TOEFL iBT Essay Topic 002
You have been told that dormitory rooms at your university must be shared by two students. Would you rather have the university assign a student to share a room with you, or would you rather choose your own roommate? Use specific reasons and details to explain your answer.
Sample essay 1.
I’d rather have the university assign a roommate to share a room with me. As far as I’m concerned, this is part of the university experience. Students should meet new people and be open to new experiences. I like leaving this up to chance.
Actually, even though the university will choose, it’s not totally a matter of chance. We all filled out information sheets. The school knows what we’re majoring in, what our interests are, and our study habits and our goals. I think they’re probably very good at matching roommates using this information. They’ve had a lot of practice. Besides, if a mistake is made, I can change my room assignment next semester.
If I did want to choose my own roommate, I’d first pick some candidates from the list supplied by the university. Then I’d write to them and they’d write back. Through our letters, we’d find out if we shared common interests, such as sports or movies. More importantly, we’d find out if we liked doing the same things in our free time. Because of my investigation, I’d probably get someone compatible with me. It’s a lot of work to go through, though. Besides, the process of finding similar interests isn’t all that different from what the university does.
Trying to predict whom I’m going to get along with is not a science. I might choose someone who sounds just like me and still find that the two of us just don’t get along as roommates. Besides, I think it would be boring to room with somebody who’s just the same as me. I’d rather be with someone who has different interests and likes to do different things. Maybe I’d even get a
roommate from another culture. After all, one of the reasons I’m going to the university is to be exposed to a lot of new experiences. So, I’d rather have the university choose my roommate for me.
Sample essay 2.
Some people prefer to share a room with unknown person, while others prefer to choose a roommate by themselves. I support the first way of living in a university dormitory room, because this way I can have a new friend, recognize his culture and be shown new extra-curricular activities by him.
Letting the university assign a student to share a room with me I will enjoy the advantage of new friend opportunities. I will try to make friends with him. Learning abroad I will probably have no friends there, and even if I have them I would like to enhance the number of my friends, which will be beneficial for me, because I will have more people close for helping, having a fund or just talking.
Studying abroad I will encounter new cultural problems, but I will like them, because it is new to me. While living with an Armenian I will learn nothing new about other cultures. While sharing a room with a foreigner I will recognize his country’s customs, traditions and also have a chance to visit there and be shown the famous places by my new friend.
If I share a room with a person whom I already know I will not discover new extra-curricular activities. While my new roommate will probably show me into the new world by supporting new club or extra-curricular activities, which I would like to enter. Besides studying it is beneficial to go to painting or sport clubs. Therefore, without new interactions I will not maybe accepted to such clubs or even know about their existence.
In conclusion, if you want to increase the number of your friends, it is better to let the university find the roommate itself. New people in your life mean new friend opportunities, new conversance of foreign traditions and customs, and new areas of out of university activities.
Sample essay 3.
Well as per the above situation, I would let the university assign me a roommate rather than me choosing a roommate for myself for the following reasons. Firstly, I would like to learn how to adjust with different people and different situations. Secondly, I like to make new friends and learn about new cultures and traditions.
Man has entered a highly competitive world, one is constantly in the race of agglomerating as much as money one can. In such a busy life “monetary gains” have a huge upper hand over “morality gains”. In this fast moving life one forgets the value and importance of companionship, more regularly coined as ‘friendship’. University is a place where one gets the taste of real life. It makes one ready to face the cruel, competitive outside world. Thus in this phase of my life I would like myself to be out of my comfort zone and learn to adjust to the new changes in life which would not be possible if I were living with a person of my own choice.
Secondly, I am a sort of person who likes learning new things and know about different cultures and traditions. What better way to learn than living with a person who is entirely new to you? Furthermore living with a new person would help me make new friends and get along with many people in the university rather than being stuck to the same lot of friends if I choose to be with my preferred roommate. I would like to have some change as I come back from my classes, I wouldn’t want to be with the same lot of people all day long.
Although living with my preferred roommate would help me get adjusted to the new University life more easily and would make me feel like home, but it would still keep me in my comfort zone. I believe that having a roommate selected by the university would be fun as well as it will help me grow as a person.
Sample essay 4.
The opportunity to meet new people is an important benefit of a university education, so i believe it is better to let the university choose my roommate for me. Because ,this way i can have a new friend, recognize his culture and also i can learn how to communicate, adapt to new environment.
Letting the university assign a student to share a room with me i will enjoy the advantage of new friend opportunities.I will try to make friends with him. Because i would like to enhance the number of my friends, which will be beneficial for me ,because i will have more people close for helping, having a found or just talking.
Metting new people, if university distributes students in dorm rooms, a lot of students with different races and cultures will be roommate together and can get familiar with a variety of the cultures.As an instance, one of my friends studying in Germany tells me about lots of cultural information which he has learned from his roommates who are from different nationalities such as Chinese,Arabic and Russian. Therefore, i like to live with exotic person.
Living with a new roommate is a new experience .Different people have different customs and habits.Besides communicating, we need to adapt to each other.We should learn to be tolerant and respect everyone.With out tolerance, we cannot communicate well.There may be arguments between us, and we need to solve it by ourselves.
To sum up, delegating the task of choosing roommate to university is the best one. Because we meet new people, culture and we can gain experiences for adult lives.Dorm life is the best time for each student to experience new things and avoid routine days.
Sample essay 5.
Depending on personal experience, personality type, and emotional concern, we find that some people hold the idea of choosing their own roommates, while others prefer to let the universities select theirs. From my point of view, it is more advisable to have the school assign one’s roommate rather than allow him to decide one on his own. My arguments for this point are listed as follows.
I agree with the statement that universities should appoint roommates for students since it creates a golden opportunity for them to broaden their knowledge. Naturally, they are bound to learn more about new concepts and sometimes even a whole new culture. It can be illustrated by a concrete example of my cousin and her Korean roommate. After a year of sharing the same room, they were both satisfied to have been assigned together as they gained not only valuable academic knowledge but also interesting facts about the other’s country. At first, my cousin was not happy with the fact that she had to live with a brand new stranger from a different country. But now she even managed to learn some Korean and a few traditional cuisines from her roommate. If she had chosen her only bunkmate, she would have missed the chance to broaden her horizon about other culture. Hence, it is easy to see that having the universities assign roommates for students is a good way for them to acquired more fascinating information.
Another factor contributing to my preference is the fact that letting the university decide one’s roommate is beneficial to students in terms of self-perfection. Needless to say, sharing a room with a stranger is by all means not easy, it requires a person to be responsible and respectful at the same time. Take my friend’s story as an example, he had always been an overindulged child, he never had to take care of his own chores and barely listened to anyone. However, after two years studying abroad and sharing a room with a stranger, he came back as an entirely new person who was independent and understanding. Had he not had the experience of living with an unfamiliar person, he would not have had the chance to acknowledge his weakness and change for the better. Broadly speaking, having schools to appoint one’s bunkmate creates a better chance for students to perfect themselves.
Of course, arguments swill be raised against my standpoint. Some people might argue that choosing their own roommates ensures the chance of them getting along with each other and provides students with emotion supports. Surely, choosing this option has advantages to an extent, but if all these factors are contemplated, the advantages of universities assigning roommates carry more weight than students deciding their own. Because students will have to adjust themselves for the better to adapt to the new life of sharing a room with others; also, an unfamiliar bunkmate can be as much of an emotional support as an acquaintance once they got to know each other. Hence, I believe all the difficulties that can be solved by a chosen roommate can also be handled by a completely new one.
Ultimately, I find myself definitely agree with those who assert that universities should match roommates together. This is because of the valuable knowledge and self-improving opportunities it offers. Therefore it is important that students take these presented ideas into careful considerations so that they can enjoy their stay in college as well as gain more beneficial experiences.