essays generally do not get high scores. There are many reasons.
First, the longer the essay, the more chances you have to make errors, and you will lose points for these errors.
Second, your writing may be repetitious and wordy. This will cost you points.
Third, you will likely stray off-topic, and examiners will deduct points if you are not focused on the topic.
Fourth, you will take a lot of time writing, and not have time left over to proofread your essay. You will miss the silly mistakes, and that lowers your score.
Fifth, you will not have enough time to spend on Task 1, and get a lower score there.

To achieve more, we must lose more. However, it is by no means a reasonable bargain, according to my opinion, when we massively denuded many lands of vegetation for the sake of industrialization as it will pose a major threat to our lives.

Already in these two sentences you have lost a lot of points. The connection of first sentence to the topic is questionable and the rest of the paragraph is equally tenuous. Vegetation is not forest, it can be the weeds covering a vacant lot. "According to my opinion" means that you opinion is recorded somewhere and you are consulting it. It is not your reaction to the essay topic. The opinion is far too broad; it does not really address the question. The topic is not human health, but the conditions for nature on our planet.

You did not answer the essay prompt clearly. The examiner is looking for an answer to this question: To what extent do you agree or disagree?

I cannot find an answer to this in your first paragraph.
You must use an adverb of extent in your answer. Examples are: somewhat, totally, completely, a little bit, with reservations, partly, and partially.
The score on "task completion" is related to if you answered the question, stayed on topic and gave a complete response.

First and foremost, trees (Off-topic. We can plant trees in our garden and in the parks of cities. These are not forests.) are of paramount import to human beings, as it (wrong pronoun) gives out oxygen through a process called photosynthesis and absorb heat radiation from the Sun, (sun is a common noun.) thus alleviating the effect of pollution and global warming. However, we cannot imagine a day when all trees on Earth being cut down (Off-topic. There are tree farms for lumber and pulp. However, these are monocultures, and not natural forests .) gives rise to the increase in overall temperature, the dwindling amount of oxygen gradually smothering us, driving the most intelligent animals ever to the edge of extinction as a absurb result of their fools. (wrong word. Also this sentence is overly long and complicated. I had to read it several times to understand the structure. Task 2 is about clear communication.)

Moreover, forests provide many habitats as well as food for animals to escape from the hustle and bustle (wrong usage. "Hustle and bustle" refers to the traffic and noise and congestion in cities. There is no hustle and bustle in forests.) full of human's (wrong usage) maltreatments. (wrong word. ) We are, nevertheless, so greedy as to devastate even the animal's last resort, which results in particular species teetering on the brink of extinction or even worse counterattack on human. (wrong word.) It is (wrong tense. ) once reported by the police that a herd of elephants debilitated (wrong word. ) a small village and killed many people because they were driven to the wall (wrong usage. ) by ~~many~~ poachers and had no alternative but to go crazy.

Last but by no means least, with many trees being chopped down, as it will take a not inconsiderable amount of time for afforestation, the denuded land, no matter whether its terrain is plateau or mountainous, will definitely suffer from heavy precipitation and colossial floods are on the horizon. Destructive landslide is not an exception for mountainous area. (Poor English. You need to learn to use articles to make the writing more natural English.) These are not natural disasters but rather artificial ones. Altogether, we sacrifice the Earth's lungs, in other words, our animals, (The Earth's lungs are animals that belong to people?) safe havens from calamities and little precious but all-important diatomic molecule, namely oxygen, on the altar of modernisation.(That makes no sense. The topic is not about the destruction of oxygen molecules. )

In summary, we, mere mortals, and nature are co-existent. If the balance is not maintained for so-called state-of-the-art technology, (You have not mentioned "state-of-the-art technology" in the body paragraphs. Do not introduce new ideas in the conclusion.) our effort put into progressive advancement will turn out to be retrogressive ones (wrong form.) or what is worse, mark the ending watershed (Wrong usage. A watershed is the area of land controlled by a water source, from its start to where it empties into a larger body of water.) to our existence.

Cao Minh Ð?ngAnd I want to ask whether the idioms I used in the essay is formal or not, such as:
- teeter on the brink of
- drive to the wall
- on the horizon
- sacrifice sth on the altar of sth
Many thanks !

Those are not idioms. The words in those common expressions are used in their standard dictionary definition.

An idiom is an expression where you cannot determine the meaning by looking up the individual words in a dictionary.

Here are some example idioms:

1. He is under the weather.
2. She spilled the beans, so the birthday party was not a surprise.
3. I wish my supervisor wouldn't sit on the fence so much; it seems like the ball is always in his court. And when he does say something, it's like beating around the bush rather than hitting the nail on the head. We often find ourselves caught between a rock and the hard place. The whole team is going bananas.

Idioms are very good to use in Task 2, but there are some reservations:

- Do not overuse them as I did in the third example. It becomes tedious.
- You must use them in as a native English speaker would. There is nothing so ridiculous as using an idiom out of context or incorrectly. A misused dictionary word can be excused, but not an idiom.

Watch this lesson:

Could somebody review my essay

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions