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If you could go back to some time and place in the past, when and where would you go? Why? Use specific reasons and details to support your choice.
22/M/Japan>>> TOEFL CBT 267 (5.0)
     I think two ways of thinking are available to this question. One is to go back to some time and place after I was born. If I go back to some time and place of my history, I would choose to go back to the time when I was an elementary school student. The other way of thinking is to go back to some era when I don't live, such as during the Second World War or more former eras.
     If I would go back to my past, I would go while I was only 7 or 8 years old boy. In that time, I practiced a piano after school. I continued to do my practice for two years or so. But during the two years, I had no interest to music and didn't practice playing a piano so much. After I gave up practicing a piano, I began to think that I want to play the piano again. But it was too late, because I had to prepare for the entrance examination for a junior high school, so I had no time for the piano lesson. After I failed to pass the entrance examination, I had to prepare for the entrance examination for a high school, so I didn't have enough time to practice playing a piano. And I continued like that again and again, so I don't have yet enough time to practice a piano lesson.
     But thinking about my past, I realized that I could have time to practice playing a piano. If I truely want to practice, I could have enough time to practice. So if I could go back to my past, I want to do both practicing a piano and preparing for the entrance examination.
     On the other hand, if I could go back to the past which I don't know, I want to go to the era of Second World War. You might not agree with me, because for most of us, the war is not a happy memory. But still, I want to go to that era. I think so because I want to drive an airplane. I heard from my grandfather that during the Second World War, young men can be trained to drive an airplane. If I try to get a licence of an airplane now, I might have to take many efforts. In my country, we can not get a pilot licence so easy as in the United States. So most young or old people in my country go to the United States to get the licence. And I heard that the total costs to get the licence is 2,500,000 yen, that is about 25,000 U.S. dollars. On top of that it takes at least two month in the United States.
     As you know, I don't have so much money and time to get the licence. So sometimes I think that if I was born during the Second World War, I could have a training of an airplane. But as you know, we can never make a time machine, which brings us to the past. However scientists make their desperate efforts, or however a genius appears, time machine can not be made. That is clear, because if such a benefit machine can be made in the future, someone has already came to our time. But in our society, we have no friends who come from the future. So it is clear that we can not make a time machine in the future. But I think that is important. I mean, we can not go back to the past, or we can not go to our future, so the time we live in now can be valuable and enjoyable.