Hello, I've written my first training essay. For this work I've used various dictionaries and other helpers. And its main goal is to develop my active vocabulary. Please, help me by leaving your comments about its structure, correctness of usage of words, grammatical correctness, reasonableness of my interpretation of the task, and other essay characteristics. Your mark of my essay will be helpful as well.
At the end I place my direct questions. Some of them have references to the text.
Thanks to all in advance!!

Task (IELTS)
Some people believe that children's leisure activities must be educational, otherwise they are a complete waste of time.
Do you agree or disagree?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your experience.

My Notes
believe: find, think, feel, be sure, acknowledge
children: kid, offspring, young people, youth
leisure activities: free time, spare time, pursuits, balanced pastime
waste of time: useless/useful
educational: learning, excessive education, studying

Chosen layout pattern:
3:5:5:5:3 "against"
total disagree → sport! → communication → entertainment → balance

My Essay
(in brackets are words which must not be included in essay's text: references, notes and alternatives)

The time of our children is (1) their future talents . Some people consider education (2) as the only useful way to spend time for their offsprings (3). Although I acknowledge the paramount importance of learning, I totally disagree with the given viewpoint. I am quite sure that our kids need a balanced pastime. This essay looks at some (4) reasons against excessive (5) education of children and outlines corresponding advantages of the opposing position (6). (69 words)

Endless studying is a potential threat to youth's health and well-being. Besides that persistent mental work is very exhausting, the lack of sport activities leaves young people no chance of having a strong body and no chance to prevent (obviate) a complete fatigue. In my professional life, there are periods of time, when I have to do some research or elaboration, which requires a lot of intellectual concentration, and I often tend to overwork into the bargain. Previously, it resulted in me suffering from insomnia, backache, bad appetite, and so forth. Then I introduced exercises into my everyday pursuits, and it completely solved my crisis (all my problems with well-being), what is more, it increased my productivity (7). (112 words)

Children also need time for an ordinary communication with their peers. Without it they will grow up unsociable and unpleasant (or lonely). Consequently, they will have difficulties in sharing their experience, impressions or feelings with somebody else. I believe that parents should remove any obstacles in their offsprings' communication and help to maintain friendly relations. As a result, these kids will naturally develop abilities to express and support own opinions and goals (8). (71 words)

Entertainment is a very important aspect of children's pastime (pursuits - 9) as well. Disregard of it (10) makes them (11) unhappy, listless, irritable and in addition to long educational activities will certainly provoke a failure of nerve. Music, movies, TV shows, board or video games might seem useless from educational perspective, nevertheless they fill our life with new colors and make us relax. (59 words)

(12) Education and discovery of new knowledge are the most important part of our being starting from the birth, but negative attitude to sport, ordinary communication and entertainment deprives our kids of having a balanced and successful development. (36 words)

(347 words/250, 5:5:5:3:1 sentences)

Questions
1. This sentence might be confusing for English. What's better:
a. leave as is
b. to rephrase or cut it at all
c. replace "is" by "forms" or "makes"
2. Is my interpretation not too far from the original? I say, some people think that kids must learn, learn, learn, only learn, otherwise time is wasted. But task might mean, some people find that children's activities must have some educational component, or they are waste of time.
3. Again, is my interpretation not too far from the original? Task says about children in general, i.e. not children of certain parents, but children in our school/country/world etc.
4. Is expression "some reasons" not too "weak"? For example, maybe it must be "the reasons" or "3 reasons" or "my reasons".
5. Again, I am afraid of my bad interpretation of subject. "Excessive education" is only a subset of what can be meant by the subject..
6. Is this second statement not superfluous? I just wanted to say that I would propose an alternative besides reasons against.. Also I'm not sure about correct usage of "outline" in this context.
7. This paragraph seems not finished. Is it really so? Should I add a final statement like "thus, I find sport a must have"..
8. Is this phrase not confusing: "express and support goals"? Here I mean that children need to share and discuss their goals (speak in support).
9. If I used here "pursuits", would it be OK? I've used "pursuits" earlier in the text.
10. Can I use here "its disregard"? What's better?
11. "Them" or "children"? Especially, is I used "pursuits" above, and "them" would refer to both.
12. Can I use here "To crown it all"? It is a nice chunk, but as I understood from Lingvo, it means continuation of arguments, and conclusion of an essay must not contain a new argument. So, can a conclusion be crown? :))

I forget few questions..

Additional Questions:
13. "it completely solved my crisis". For me "crisis" here sounds great, but I have doubts whether crisis in English has corresponding meaning (in lingvo only political/economical examples).. Is replacement "all my problems with well-being" acceptable?

14. Task says "include any relevant examples from your experience". I have given only one example in first body paragraph. Should I make examples for each reason??

Я готовлюсь к IELTS, и буду еще писать много эссе (стараюсь готовиться хотя бы по 4 часа в день). Возможно кто-нибудь взялся бы мне помочь с проверками и советами. Естественно, не бесплатно. Пишите на email через этот форум (линк под моим именем).

Andrei
Насколько я помню, Anastasia специализируется на подготовке к IELTS и другим экзаменам.
Можете поискать ее сообщения с доступной кнопкой email на этом форуме.
Да и просто поищите ее сообщения с ценными советами...

Да, я уже искал ее посты, но, к сожалению, она нигде не оставляет емайл :(((
Очень надеюсь, что она заглянет в мой пост..

Видно, что проделана огромная работа. Некоторые моменты показались мне спорными:

The time of our children is (1) their future talents - мне кажется не очень удачной фразой. Может быть, Childhood and youth is the time when future talents of a person develop.
consider education (2) as - consider education to be
to prevent a complete fatigue - to avoid complete fatigue
it completely solved my crisis
Children also need time for an ordinary communication with their peers. - 1) зачем also? Besides studying?
unsociable and unpleasant. - unsociable and sullen.
with somebody else - with others
develop abilities to express and support own opinions and goals - develop the ability to express and support their own opinions and reach their goals
negative attitude to sport, ordinary communication and entertainment deprives our kids of having a balanced and successful development. - отрицательное отношение чье, детей или родителей?

it completely solved my crisis - it's OK

Видно, что проделана огромная работа. Некоторые моменты показались мне спорными:

The time of our children is (1) their future talents - мне кажется не очень удачной фразой. Может быть, Childhood and youth is the time when future talents of a person develop.
consider education (2) as - consider education to be
to prevent a complete fatigue - to avoid complete fatigue
it completely solved my crisis
Children also need time for an ordinary communication with their peers. - 1) зачем also? Besides studying?
unsociable and unpleasant. - unsociable and sullen.
with somebody else - with others
develop abilities to express and support own opinions and goals - develop the ability to express and support their own opinions and reach their goals
negative attitude to sport, ordinary communication and entertainment deprives our kids of having a balanced and successful development. - отрицательное отношение чье, детей или родителей?

1. Answered (see above)
2. The whole essay's idea should be "children's LEISURE activities must have some educational component". This particular sentence is all right though.
3. It's all right.
4. I would use "cons" (as in "pros and cons"), then you don't have to ponder over the number of reasons.

5. Again, the idea is that LEISURE time should not be overfilled with educational activities.

6. You should put this sentence in a simpler way. By the way, I didn't quite catch what "corresponding advantages of the opposing position" means in this context. "Outline" sounds all right to me.

7. You might point out here that playing sports, though it's not "educational" in the literal sense, is an important component of leisure pastime.

8. Answered (see above)

9. I would use LEISURE ACTIVITIES here. The idea is that leisure shouldn't be always educational. Doesn't it seem strange to you that you have not used the key word (leisure) in your essay?

10. The variant you have used is correct. But it's ambiguous, as further on you speak about children while "disregard" refers to their parents. I think you should make your point more clear.

11. See #10

12. One can conclude by saying that... However, sometimes it's not necessary to emphasize the fact that you are drawing the line, it may be obvious from the context.

Много полезной лексики по этой теме здесь:

[www.lifestyle-homeschool.com]

Fix: 2.The whole essay's idea should be "children's LEISURE activities don't have to be always educational".

Не Математик
Thank you very much for your answers! They are very helpful! There are my comments and conclusions..

Corresponding to my questions
1. Время наших детей - это их будущие таланты. Well, it seems that it's impossible to translate this phrase into English as is. And I have concluded to not make by word translations of phrases anymore :) and to avoid Russian "… - это …". Thus.. The talents of our children arise in their childhood. Some people… Is it acceptable? Your suggestion is also fine, but I would not build such a sentence by myself.

2. The whole essay's idea should be "children's LEISURE activities don't have to be always educational". Yes, I'm fully agree with you. Here I wanted to understand whether IELTS is friendly to little deviation in interpretation of task. The fact of the matter is that I saw this deviation only after writing the introduction. My conclusion is that I need to be really careful in my comprehension of the task and spend more time just for thinking over its sense. Nevertheless, can you suggest how bad was my interpretation?:) What if I change it to "Some people consider education as (or to be - separate item) the only useful way to spend leisure (or spare or free) time for their offsprings "?

3. You wrote "It's all right". Do you mean that I am right that my interpretation is bad again or that my interpretation is OK? :)

4. "some reason" you suggested to replace by "cons". "cons" seems too informal to me and I usually do not use this word separately from "pros". And if "some reason" is OK, then I would better include it in my "dictionary" for IELTS.

5. Considering that I have added "leisure" in item (2), is "reasons against excessive education" still off-topic? For me, if "leisure time" is already in context of speaking, then "excessive education" sounds quite OK.. What do you think?

6. With "corresponding advantages of the opposing position" I mean that corresponding to each reason I'm going to describe I will also include advantages of the alternative. Well, maybe I just need to remove this second part of the sentence.

7. But am I right saying that this paragraph seems unfinished? If it is not (= no influence on the IELTS score), then I would better leave as is.

8. At first, "the ability" instead of "abilities". Yes, I got it. Lingvo says ability to do something, but intellectual/creative abilities or abilities for… At second, "reach their goals". Actually I wanted to say that children need to share and discuss their goals (speak in support). Reaching their goals is not what I meant. And as I understand used by me words are bad: express and support goal. I have tried to search "support your goals" and "express your goals" in Google - the first is not so commonly used, mostly in situations when something supports your goals, the second seems to be OK..

9. :-) Actually, I have tried specially to not use "leisure" in my essay. As I understand, IELTS examiners do not like to find words from task within essay's text.. Have I tried too hard?:))

10. I have understood that my mistake is that I don't specify whose disregard and whose negative attitude.. In my mind was that I directed essay to the parents, therefore for me it was naturally that disregard and attitude related to adults. As I see now, I must be more careful, and my sentences must have more general character.

11. OK

12. So, as I understand it's OK to leave my conclusion as is. As regards to "to crown it all", I just want to include this advanced chunk in my collection of chunks for essay:), but I am unsure whether it is correct to use it for concluding essay's arguments. Of course, the 40 essays I might write will look dull if I include the same chunk in all of them. But I will write only one essay which will be checked by examiner..

13. As I understand, "It completely solved my crisis" is good phrase and I will include "crisis" In my collection of text-referring words (as synonym to problem).

14. (skipped) Task says "include any relevant examples from your experience". I have given only one example in first body paragraph. Should I make examples for each reason??

Unnumbered:
A. "consider education as" versus "consider education to be". I find in Lingvo the following: "I considered him as a fool. — Я считал его круглым дураком."

B. My variants: "to prevent a complete fatigue" or "to obviate a complete fatigue". Your correction is "to avoid complete fatigue". Presence of "a" in my phrases is very bad? Why I can't use "prevent" or "obviate"? As I understand, "prevent" and "obviate" make something that has not yet happened not to happen :)) And thus, something left no chance to make the fatigue, which has not yet happened, not to happen.

C. 2nd body paragraph starts with "Children also need time". I have added "also" here because it is the second reason. Actually I have not yet a feeling how to introduce new reasons correctly in new paragraphs. So, if I delete "also", it will be OK?

D. 2nd body paragraph: "unsociable and unpleasant" versus "unsociable and sullen". Sullen is a good word, I will try to introduce it to my works. I also agree that "unpleasant" is maybe dangerous in this context. But is it really unacceptable?

E. 2nd body paragraph: "with somebody else" versus "with others". Actually, when I was writing, I thought about this "else" very long time :-)) Can you explain why I can't use "somebody else" here? My concern was that "else" must have a connection to some party, but at the end I decided that connection to subject is quite OK, i.e. they ↔ somebody else.

1.

The talents of our children arise in their childhood. Some people… Is it acceptable?

Understandable - yes, acceptable - I am not sure as English is not my first language.


2. "Some people consider education as (or to be - separate item) the only useful way to spend leisure (or spare or free) time for their offsprings "?

I think this time it's better. Or "Some people consider education as the only useful way for their offsprings to spend their leisure (or spare or free or recreation) time "

3. I meant that the original sentence was OK. :)
4. "Some reasons" is all right, I guess.
5. I agree.
6. Too complicated for me :)
7. I don't know the criteria of IELTS. My comment was a passer-by's one, if you know what I mean. Coming back to your essay, I think, the first sentence of each paragraph should carry the main idea of this paragraph and the last sentence should be a sort of conclusion, yes. So you may make the ending more "conclusive".

8. Then I would put it like this "THEIR (intellectual) abilities so that they could express and support their own opinions and goals" .


9. Have I tried too hard?:))
I got your point, it sounds reasonable, but you might have used more synonims (e.g. recreation).


10. This ambiguity is a very little one.



12. to cap/crown/top it all

something that you say when you want to tell someone the worst event in a series of bad events that has happened to you He spilled red wine on the carpet, insulted my mother, and to cap it all, broke my favourite vase.
This idiom has a negative connotation, I think you need more neutral expressions. If you don't like the one I suggested, you may find plenty of others.
By the way, I noticed that the last paragraph of your essay sounds rather pessimistically. As I view it, in the last paragraph all your ideas should be summed up briefly and the solution to the problem of the essay should be offered.
13. I have learned this phrase from your essay.:-) When I "googled", I found some examples where it was used.
14. I don't think you should give that many examples, one or two is all right. But the ones you give should speak for themselves and express your attitude to the problem comprehensively.

A. You are right - it' just my personal preference :0)
B. See A :0)
C. I suggested to start the paragraph with "Besides studying...", then you don't have to leave out "also".
D. See A :0)
E. "Others" is often used in the phrases like "to play with others", "to talk with others" etc. It means "being the remaining ones of a number" while "somebody else" means "different from the one mentioned or described". You just choose what is closer to your notion of the party. I prefer the former word.


P.S. By the way, on UsingEnglish.com native speakers of English check people's essays. Have you tried this?

Не Математик
Well, thanks a lot again! Your final comments are very helpful. I will take all of them into consideration when writing new essay, also I am going to improve this essay and ask some teacher to give approximate IELTS scores for both.

I have also looked for more definitions of "crown/cap it all" ("в довершение ко всему он еще и придурок") on the freedictionary.com. Thus, I think it is not suitable for conslusion at all. However, one can use it for starting the last body paragraph.
My conclusion sounds really pessimistically and needs one more sentence:)

Regarding "crisis", unfortunately I have not yet found any examples except related to economics, politics and financial difficulties.. I've found it as a text-referring word in "vocabulary in use upper-intermediate/advanced" in the row with "problem", "difficulty" and "matter". But this work does not give any explanations. There is only such example. We are running short of funds. How do you propose we should deal with the ... (answer= problem/matter; crisis if it is really serios)

I got what you mean with "else". Actually, I thought similar, and my doubts were true..

I have already looked UsingEnglish.com today at work and added to bookmarks. You have told about it in another forum's thread.

Andrei
Good luck to you!

I have posted a question about "crisis" to Using-English forum :)

[www.usingenglish.com]

consider education as ... the only useful way

do not use "as" with "consider".
consider education ... the only useful way

чайка could you explain, please?

чайка
I looked up "consider" in Collins (COBUILD) and found such example in the entry:
They do not consider a child as important.

Is "using or not using as after "consider" another difference between the American and British English?

Can one use "consider as" with adjectives in American English?

чайка

sounds really pessimistically

Russian is always interfering with my English! I should have written "sound PESSIMISTIC", of course.

Не Математик, I consider your point as a normal English speaker and still say that I would not use "as" in that way but in the way I just did in this sentence.

I know that a lot of people do use "as", but then again those same people probably think "enormity" has something to do with size.

Andrei

I wish I had a similar degree of dedication to what I'm doing. Thumbs up man! You are bound to pull it off!

Здраствуйте уважаемые форумчане, я недавно сдавал IELTS, у меня проблема c writing , что можете посоветовать и если есть свободное время, посмотрите пожалуйста мое эссе,
When a country develops its technology, the traditional skills and ways of life die out.It is pointless to try and keep them alive.
In these days our planet live in century of high technology. Everyday in the different countries the scientists and the inventors create a new devices for ease daily life. People use very comfortable technology for convenience and forget about traditional skills. I think it is wrong way for humankind and in the following paragraphs I will give my view.
Firstly, know-how technology is very good for citizens, because an invention facilitate our ways of life. Nowadays we can wash clothes very quickly to use automatic machine. Also we can buy online tickets for train through Internet without go to the railway station.
However, many people consider that society always should remember about your traditional skills and ways of life, because our history is our power. If we forget our national ability, we will only one big crowded group without history and face. For example American red Indian people begin to use new technology, that many young people begin to forget your knowledge, they became one of part American society. Therefore we must try to keep our historic ability for future generation, in order to our children can introduce with customary cleverness and to get information about your nation.
Secondly, we have to save our traditional skills for make money. Because in the modern world very quickly develops tourism, one of the most popular kind of tourism is educational tourism. People from the different part of the world like to show and live in the historical attractions and places, especially when museum’s, sightseeing’s workers make unusual things to use traditional skills. It is a very spectacular for visitors. For example, in my country make qumus to use only traditional tools, because if you use a new tools, that flavor of qumus will tasteless. Qumus is a national Kazakh drink from the horse milk.
To sum up, in the modern society people should keep balance between new technology and traditional ways of life, because traditional skills play significant role in education a new generation.

Thanks to all for suggestions!

Here I publish the corrected version of my essay. I have not yet discussed it with some teacher, thus any estimation of IELTS score are very welcome!!

The talents of our children arise in their childhood. Some people consider education the only useful way for their offsprings to spend their spare time. Although I acknowledge the paramount importance of learning, I totally disagree with the given viewpoint. I am quite sure that our kids need a balanced pastime. This essay looks at some reasons against excessive education by children and outlines advantages of the opposing approach. (68 words)

Endless studying is a potential threat to youth's health and well-being. Besides that persistent mental work is very exhausting, the lack of sport activities leaves young people no chance of having a strong body and no chance to avoid a complete fatigue. In my professional life, I sometimes do research that requires a lot of intellectual concentration. Previously, I often tended to overwork into the bargain, and it resulted in me suffering from insomnia, backache, bad appetite, and so forth. Then I introduced exercises into my everyday pursuits, and it completely solved my problem. (112 words)

Besides studying children also need time for an ordinary communication with their peers. Without it they will grow up unsociable and sullen. Consequently, they will have difficulties in sharing their experience, impressions or feelings with others. I believe that parents should remove any obstacles in their offsprings' communication and help to maintain friendly relations. As a result, these kids will naturally develop their capacity to give and support their own opinions. (71 words)

Entertainment is a very important aspect of children's pastime as well. Disregard of it makes them unhappy, listless, irritable and in addition to long educational activities will certainly provoke a failure of nerve. Music, movies, TV shows, board or video games might seem useless from educational perspective, but they fill our life with new colors and make us relax. (59 words)

Education and discovery of new knowledge are the most important part of our being starting from the birth. However, for successful development we also need time for sport activities, ordinary communication and entertainment. Balance makes our kids happy. (36 words)


(331 words/250, 5:5:5:3:2 sentences)

Thanks you very much to all! I have taken an exam on 23. January. My score for writing is 6.5.
I wrote a letter of complaint and an essay about being a celebrity. Writing a letter took 25 minutes.

Overal score is also 6.5 (6 - listening; 7.5 - reading; 6.5 - writing; 5.5 - speaking). This is sucessful for me.