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| Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Classmates are a more important influence than parents on child's success in school. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer. |
| 22/M/Japan>>> TOEFL CBT 267 (5.0)>>> University Student I agree with the statement. Though I don't understand what "success" means in this contex, I usually think that classmates are very important for a child to have a enjoyable school life. For me, "success" in school means to have a happy school life with many friends. So for example, in my university class, there is one classmate who havs no friends in the class. He always read some novels and talk with no one. I think that is the best way to spend our school life. I admit that our purpose in our university is to learn necessary knowledge or skills to work for the society after graduation. So I think he is right in that sence, but still, I want to enjoy talking or having fun times with my friends. And I think that is especially important for junior high school students. In my country some parents of junior high school students tend to think that to get high scores in exams lead to success for their children. And they want their children to compete with other classmates and to get high scores. In some sence, that is true, because in my country, it is necessary to get high scores to enter some university. So that may sometimes lead to their success in the future. But here, I want to examine what "success" means for our lives. Our parents know from their experiences that to enter good university lead to the high salary in the future. And they know that we can not live in this society without money. So they encourage their children to study and enter good or famous university. In my country, if one person graduate from famous university, society tend to recognize him as competent. And we all know that the first impression is important to have a smooth relationship with others, so if you graduate from some famous university, your chance to have a nice job will increase. But we must keep in mind that, the graduation will increase the chance to come across nice jobs, but it does not gurantee the life after having the job. For me, "success" in school does not mean to get high scores in tests or to compete with other classmates. But some parents tend to think that success in school is to get high scores or grade A in some tests. One day when I was a junior high school student, my mother said to me, "I was said from one of your friends' parents that her son will defeat your son in the next examination.". My mother was very disappointed about that because she also think that school is not a place to compete. So I was said to her, "Just ignoring the parent saying such a thing.". As I have said above school is a place to have fun times with many classmates. So, for success in school, I think influences of classmates are much more important than those of parents. |