13553 Countryside
TOEFL Independent Writing Task
Essay Topic: Raising Chldren in the Countryside
Example Answer by Jeenn Lee Hsieh
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Essay Question:
TOEFL>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 from your knowledge or experience to support your answer.
IELTS>Should a child be brought up in a village or in a city? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your knowledge or experience to support your opinion.
Sample Writing by Jeenn Lee Hsieh:
Childhood years are carefree years in a person's life, and there is no better environment for a kid to grow up than the countryside. Although rearing a child in a big city provides a range of material-related advantages, a village can actually benefit small boys and girls who like to learn things by playing. If you think that the business of children is playing for the fun of it, then you may also believe that living in the rural area indeed promises healthier conditions for a child to cultivate a fit body and a sound mind.
Early to bed and early to rise, village children in most cases are physically stronger that their counterparts in a big city. It may be because kids brought up in an urban area usually stay indoors most of the time assigned for playing. In comparison, rural boys and girls are given daily chances to run and walk, often barefooted, freely in green lands along rivers or ponds. In general, physical exercises abound in the open air (free from pollution), which is more than you can say for children living in the city who are largely caged in apartment buildings. Among other results, one thing is particularly obvious: most city kids tend to be overweight simply for lack of doing exercises outdoors, not to mention that the polluted air is bad for children. Needless to say, city children are likely to miss out a lot of the rural fun.
For a child, it is desirable that a fit body could match a sound mind. At this point, it may be said that most children in the countryside are expected to become mentally healthier due to having more opportunities of making sense of the natural environment. This means that they are used to learning the real things on their own--trees and flowers, fruits and vegetables, insects and animals, pigs and cows, and so on. Without a doubt, learning directly from nature is a true experience for any child to build a sound mind. Of course, there is less luxury and comfort enjoyed by city kids; however, the boredom spending too much time indoors may kill most of the playing fun. Worse still, life in a city is more characteristic of a material world in which a child is too immature to learn the price of everything and the value of nothing.
In sum, the village life has more to offer to kids in view of their physical and mental health. After all, childhood is the best time for a person's life, and for that, a village is the best place. If for any reason one might be obliged to work and live in a big city the rest of one's life, one as a child would prefer to spend those carefree years in the countryside. (Essay by Jeenn Lee Hsieh)
