"Two heads are better than one", TOEFL practice, writing section.

Do you agree or disagree with the expression "Two heads are better than one"?

Answer:

Even though working with a partner could bring difficulties due to incompatibility of characters or deep differences in people's opinions, I have to say that I definitely agree with the expression "Two heads are better than one", because my experience has thought taught me that this is a very rare situation which committed workers can easily overcome.

There are several reasons why two people can perform far better than a single person in any kind of job, as this is usually the case. The first reason is that two people never have never the same strengths and weaknesses, as this was the case of my friend Jota and me: while solving a physics problem, we realized that I was very good at identifying the physical principles governing the system and he was better at performing complex calculations. From that moment on, we were able to distribute tasks effectively and we got the best grade in the class, including three top students who decided to work alone.

This way, you don't only learn how to contribute to a group: you also discover your weak points and can work on them to be better at that job. That was what I did after discovering that my partner was better with certain calculations: the next semester I took an additional course in complex integration. That was a very good choice, I felt very good with about myself after overcoming that weakness.

Another reason for working with another person is that this way you can meet new people. In my the five years of my career, about half of the friends I've made, at the beginning, were, at the beginning, just partners of mine in a laboratory, presentation or problem session.

A final reason is that, as well as with skills, two partners always have different backgrounds as well as skills. A different background will always mean a different way of thinking, different ideas and different ways of approaching a problem. You can do better with a partner, because as a group you bring more solutions than you would do by yourself.

Working with a partner is always better than working alone because it is more effective, you can learn from your partner a new way to do things and you can also learn about your strong and weak points, and when you know your partner, you have a stronger organization and methodology.

(some of the examples are not true, but that doesn't matter at the TOEFL test)