Chapter 35

Writing Task Type 1: A

Writing questions test your ability to comprehend written or spoken material and to respond in written
form. You will have to type your essay into the computer. There are two different writing tasks. Writing
Task 1 is an “integrated” task. You will first read a short passage on an academic topic. Next, you will listen
to a short lecture that adds information about the same topic. The lecture will agree or disagree with the
passage in various ways (it will often disagree). Finally, you will be asked to summarize information from
both the lecture and the reading passage. (Usually, you will be asked to explain how the lecturer agrees or
disagrees with the passage, using the same examples given by the lecturer.) You will be able to reread the
passage while you write your essay, but you will not be able to replay any part of the lecture. You will have
20 minutes to write your essay.
Writing questions test your ability to understand spoken and written information and to summarize and
express opinions about that information. They also test your ability to respond in writing to specific questions,
including your grammar and spelling, your vocabulary, and the logical organization of your ideas.
How should you use this chapter? Here are some recommendations, according to the level you’ve reached in
TOEFL Writing:
0. Everyone! Hold yourself to the time limits whenever practicing Writing tasks. Don’t write by hand. Use
Microsoft Word or other word processing software, but turn off both spell-check and grammar-check. 
1. Fundamentals. Start with whichever essay type is a little easier for you. Try one question and then
check your response against the sample answer. Fix any errors and think carefully about the
principles at work. If you think you can do a better job, rewrite your essay. Articulate what you want
to do differently the next time you write this type of essay.
2. Fixes. Do one Writing task, examine the results, learn your lessons, then try the other type of
Writing task. Be sure to keep to the time limits. When you’re ready, graduate to doing a set of the
two different Writing tasks in a row.
3. Tweaks. Confirm your mastery by doing a set of the two different Writing tasks in a row under
timed conditions.
Good luck on Writing!

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 Chapter 35 Writing Task Type 1: A

35.1
Give yourself 3 minutes to read the passage.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

For some, owning one’s own business is the essence of the American dream. However, many paths to
owning a business are fraught with financial danger. Starting a new business, or buying an existing
business, is a risky proposition. The amount of investment required is often more than people can afford to
lose, so the failure of a business could result in financial ruin.
There is a solution that can help tremendously: licensing a product or technology from another company,
and using that license to build products or provide services for sale. Under licensing, one business pays a fee
for permission to sell another business’s products. This allows new business owners to avoid many common
expenses, such as research and development, developing intellectual property protection, legal expenses, etc.
By licensing an established product or service that consumers already recognize, the licensee can quickly
begin filling a preexisting demand. This can be crucial for small businesses that have neither the money nor
the time to develop a full-fledged marketing campaign for their new products. Many such small businesses
need to earn a profit quickly in order to survive, while a marketing campaign can take a long time to yield
benefits.
Another significant advantage of licensing is the flexibility it provides. For a small company with multiple
licenses, it is usually fairly easy to increase production on products or services that are selling well and to
35 decrease or abandon poorly selling products or services. Also, when license terms expire, the licensee can
choose whether to keep the license based on whether it has been profitable thus far. If a product is not
profitable, the licensee has only lost the cost of the license, not the much larger cost of developing the
product or service in the first place.

  Listen to Track 444.

You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response. Your response will be judged on the
basis of the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the points in
the lecture and their relationship to the reading passage. Typically, an effective response
will be 150 to 225 words.

Response Time: 20 minutes

Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they challenge
the specific points made in the reading passage.

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 Writing Task Type 1: A Chapter 35

35.2
Give yourself 3 minutes to read the passage.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Around four to five thousand years ago, the monument known today as Stonehenge was built in
Southwestern England. It consists of a series of standing stones, arranged in a ring and surrounded by a
“henge,” or earthen layout. The henge consists of a roughly circular border surrounding a lower, flat
area—a ditch—that is also circular. The entire monument is about 100 meters in diameter, while the
standing stone arrangement spans only about 35 meters.
Archaeologists have been trying to determine the purpose of Stonehenge for centuries. Some things are
known for certain. Human bone has been found in numerous locations at the site, suggesting that
Stonehenge was a burial ground. Also, construction of the monument took place not over years or decades,
but over several centuries. Carbon dating traces the earliest components of Stonehenge to around 3000 BC,
but some of the pieces were placed over 1,000 years later.
Otherwise, much of Stonehenge’s origin is open for debate. Thousands of stone circles from the pre-
Christian era have been discovered in the British Isles and Northwest France, spanning several millennia.
In most cases, it is believed that these stone circles were used in some form of ceremony. Therefore, one
theory is that Stonehenge was a site for burial ceremonies.
Another theory is that Stonehenge was a destination for people suffering from some ailment—a
“pilgrimage site,” where sufferers went to seek healing. There is evidence to support this view: Among the 35
human skeletal remains excavated at the site, many show evidence of trauma or disfigurement. Also, an
account from a Greek historian tells of “a magnificent precinct sacred to Apollo and a notable spherical
temple” located on an island north of France, where Stonehenge is located. Since Apollo was the Greek
god of medicine and healing, this account adds support to the theory.

  Listen to Track 445.

You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response. Your response will be judged on the
basis of the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the points in
the lecture and their relationship to the reading passage. Typically, an effective response
will be 150 to 225 words.

Response Time: 20 minutes

Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they oppose
the specific points made in the reading passage.

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 Chapter 35 Writing Task Type 1: A

35.3
Give yourself 3 minutes to read the passage.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

A 3-million-year-old fossilized skeleton of a human ancestor, named Lucy, has been the subject of intense
speculation since her discovery in Ethiopia in 1974. This speculation has included theories about how Lucy
died as well as how she lived. Recent research suggests that Lucy may have perished as the result of injuries
sustained during a fall from a tree.
Researchers took digital CT scans of her bones to map out all of the breaks as well as to see any invisible
cracks or other defects inside the bone. They discovered that her right humerus, the bone that runs from
the elbow to the shoulder, suffered from compression fractures and contained tiny slivers of bone fragments
inside the bone. This is unusual for a fossil. Similar fractures were also found in Lucy’s left arm, as well as
her right ankle, left knee, and pelvis. The ankle fracture was a Pilon fracture, a type of fracture often found
in falls or auto accidents. Finally, all of the fractures showed no signs of healing, indicating that they took
place near Lucy’s time of death.
Compression fractures commonly result from falls. Researchers postulate that Lucy was more than 40 feet
up in a tree, perhaps to remain safe from predators, when she plummeted down. Her feet would have hit
the ground first, resulting in the various leg fractures, and then she would have instinctively thrown out her
arms to brace herself, resulting in the fractures to her arms and shoulders. She also fractured a rib, possibly
35 puncturing a vital organ and causing her to bleed to death as she lay at the base of the tree.

  Listen to Track 446.

You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response. Your response will be judged on the
basis of the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the points in
the lecture and their relationship to the reading passage. Typically, an effective response
will be 150 to 225 words.

Response Time: 20 minutes

Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they cast doubt
on the specific points made in the reading passage.

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 Writing Task Type 1: A Chapter 35

35.4
Give yourself 3 minutes to read the passage.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The Voynich Manuscript has long proven to be a puzzle for historians, cryptographers, and linguists.
Written in the early fifteenth century, it consists of a bound, illustrated book written in an unknown code
or language. The text follows a regular pattern, but thus far, nobody has been able to decode it. Therefore,
many people have believed that the Voynich Manuscript is a hoax, and that the text is simply meaningless
scribbling. However, close analysis suggests that it is actually an early text on medicine, one that is written
in a language or code that has not yet been deciphered.
The illustrations in the Voynich Manuscript are amateurishly drawn, but they can be understood in a
consistent way. Many of the illustrations consist of plants and flowers, which played a large role in early
medicine. At the time, identifying medicinal herbs would have been a critical element of medical treatment,
so documenting the appearance of these herbs in an illustrated medical book would have been useful.
Although other illustrations do not obviously depict herbs, they depict other things that were once closely
related to medicine. For instance, the manuscript includes a number of images of stars and constellations.
In the fifteenth century, there would have been a close tie between astrology (the study of constellations)
and medicine. There are also a number of nude human figures among the illustrations, and, curiously, other
diagrams showing chemical or alchemical equipment such as pipes and tubes. It is possible that these
illustrations, along with the text, were meant to depict human anatomy. Illustrations of alchemical 35
equipment could have been meant to help early physicians create medicines. Although alchemy is a pre-
modern science and has been disproven, at the time, readers of the manuscript would have seen it as an
important part of medicine.

  Listen to Track 447.

You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response. Your response will be judged on the
basis of the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the points in
the lecture and their relationship to the reading passage. Typically, an effective response
will be 150 to 225 words.

Response Time: 20 minutes

Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they challenge
the specific points made in the reading passage.

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 Chapter 35 Writing Task Type 1: A

35.5
Give yourself 3 minutes to read the passage.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

All-male high schools offer a number of advantages for young men compared to schools that enroll both
boys and girls.
In the presence of their female counterparts, teenage boys tend to manifest stereotypically masculine
behavior—often in grossly exaggerated ways.  Without a doubt, everyone is familiar with the “tough guy”
attitude, posturing, and pretense that tend to appear among young men whenever young women are
around. In the frenzy of perceived distraction and competition over girls, the more gentle, understanding,
and empathetic side of boys’ friendships is often lost. In an all-male school, on the other hand, boys have
much more freedom to develop well-rounded character traits. They are less likely to perceive other boys as
their competition and more likely to be caring or nurturing, especially toward their juniors. In addition,
they are open to possibilities that are unavailable or taboo in coeducational environments, such as playing
female roles in theatrical productions.
A common objection is that boys who are deprived of a female perspective during their school years will
lack empathy for women as adults. And if young men really did have no contact with girls or women
during their school years, this could indeed be a major issue. But, of course, that is nowhere close to true.
Even if they have no female classmates, boys obviously still spend the rest of their time in contact with both
35 men and women. Moreover, with gender differences set aside during the school day, boys can more fully
explore other types of diversity among their own lives and personalities.

  Listen to Track 448.

You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response. Your response will be judged on the
basis of the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the points in
the lecture and their relationship to the reading passage. Typically, an effective response
will be 150 to 225 words.

Response Time: 20 minutes

Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they oppose
the specific points made in the reading passage.

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 Writing Task Type 1: A Chapter 35

35.6
Give yourself 3 minutes to read the passage.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Malingering refers to a phenomenon in which a person pretends to be ill in hopes of personal gain. The
malingering patient might be seeking attention or sympathy from family members or doctors. Malingering
can also be motivated by financial gain. A person might feign illness or injury in hopes of winning
compensation in a lawsuit against whomever supposedly injured them. There have been many cases of
malingering in order to avoid work or military service. Malingering can be a significant burden on doctors
and hospitals, who are obligated to provide medical care for anybody who appears to have a medical issue.
Therefore, it is important to accurately recognize and discharge patients faking illness, so that resources can
be freed up for the treatment of those who are genuinely ill.
Malingering can take a number of different forms, some of which are difficult to distinguish from genuine
medical problems. For instance, a patient might feign a seizure, and their movements might look like
seizure activity. However, the patient’s brain activity might not match the activity that appears in people
with genuine seizures, revealing that the patient is faking the seizure-like movements. Another example is
the patient who appears to suffer from sudden, unexplained blindness. After ruling out medical causes of
blindness, a doctor might notice that even though the patient claims that he cannot see at all, his eyes
follow objects as they move around the room. When questioned, the patient may not admit to malingering,
but through careful testing, it is possible to determine that the medical issue is a deliberate falsehood.
35

  Listen to Track 449.

You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response. Your response will be judged on the
basis of the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the points in
the lecture and their relationship to the reading passage. Typically, an effective response
will be 150 to 225 words.

Response Time: 20 minutes

Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they cast doubt
on the specific points made in the reading passage.

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 Chapter 35 Writing Task Type 1: A

35.7
Give yourself 3 minutes to read the passage.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Some companies have begun to use a more nonhierarchical approach to managing the company. Employees
do not report to a specific manager—in fact, there are no “managers” at all. Each employee decides the best
way to carry out his or her necessary tasks. If an employee needs the help of others, he can approach
whomever is best able to help, regardless of that person’s job description, department, or rank.
A nonhierarchical approach has many benefits. Larger companies typically have several layers of middle
management—managers oversee a group of employees and then other, higher-level managers oversee those
managers, and so on. Removing some layers of management allows a company to operate more flexibly, as a
smaller company can. Individual workers spend less time in meetings or waiting for someone else to decide
what they should do, so they can get more done. It is never the case that one manager tells an employee to
do something in a certain way and then, later, another manager gives conflicting directions, making it
impossible for the employee to meet both sets of expectations.
A nonhierarchical structure also gives employees the chance to have more impact on the direction of the
company. Every employee has access to the CEO and the other members of the executive team. If an
employee has an idea for a new product or a change in process, she can present her idea directly to the
executive team. If her idea is accepted, she will then run the project, rallying her fellow employees and
35 gaining valuable leadership skills. A lower-level employee would be unlikely to have such an opportunity in
a more traditional company—even if she had a great idea, chances are high that a more experienced
manager would be chosen to run the project.

  Listen to Track 450.

You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response. Your response will be judged on the
basis of the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the points in
the lecture and their relationship to the reading passage. Typically, an effective response
will be 150 to 225 words.

Response Time: 20 minutes

Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they challenge
the specific points made in the reading passage.

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 Writing Task Type 1: A Chapter 35

Answers and Explanations—35.1

Licensing a Business—Track 444
Narrator: Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic you just read about.
Professor: A lot of people are under the impression that licensing is an effective and low-risk way to
establish and own a business—by taking advantage of the success of another company. However, a local
business bureau conducted a survey of licensing companies in our area, and the results seem to indicate the
opposite.
Here’s one thing: many licensing contracts place major restrictions on the licensee—sometimes in
unexpected ways. Eh… let me give you an example. One company licensed the manufacture of a children’s
toy based on an entertainment company’s character. They didn’t read the fine print in the contract, which
was unfortunate… because it turned out, this contract prevented the licensee from making any toys for any
other company for the next 20 years! You can’t necessarily walk away from a licensing agreement just
because it’s unprofitable. Sometimes, that same agreement may entirely prevent you from pursuing other
business lines.
Here’s another problem: Obtaining licenses for high-demand products and services can be quite expensive.
So expensive, in fact, that in many cases, it may be much cheaper to develop one’s own products and
market them instead. People think that licensing doesn’t have much in the way of up-front costs—but this
survey indicated that most of the time, more than half of the payments they made to the licensor were in
the form of fixed fees, rather than variable fees that increase as more products and services are sold.
And finally, it’s easy to forget the degree to which licensees can be subject to the whims—and the
success—of the licensor. As the licensee, you are not in control of the marketing effort made by the
35
licensing company, and if that company fails to live up to its end of the bargain, you, as the licensee, will
also suffer.

Sample Written Response

The reading passage takes a positive view of licensing as a way of owning your own small business.
Specifically, the passage talks about how licensing can be less expensive and more flexible than starting a
business from the beginning. However, the lecturer disagrees and describes many examples of how
licensing may not work as well in practice as in theory.
For example, the lecturer cautions people to be careful when signing contracts. For instance if the contract
requires you to spend a fixed amoutn of money on advertising or real estate (if you license or francise a
restaurant) then this gives you no flexibility to adjust costs if sales are poor. The business owner is locked
into certain costs. 
A contract may also dictate what you are allowed to sell and when you are allowed to sell those things. The
lecturer gives the example of a contract that limited what toys a business could sell for twenty years! The
business owner was prohibited from working with any other companies that made toys. This is the opposite
of flexible.
The lecturer also says you need to be careful about who you license from. For example, if the main
company does not spend money to market its brand, that could reflect on your small business. If many
customers do not know about the product, then your sales will be negativly effected. This could be even
more expensive than developing your own product in the first place.

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 Chapter 35 Writing Task Type 1: A

Comments
The student summarizes the main points made by the lecturer. She shows that she generally has a
good grasp of the main arguments. Her very last sentence (“This could be even more expensive… “)
is misplaced. The lecturer talks about this in the context of fixed costs (addressed in the student’s
second paragraph). Despite these flaws (and a few typos), her response is effective.

Answers and Explanations—35.2

Stonehenge—Track 445
Narrator: Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic you just read about.
Professor: Unfortunately, neither theory about the purpose of Stonehenge is satisfying. First—yes, there
is evidence that some human bones were placed at Stonehenge. But the rest of the arrangement of
Stonehenge suggests that burial ceremonies could not have been its main purpose.
Let me explain. If Stonehenge were intended as a site for burial ceremonies, its constructors never would
have imported massive stones from faraway lands and erected them using very advanced, precise
construction techniques. If burial ceremonies were held there, that would mean that earth would be dug up
regularly—in and around the site—would it not? Don’t you think that that would jeopardize the integrity
of the constructed stone circle? Thus, any burials that happened there must have predated the central stone
circle we are all familiar with.
Second, the claim that Stonehenge was a “pilgrimage site” is not supported by the evidence. Sure, there are
a few instances where researchers can show that the skeletons unearthed at Stonehenge suffered wounds or
35 physical deformity. But most of the other claims are uncertain… and plenty of skeletons from other
locations have the same types of wounds and deformities. And you know that account by the Greek
historian? His name was Diodorus Siculus, and he wrote about this “temple” in the first century BC. Most
modern scholars agree that his account simply could not have been about Stonehenge. For one thing, there
is no evidence that Diodorus had ever been there, or knew of anyone who had been there, or who even
aspired to go there. Another thing is, a closer read of the rest of his writings suggests that he was likely
talking about some island other than Britain, because his description of the island’s climate is far colder
than the actual climate of Britain at the time.

Sample Written Response

The passage presents two theories about the purpose that Stonehenge may have served: first, it may have
served as a burial ground, and second it may have served as pilgrimmage site for those who will ill. The
lecturer believes that neither theory is convincing.
For the first, that Stonehenge was a special burial ground, the lecturer suggests that the digging up of soil at
the site over thousands of years would disrupt the positioning of the stones. Therefore, the creators of the site
would likely not want to use the location for a burial ground. Furthermore, the stone circle has not actually
been disrupted. While bones have been discovered at the site, but the lecturer argues that a reasonable
explanation is that the bones already could have been buried there before the building of Stonehenge.
For the second, that Stonehenge was a special location for those who ailed from diseases, the lecturer
refutes two pieces of evidence. First, deformed skeletons were not just found at the site of Stonehenge, but
also at other locations. So these skeletons are not evidenced that people traveled to Stonehenge because they
ailed. Second, the Greek historian cisted by researchers could not have been referring to Stonehenge, the

10

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 Writing Task Type 1: A Chapter 35

lecturer argues, because it was not known that that historian had ever been to Britain and the climate
described by the historian did not match the climate of Britain. This reasoning weakens the idea that
Stonehenge was a special pilgrimmage location for the ill.

Comments
The student’s response is well-organized. He summarizes the passage concisely. Then he clearly
lays out the lecturer’s arguments against the passage. He does have a few errors and some
­unidiomatic constructions—but not very many.

Answers and Explanations—35.3

Lucy the Fossil—Track 446
Narrator: Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic you just read about.
Professor: The idea that Lucy died because she fell from a tree is an interesting theory… but really, the
evidence here is nowhere near sufficient to say that this is what actually happened. Just because certain cracks in
her bones appear to resemble compression fractures… that doesn’t mean that these actually are compression
fractures. First of all, her bones were lying around for 3 million years—at first on the surface, where they could
have been trampled by animals… and then they were buried under the earth, where various forces could have
acted over a very long period of time to cause all kinds of damage, compression or otherwise, in the bones.
Geologic forces—uh, okay, basically when something is encased in sediment… covered up by soil and rock
for millions of years, very slow and steady forces can create all kinds of distortions in the bones that were
not there before the person or animal died. And these distortions can resemble injuries that occur when 35
someone is still living. The cracks that they found are not that different from cracks we see in all kinds of
fossils, including animals that were much too heavy to climb trees. And, next, they ignored a bunch of
other cracks in the bones. Basically, they explained the cracks that supported their theory, but what about
all the other ones? How did they get there? Finally, the fact that the researchers didn’t find any evidence
that the bones had healed… well, there also wouldn’t be any healing if the damage actually occurred after
she died! So that isn’t evidence of anything at all. The researchers are going to need to find a lot more
convincing evidence in order to really prove this theory.

Sample Written Response

The passage asserts that Lucy’s death was due to a fall from a great height. The professor takes issue with
many of the pieces of evidence given to support the theory.
First, the professor cites the fact that compression fractures in Lucy’s skeleton may have been caused instead
by outside factors, such other animals trampling on the skeleton or the pressure of rocks and sediment
wighing down on the fossil over millions of years while it was buried.. Further, the professor questions the
compression fracture evidence by explaining that fossils of other, much heavier, animals have been found
that also contain compressino fractures. Because these animals are much too heavy to climb to a great
height, those fractures must have been caused by some other forces, not by falling. So Lucy’s fracures might
also have occurred from these other causes
Second, the profsessor questions the idea that a lack of healing in Lucy’s skeleteon is additional proof that
she died due to a great fall. If the damage to Lucy’s skeleton had been created after her death (due to factors
described above) then there also would be no sign of healing. That is therefore, according to the professor,

11

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 Chapter 35 Writing Task Type 1: A

not sufficient evidence to support the theory. Last, the professor poitns out that other features of the fossil
were left unexplained, simply because they did not fit the theory presented in the passage. A comprehensive
theory takes into account all of the available evidence.

Comments
The student begins by stating the main idea of the passage and summarizing the professor’s main
criticism of the passage. He then provides detail from the lecture to illustrate the professor’s
criticisms. He could improve his response by leaving himself time to reread and correct typos.

Answers and Explanations—35.4

Voynich Manuscript—Track 447
Narrator: Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic you just read about.
Professor: Unfortunately, evidence points to the Voynich Manuscript being a hoax. It’s an interesting
book, and it’s beautiful to look at, but any meaning we might see in it is just wishful thinking. For
instance, some people try to call it a medical textbook. That makes some sense, since a lot of the
illustrations look like what you’d expect in medieval medicine: herbs, human bodies, that sort of thing. But
that theory doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.
For one, the pictures of herbs in the book don’t actually show real herbs. They identified a couple of the
plants in the book, but they’ve been combined with other plants, so the flowers from one plant will be
on the body of another plant. And a lot of them are just plants that were totally made up, or where
35 there were a lot of artistic liberties. Plus, the few parts of plants that we have identified, they wouldn’t
have been useful in medicine. And the plants that we do know they used in medicine at the time…
they aren’t in the book.
Trying to call the pictures of pipes and tubes “chemistry equipment” is a stretch, too. If you’re trying to
prove that it’s a medical textbook, it might look that way. But, look at it without assuming that it’s about
medicine. The pipes and tubes don’t really look like chemistry equipment—they could be anything. They
could be showing a plumbing system in a city, they could be just there for artistic purposes. 
It’s the same with the pictures of human figures. They’re not laid out how you’d expect, you know, an
anatomy diagram. They’re just pictures of people—for all we know, they could be illustrations for a
children’s story, or they could just be art, too. People who think it’s a medical text are trying to make the
facts fit their theory. But in reality, there’s no theory that really explains the Voynich Manuscript, except
that it was just made up in the first place.

Sample Written Response

While some believe the Voynich manuscript was written and illustrated for medicinal purposes, there is
compelling evidence that suggests this manuscript had no practical purpose.
Some scholars feel this text must have documented medicinal purposes of an older era. Support for
this theory comes from the fact that many plants are depicted in the text, and it is well known that
herbs and other plants were used to treat illness. There are also nude human figures in the text, perhaps
to teach practitioners about anatomy. Drawings of tubes and beakers may have been alchemical
equipment, which would have been part of a medical practive around the period when the manuscript
was created.

12

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 Writing Task Type 1: A Chapter 35

However, a close study of certain elements shows that the text probably never served a practical purpose.
Take for instance the plants: they are not illustrations of actual plants but drawings of a mix of elements
from various plants Some scholars suggest that the pipes and “alchemical” equipment looks more
fantastical than functional. The pipes could be a rendering of a sewer system or just an abstract image. In
fact, since there is reason to suspect none of the renderings depict real plants or functional equipment, some
consider the text to be an illustration, art, or a hoax. If this is the case, it is probably true that the people
who believe the manuscript was a text to document the medicinal practices of the time are incorrect in
their interpretation They are just trying to find a way for the text to be useful or sensical.

Comments
The reading passage is still visible to you while you’re writing your response. This student takes
advantage of that fact to write a good summary of the issues. Note that he does not directly copy
sentences, or even parts of sentences, but he does reuse the vocabulary. At the end of his r­ esponse,
he provides his own opinion about the lecturer’s argument. This is not necessary—and it is usually
safer not to do so. Concentrate on summarizing the lecturer’s response to the passage.

Answers and Explanations—35.5

All-Male Schools—Track 448
Narrator: Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic you just read about.
Professor: All-female high schools have become more and more popular in recent years, but the same has
not happened for all-male schools. Why such different outcomes?  Well, really, it’s simple. All-female schools
have been shown to have significant advantages for girls, but for all-male schools, it’s pretty much the opposite. 35
It’s common knowledge that men are much more competitive, and much more territorial, than women.
Especially young men. Whereas women, as a rule, tend to cooperate and support one another a lot more.
So, in all-female schools, you tend to see a lot of collaboration. And the older girls tend to mentor the
younger ones, even when their schools don’t even have formal mentoring programs. In all-male schools, on
the other hand… collaboration is pretty much nonexistent. Everything, no matter how unimportant,
becomes a cut-throat competition. Younger boys rarely receive any support or guidance from older ones.
And when they do, it virtually never comes from senior boys who are actually popular or influential.
Of course, we might just throw our hands up and say “boys will be boys”—but the worst problem with all-male
schools doesn’t stop with the boys themselves. Boys who’ve gone to school without girls for long enough tend to
have a sadly distorted view of women in general—and especially young women their own age. Their so-called
“experience” of girls tends to consist of tired old stereotypes and secondhand stories. Not to mention “locker-
room talk.” And if you’re wondering whether all-female schools have the same problem, they really don’t—
mostly because young women just don’t objectify boys as much, or as shockingly, as young men do to females.
So, to sum up, it’s pretty clear that boys just need to have young women around at school. To give them a
more well-rounded point of view—but also just to help them develop into more civilized adults.

Sample Written Response

The lecturer states that while all-female schools have been proven to have many positive outcomes for their
female students, the same can actually not be said about all-male schools. The lecture explains that boys are
incredible competitive and territorial by nature and this gets heightened when there are no girls in the mix.

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 Chapter 35 Writing Task Type 1: A

The passage said that boys are comptetive but only when women are present, which the lecturer does not agree
with. If boys are competitive by nature, then it doesn’t matter who they’re surrounded by – they still will act
competitive and of course, this could worsen when everyone else around them is just as competitive as they are.
The passage also stated that in an all-male high schools there’s a lot of mentoring that happens, espcially
from older boys to younger ones. The lecturer disagrees and says this definitely happens in all-female high
schools but not in all-male ones. And even iif mentoring does occur, it’s not done by popular or influential
boys, and those types of relationships can really help break down the barriers between students.
The lecturer also states that if young men are not exposed to women, their view of women could forever be
fundamentally distorted. While the passage states that this won’t happen because they will be exposed to
women outside of school, the lecture explains that the norm for these boys will to be to learn stereotypes
about women, and secondhand stories. Their experience of women will be locker-room talk so they will
likely have issues seeing women as whole people.

Comments
The student addresses all of the major points made by the lecturer. She also explains how each
point argues against what the passage claimed. She could perhaps improve her response by
varying the beginning of sentences more (“The lecturer states”… “The lecture explains”… “The
­passage says”… “The passage also stated”… “The lecturer also states”).

Answers and Explanations—35.6

Malingering—Track 449
35
Narrator: Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic you just read about.
Professor: Let’s talk about the situation where you have a patient who doesn’t seem sick. Take somebody
who seems to be having seizures, for example. Except you look at them, and something funny is going on.
Maybe the seizure just doesn’t look right—maybe they’re jerking around, except they’re also able to hold a
pen when you ask them to sign their name, or they’re able to talk to you. Well, it would be easy to dismiss
that patient and say, oh, they’re just faking it. But there’s been a lot of progress made, from a scientific
perspective, on what’s really happening there. There’s something called “pseudoseizure,” for instance. It
looks like a seizure, except it’s caused by stress or by strong emotions instead of by electrical activity in the
brain. It’s not a real seizure, but the patient also isn’t faking it on purpose.
Another thing is “conversion disorder.” One patient might say that they’ve suddenly become paralyzed.
They can’t move their legs. So you touch their foot, and they twitch. You know they’re not really paralyzed.
They could be lying, but they could also have something called a conversion disorder, where you’re under
stress, and you get these unusual neurological symptoms, and it doesn’t seem like there’s any reason for it.
Another example is, maybe someone tells you they’re blind, but you can tell their eyes are fine. Don’t
immediately assume they’re lying—it’s possible they have a conversion disorder, and they need treatment
for it, because from their perspective, they really can’t see. A lot of these patients get dismissed as liars, or
get accused of taking up resources. They would have been called “malingerers,” and a lot of time, people
still say that. But, be careful. Some of these people are lying and wasting time, but there are also things like
pseudoseizure or conversion disorder, which are real medical problems.

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 Writing Task Type 1: A Chapter 35

Sample Written Response

The lecture states that while it is true that doctors occassionally see patients who claim to be suffering from
an affliction they’re not really suffering from, these people aren’t always “malingers” as the reading pasage
described. Malingers are people who lie about their medical condition. They might do this to gain sympathy,
or to maipulate people for financial reasons. But the lectuerer warns that you cannot just discount patients
who are incorrectly describing their symptoms as liars. Sometimes there is more to the story.
For example, some people may experience some symptoms of a seizure, but when the doctor examines them
they learn that they’re not actually having a seizure at all even though their body appears to be having
seizure symptoms. This can be a response to dealing with high stress, or other emotional or menatl issues
that are manifesting themselves phsyically. These patients aren’t lying nor do they have ill intent. Their
body is exhibhiting symptoms of an illness even though they don’t actually suffer from that illness.
The lecturer goes on to say that there’s another type of case called conversion disorder. People may believe
that they’re blind for example, even though the doctor can tell they can clearly see. In these cases, the
patient isn’t exhibiting any physical symptoms at all, but they believe that they are. Again, they aren’t lying,
or making it up as a malinger would, but they really believe they have an illness they do not in fact have.

Comments
The student shows that she fully understands the lecturer’s objections to the passage. She also
demonstrates a good vocabulary. However, she has a number of typos. She could improve her
response by giving herself a minute or two at the end to reread and correct these types of errors.

Answers and Explanations—35.7 35

Nonhierarchical Management—Track 450
Narrator: Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic you just read about.
Professor: So, the management team of a successful technology company was worried that the company
had grown too large and had lost a lot of its creativity and flexibility—they were known for these traits.
They decided to adopt a nonhierarchical management style to try to get some of that start-up feeling back
and get the employees energized again. But after about six months, everything was so chaotic that they had
to give up the new plan and go back to their old management style.
Here’s what happened. First, the CEO and the rest of the executive team were overwhelmed by requests
from employees. They couldn’t make the time to meet with everyone. A few employees were very motivated
and had good ideas about how to spend their time. But other employees ended up doing things that hurt
the company. One employee thought of an idea to improve a product but didn’t test it with customers
ahead of time, and the customers ended up hating it and canceling orders. In another case, one person
proposed reducing the TV advertising budget in order to allocate more funds to online marketing, and
another proposed exactly the opposite. And then two different members of the executive team approved the
two proposals! Most employees were afraid to take steps on their own, so they ended up having lots of
meetings with other employees but not actually coming to any decisions and taking action… they basically
became paralyzed because they were afraid to take ownership and fail.
It turned out that, without a clear structure and strategy coming down from senior leaders, the employees
didn’t know what to do. The company was now too big to be run like a start-up.

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 Chapter 35 Writing Task Type 1: A

Sample Written Response

While the passage suggests that removing levels of management in a company would allow for more
flexibility, creativity, and overall growth in a company, at least one real world example disproves this theory.
The passage claims that cutting removing levels of beuaracy in an organization would allow anyone in a
company to take action. People with great ideas could pitch them directly to executives and then take the
role of a leader themselves and oversee the execution of projects and new initiatives. In this scenario, there
would be no “managers” and especially not direct reports with more than a single manager, which would
remove the problem of employees receiving conflicting direction from managers.
According to the professor, however, this idea that removing all hierarchy would stimulate growth fell flat
on its face in a tech start up that tried out this technique. In this company, employees without managers
spent lot of time discussing new initiatives without moving forward from the idea stage. Some employees
had good ideas but were ultimately afraid to act on them. One employee changed some features of a
product on his own but customers didn’t like it and cancelled orders. Also, mutliple ideas with mutually-
exclusive goals were submitted for approval and accepted by separate executives. And the executive team
was overwhelmed by requests from employees and couldn’t listen to everyone’s ideas and concerns.

Comments
The student addresses all of the main points made by the professor. He demonstrates a strong
understanding of the professor's examples. He needs to be careful about writing very long
sentences. Some of his long sentences are more difficult to understand or are run-on sentences.

35

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