In many organizations perhaps the best way to approach certain new projects is to assemble a group of people into a team Having a team of people attack a project offers several advantages First of all a group of people has a wider range of knowledge exper | TOEFL IELTS GMAT GRE SAT ACT PTE ESL

Essay topics:

In many organizations, perhaps the best way to approach certain new projects
is to assemble a group of people into a team. Having a team of people attack
a project offers several advantages. First of all, a group of people has a wider
range of knowledge, expertise, and skills than any single individual is likely
to possess. Also, because of the number of people involved and the greater
resources they possess, a group can work more quickly in response to the task
assigned to it and can come up with highly creative solutions to problems and
issues. Sometimes these creative solutions come about because a group is
more likely to make risky decisions that an individual might not undertake. This
is because the group spreads responsibility for a decision to all the members
and thus no single individual can be held accountable if the decision turns out
to be wrong.
Taking part in a group process can be very rewarding for members of the
team. Team members who have a voice in making a decision will no doubt feel
better about carrying out the work that is entailed by that decision than they
might doing work that is imposed on them by others. Also, the individual team
member has a much better chance to "shine," to get his or her contributions
and ideas not only recognized but recognized as highly significant, because a
team's overall results can be more far-reaching and have greater impact than
what might have otherwise been possible for the person to accomplish or
contribute working alone.

Narrator
Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic you just read about.
Professor
Now I want to tell you about what one company found when it decided that it would
turn over some of its new projects to teams of people and make the team responsible
for planning the projects and getting the work done. After about six months, the company took a look at how well the teams performed.
On virtually every team, some members got almost a "free ride" ... they didn't
contribute much at all, but if their team did a good job, they nevertheless benefited
from the recognition the team got. And what about group members who worked
especially well and who provided a lot of insight on problems and issues? Well ... the
recognition for a job well done went to the group as a whole; no names were named.
So it won't surprise you to learn that when the real contributors were asked how they
felt about the group process, their attitude was just the opposite of what the reading
predicts.
Another finding was that some projects just didn't move very quickly. Why?
Because it took so long to reach consensus; it took many, many meetings to build the
agreement among group members about how they would move the project along.
On the other hand, there were other instances where one or two people managed to
become very influential over what their group did. Sometimes when those influencers
said, "That will never work" about an idea the group was developing, the idea was
quickly dropped instead of being further discussed. And then there was another occasion when a couple influencers convinced the group that a plan of theirs was "highly
creative." And even though some members tried to warn the rest of the group that
the project was moving in directions that might not work, they were basically ignored
by other group members. Can you guess the ending to this story? When the project
failed, the blame was placed on all the members of the group.

Summarize the points made in the lecture you just heard, explaining how they cast
doubt on the points made in the reading passage.

The reading passage introduces the topic of teamwork in a project. In particular, it highlights the advantages of group works in a venture. On the contrary, the lecture counters each of the claims made in the article and points out major disadvantages associated with group work in a project.
First and foremost, the author begins with the pros of teamwork by stating how it adds skills, resources, and creativity of different individuals to tackle a single problem. The lecturer disagrees with this claim. He points out that many projects conducted by a team are subjected to the risk of having free riders, who don't contribute to the project and are able to gain recognition for team efforts. Furthermore, the speaker adds on by stating how the morale of actual contributors declines when proper recognition of their efforts is not done.
Secondly, the writer supports his argument by representing traits of teamwork such as non-accountability and risk distribution as a good thing for the project. Not surprisingly, the lecturer disapproves of this assertion by contending that delays in most of the projects are due to the time-consuming process involved in decision-making through consensus. In addition, influential members are prone to push their idea into action even if there is a high chance of failure as an individual member is not accountable for the group's work.
To sum up, the author and the lecturer have conflicting views regarding the effectiveness of teamwork for handling any project. It will be difficult for them to find a common ground.

Votes

Essay Categories

Integrated TOEFL Writing

Comments

Essay evaluations by e-grader

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 2, column 320, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
... to the risk of having free riders, who dont contribute to the project and are able ...
^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, furthermore, if, regarding, second, secondly, so, in addition, in particular, such as, on the contrary, to sum up

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

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 8.0 10.4613686534 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 1.0 5.04856512141 20% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 7.30242825607 82% => OK
Relative clauses : 4.0 12.0772626932 33% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 12.0 22.412803532 54% => OK
Preposition: 45.0 30.3222958057 148% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 5.01324503311 120% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1312.0 1373.03311258 96% => OK
No of words: 255.0 270.72406181 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.14509803922 5.08290768461 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 3.99608801488 4.04702891845 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.15588585543 2.5805825403 122% => OK
Unique words: 151.0 145.348785872 104% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.592156862745 0.540411800872 110% => OK
syllable_count: 396.0 419.366225166 94% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 3.25607064018 92% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.23620309051 97% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 13.0662251656 92% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 21.2450331126 99% => OK
Sentence length SD: 53.8183028553 49.2860985944 109% => OK
Chars per sentence: 109.333333333 110.228320801 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.25 21.698381199 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 10.4166666667 7.06452816374 147% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 4.19205298013 24% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 4.33554083885 115% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 4.45695364238 112% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.27373068433 47% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.160499773001 0.272083759551 59% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0548408015045 0.0996497079465 55% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0506942558465 0.0662205650399 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0932357576802 0.162205337803 57% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0331732913407 0.0443174109184 75% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.5 13.3589403974 101% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 53.8541721854 93% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 11.0289183223 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.59 12.2367328918 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.95 8.42419426049 106% => OK
difficult_words: 69.0 63.6247240618 108% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 10.7273730684 79% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 10.498013245 99% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.2008830022 80% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 88.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 26.5 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.

Essay evaluations by e-grader

Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, furthermore, if, regarding, second, secondly, so, in addition, in particular, such as, on the contrary, to sum up

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