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Toefl: What is a very important skill a person should learn


In the frenetic, fast-paced world, stress is a very common predicament that all of us, from the young to the senior, feel depressed caused by a wide variety of reasons. Stress management, which means how to survive our stress, therefore, is the most important skill that we should have. The reasons for the importance of stress management will be included in the following passages.

In the first place, it is gradually known that stress becomes a serious mental illness; in addition, stress management recently becomes a more significant issue in our realization. Stress can be caused by both good and bad experiences. Stress may be a positive mobilization to drive for success. On the other hand, some people think that life is a struggle, which means we may encounter numerous difficulties, such as financial problems, exam stress, relationship difficulties and work overload. Moreover, it is easily found that there are more and more negative news; noteworthily, some people made up their mind to commit suicide in the failure of stress management. To avoid bringing about the tragedies, we should try to learn the skill - how to survive our stress.

Secondly, stress takes a toll on both our health and lives. It is true that the modern life is frequently full of hassles, frustrations, and demands. If we are overwhelmed by continued stress, we might have physical problems, such as insomnia and headaches. The most the most fatal problem - melancholia- even leads some people to commit suicide. There is a true story: Lin, a brilliant student in school, could not overcome the stress which was from going an excellent university; subsequently, she met her death at 17-year-old due to the constant stress. Consequently, it is necessary that we should acquaint with stress management, which helps us reduce and cope with the stress, in the goal of balancing our health and mind.

Furthermore, stress management is not only about helping us develop ways to deal with the stress, but also will put us on a positive path. It is widely thought that we experience stress any time, which comes across unexpectedly that frustrates our goals. As a result, if we don't have a good stress management skill, it may lead to some critical problems. With stress management, however, we will be able to set new goals and see our problems in a different way. For example, some people regard stress as a power, which overcomes the obstacles to motivate themselves to do their best. Thus, we will learn how to cope with the stress in a meaningful way by learning the skill.

For the above reasons, I believe that stress management is an essential skill for everyone to learn in order to deal with their own stress.

This essay needs revising to be clearer throughout. You can start by defining in your introduction what you mean by stress management as a skill. Do you mean stress avoidance (learning how to avoid entering into stressful situations), stress reduction (learning how to feel less stress in a situation that normally causes a lot of stress), or stress coping (learning how to minimize the negative effects of stress on your life, even if you still feel as much stress as you did before). You can then improve your introduction still further by including a summary of your reasons at the end of your introductory paragraph.

For the body paragraphs, try to make sure that each paragraph clearly explains one of your reasons using concrete examples. So, if stress management is an important skill because stress can prevent us from achieving our goals, give an example of a situation in which stress acts this way , and explain how stress management, as defined in your introduction, can help. Repeat this process for your other body paragraphs.

More generally, I'd also suggest revising the essay with a view to eliminating logical inconsistencies. For instance, if we can survive unbearable stress, then it isn't really unbearable. How can stress arise from positive experiences as well as negative ones? If you are going to make statements that seem counter-intuitive (that sound wrong when you first hear them), then you need to explain yourself.
Okay, the overall essay structure is now considerably stronger. I especially liked the addition of the Lin example in the third paragraph.

For the introduction, I would rewrite the first sentence. Focus on the fact that stress is a force that everyone in the modern world has to deal with, rather than on the notions of "predicament" and "depressed" which don't connect well grammatically. Then, replace the last sentence with one that actually summarizes the reasons, instead of merely promising to get around to discussing them.

For the second paragraph, eliminate the first sentence, along with references to stress being good and positive. Your paragraph is about how stress is becoming an increasing problem in today's society, in part because we face so many demands on our time and resources, and in part because we are constantly bombarded by bad news in the media. Keep your focus on these points.

For the third paragraph, get rid of the second sentence. This is material you have just covered in the second paragraph, and you don't need to repeat it. You might also want to talk about the other negative health effects of stress in more detail before presenting the ultimate negative effect of suicide.

For the fourth paragraph, you mainly need to review grammar. For instance, the first sentence should be written in accordance with the rule of parallel structure (both parts of the sentence should have the same form). Also, you may want to say that stress is a "positive force" rather than a "power". A power can be good or bad, so that the word doesn't give you the contrast you are trying to make.
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