TPO-16 - Independent Writing Task Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? The best way to travel is in a group led by a tour guide. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

With the rapid growth of bourgeoisie, a trend of traveling has emerged among people all over the world, even from some underdeveloped countries. In order to satisfy the requirements of different populations, travel agencies provide with various ways to travel. One option is to take a trip with a group and a tour guide, which is favored by a throng of people for its convenience. In my opinion, despite its advantage, this option is less sufficient to be the best way and I will explain my idea with the following arguments.

Admittedly, traveling led by a professional guide is convenient. It is because every detail during the tour has already been scheduled before the trip by the experienced tour guide. People are not obliged to book their tickets for scenic spots, determine their route, and find a hotel – these have been done by the guide. The convenience makes it possible for people to just enjoy their vacations. It is not difficult to imagine that people favor this way to reduce their stress accumulated from all the aspects in their lives. Besides, it is widely believed that a group trip is more economic because tourists can share things, like cameras and food, with each other. More importantly, a large travel agency is usually able to book tickets or rooms at a lower price. Undoubtedly, people love the way with lower expenditures. However, to claim that this is the best way to travel is still an overstatement.

To begin with, on account of their profit and other factors, travel agencies and tour guides will not design a perfect route for you. First, they will take you to some places that are not renowned but have cooperation with them. These spots with fewer scenes offer many benefits to travel agencies to attract visitors, and agencies will put these sites in their schedules. Both spots and agencies are winners, but the losers are the customers – they have to waste time in somewhere meaningless. Second, tourists are unable to deeply experience the exotic cultures during the trip. As known to all, the time that a visitor can spend in a place is limited if they have a tour guide. Although this rule is originally designed for control the time, it imposes restrictions for people to have detailed observations because things like taking photos occupy too much their time. Therefore, having your route determined by a tour guide is disadvantageous.

Compared with this way, what I prefer is to travel alone or with familiar people only. The first advantage is that I have the full right to determine my schedule, therefore I can have a more comprehensive understanding of where I visit. Furthermore, traveling without a tour guide can reduce my financial burden since hiring a guide is not a small overhead, which indicates that I have to save money from other expenditures to afford this cost. The significance of a travel agency or a tour guide is further weakened by the development of transportation technology, which enables people can visit any corner in a metropolis. Besides, a rural landscape is more accessible with the assistance of an advanced network of buses. So transportation is no longer a problem.

To sum up, the benefits of traveling with a tour guide cannot outweigh its disadvantages, such as a waste of time and the increase in expenditures. From my perspective, it is not the best way to travel.

Votes
Average: 7.3 (1 vote)
Essay Categories

Transition Words or Phrases used:
besides, but, first, furthermore, however, if, second, so, still, therefore, such as, in my opinion, to begin with, to sum up

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 29.0 15.1003584229 192% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 9.8082437276 102% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 13.8261648746 101% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 11.0286738351 100% => OK
Pronoun: 51.0 43.0788530466 118% => OK
Preposition: 80.0 52.1666666667 153% => OK
Nominalization: 10.0 8.0752688172 124% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2798.0 1977.66487455 141% => OK
No of words: 572.0 407.700716846 140% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.89160839161 4.8611393121 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.89045207381 4.48103885553 109% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.85774730233 2.67179642975 107% => OK
Unique words: 282.0 212.727598566 133% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.493006993007 0.524837075471 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 903.6 618.680645161 146% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.51630824373 106% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 9.59856630824 83% => OK
Article: 8.0 3.08781362007 259% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 2.0 3.51792114695 57% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.86738351254 161% => OK
Preposition: 11.0 4.94265232975 223% => Less preposition wanted as sentence beginnings.

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 29.0 20.6003584229 141% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 20.1344086022 94% => OK
Sentence length SD: 40.3999623268 48.9658058833 83% => OK
Chars per sentence: 96.4827586207 100.406767564 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.724137931 20.6045352989 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.31034482759 5.45110844103 79% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.53405017921 110% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.5376344086 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 16.0 11.8709677419 135% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 3.85842293907 207% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.88709677419 102% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.184478560214 0.236089414692 78% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0583904611697 0.076458572812 76% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0431337228205 0.0737576698707 58% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.12337060923 0.150856017488 82% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.033627222876 0.0645574589148 52% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.5 11.7677419355 98% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 58.1214874552 90% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 6.10430107527 144% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 10.1575268817 105% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.08 10.9000537634 102% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.28 8.01818996416 103% => OK
difficult_words: 134.0 86.8835125448 154% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 10.002688172 110% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 10.0537634409 95% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 10.247311828 107% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 73.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 22.0 Out of 30
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.