[caption id="attachment_131228" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Remembering Marsinah. source: www.marxist.com"][/caption]
Continuing my earlier posting on argumentative writing, here is another sample that I made a couple of years ago. To tell you the truth, this is exactly what my TOEFL essay looks like, and I never failed.
The following prompt was taken from TOEFL practice:
Holidays honor people or events. If you could create a new holiday, what person or event would it honor and how would you want people to celebrate it? Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.
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People’s life is appreciated based on what they did during their lifetime. Great people are those who consistently kept their ideals and their deeds reflected the ideals they held. It is imperative for us to know what they do because their life can be a parameter for our life. If I were asked to choose one name to celebrate, then, I would choose Marsinah – a human rights activist who was kidnapped and murdered 17 years ago in Surabaya. In my opinion, she was eligible to gain such a great honor due to her achievement.
Firstly, as a factory worker, she worked very hard to encourage worker movement to improve working conditions in factories. A young, tough woman, she enthusiastically attempted to raise a critical awareness among her peer workers by organizing meetings and strikes.She was highly committed to improving the quality of working conditions in factory.After months of being a worker activist, she often got blackmail threatening her life. Despite imminent danger she encountered, she went on doing her activities. The threat came true when an organized group kidnapped her. She was found dead. The autopsy found that she was terribly tortured. After one decade of her death, it was still unclear who masterminded the murder of Marsinah.
Secondly, though she only finished her senior high school due to her family poverty, she was very active, optimistic, and hard working. Her optimistic personality and positive attitude to improve her skills were significantly good for us to follow. She did not feel desperate due to her inability to attend a college. Instead, she continued to attend informal courses such as computer and English courses after she finished her work. It was not unusual for her to stay late at night to improve her performance. It was really difficult to study at night when she worked hard all day long in a very bad environment. However, she could make it. Despite her poor condition, she strived for the best.
In conclusion, Marsinah is eligible to gain such a great honor due to her strong and consistent commitment to raise a critical awareness concerning unfair and unhealty working conditions suffered by common Indonesian workers. Additionally, she was a good model to follow.
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Pay attention to the enumeration that I use: Firstly, Secondly, and In conclusion. The enumeration is one of the distinctive characteristics of an argumentative essay - allowing the readers to keep the track of the reasons proposed by the writer.
Happy practicing!
*** female hero is called heroine.