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Writing structure library
Compare the two responses to the same prompt.
Nowadays, many parents think about where to raise their children, in the city or in the countryside. Both places have good point and bad point.1 In my opinion, I think it is better to raise children in a big city, because city have more resource for children2.
First reason is, city have better education. There are many good school in the city, and also many library and museum. Children can learn a lot of knowledge in these place. But in the countryside, there is only few school and the teacher is not so good. So children in the city can get better education than countryside3.
Second reason is, city have more chance for children future. In the city, children can see many different thing and meet many different people, so they can open their eyes and know the world4. When they grow up, they can find a good job in the city easily. But in the countryside, there is not so many chance, so children maybe can not have a good future.
Some people think countryside is better because the air is fresh and clean, this is true5. But I think education and future is more important than the air. So in conclusion, I think it is better to raise children in a big city.
A flat, formulaic sentence that stalls the introduction and drops the plural ("good points and bad points"). It states the obvious without moving toward a position — Score-17 introductions often idle here instead of committing to an argument.
Two errors in a short clause: "city have" needs "cities have" or "a city has", and "resource" should be the plural "resources". Because Mandarin marks neither number nor agreement, these two slip in together constantly — check the subject and the noun every time.
A faulty comparison: it compares "children" to "countryside", two unlike things. It should be "than children in the countryside". Incomplete comparisons like this are a frequent Score-17 error and blur the very point being argued.
"Open their eyes" is a direct translation of 开眼界; the natural idiom is "broaden their horizons". The idea (exposure to diversity) is reasonable but stops at a slogan instead of showing how exposure actually shapes a child.
A comma splice joins two independent clauses; it needs a period or a conjunction ("clean, and this is true"). The concession is also recorded but never answered beyond "I think education is more important" — granting a point without engaging it caps the development score.
Where to raise a child is rarely a neutral choice, since the surrounding environment quietly shapes what the child comes to treat as normal. Although the countryside offers real advantages in space and calm, I believe a big city is, on balance, the better place to raise children, primarily because of the breadth of opportunity it makes ordinary rather than exceptional1.
The most decisive factor is access to specialized resources that a child cannot easily seek out alone. A city concentrates not just schools but the surrounding infrastructure that turns a passing interest into a genuine pursuit: a public library within walking distance, a science museum reachable by bus, a Saturday coding club, an orchestra that accepts beginners. A rural child equally curious about music or engineering depends far more on whether a single local teacher happens to exist, whereas a city child can usually find an institution built for exactly that interest. The difference is not that cities produce more talented children, but that they lower the cost of pursuing whatever talent a child already has.
A second, subtler benefit is habitual exposure to difference. A child who grows up alongside classmates from many countries, income levels and beliefs learns to treat variety as unremarkable, and that early fluency in navigating unfamiliar people is difficult to acquire later3. This is not merely about tolerance; it is a practical skill, since the adult world such a child will enter is itself diverse, mobile and unpredictable, and the instincts formed in a mixed urban classroom transfer directly to it.
I do not dismiss the countryside's genuine strengths. Cleaner air, physical freedom and a slower, safer rhythm are real goods, and a childhood spent partly outdoors is something many urban parents rightly try to recreate. Yet most of these benefits can be approximated within or near a city through parks, weekend trips and green suburbs, while the reverse is far harder4: a rural family cannot easily manufacture a world-class museum or a genuinely diverse peer group. The city's disadvantages are the more solvable ones, which is what finally tips the balance.
For these reasons I would choose a city, not because the countryside is a poor place to grow up, but because the specific advantages a city offers — concentrated opportunity and everyday diversity — are precisely the ones that are hardest to reproduce elsewhere, whereas its drawbacks are the easiest to soften5.
A thesis with a built-in idea, not just a preference. "Makes ordinary rather than exceptional" names the precise mechanism the essay will defend, giving the whole response a spine — the kind of controlled thesis that anchors a top-band essay.
One idea developed to a precise formulation: the essay refuses the crude claim that cities make children smarter and instead identifies the real variable (cost of access). Compare the Score-17 essay's flat "children can get better education" — this shows the mechanism rather than asserting the outcome.
This is what "broaden their horizons" should have become: exposure is traced to a concrete, transferable adult skill and an explanation of why timing matters. The Score-17 essay stopped at the slogan; here the idea is carried through to its consequence.
The concession is answered with a real argument (asymmetry of solvability) rather than merely outweighed by assertion. Granting the countryside its due and then showing its advantages are the more replaceable ones is exactly the concede-then-redirect move top essays make.
The conclusion names the decisive criterion (which side's weaknesses are more fixable) instead of simply restating the preference. Supplying an explicit basis for the judgement, rather than repeating it, is a hallmark of the top score band.
Both essays choose the city and cite the same two reasons — education and exposure — so the choice and the outline are identical. The Score-28 essay converts each reason into a precise mechanism (cities lower the cost of access; early exposure becomes a transferable adult skill), answers the countryside concession with a real argument about which side's weaknesses are more fixable, and ends by naming the criterion behind its judgement. The Score-17 essay states its reasons as slogans ("open their eyes"), records the concession without engaging it, and is slowed by agreement, plural and faulty-comparison errors a Mandarin speaker should proofread for deliberately. To close the gap, push each reason one step further into how and why, and make your concession an argument, not just an admission.