Should school history focus on your own country or the wider world?

A band 6 model answer to a real TOEFL iBT writing question in the official format, with notes on why it scores. Write your own version below it and get an instant rater-style score.

The question

Your professor is teaching a class on history education. Write a post responding to the professor's question. In your response, express and support your opinion and add to the discussion in your own words. A strong response has at least 100 words. Professor Nakamura: School history courses have limited hours. Should they concentrate on the country's own past, or give equal time to the history of the wider world? Rosa: The national story has to come first. Students who cannot explain how their own country was formed are missing the context for every argument in their politics today. Kwame: Equal time, or students learn one country's version of events and nothing else. Most of what shaped my country happened in negotiations somewhere else entirely.

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Band 6 model answer

Rosa is right that a student who cannot explain how their own country was formed is poorly served, but I side with Kwame on the balance, for a reason neither of them raised. National history taught on its own is rarely neutral. A syllabus written at home tends to describe its victories in detail and its defeats in a sentence, and students have no way of noticing the gap unless they have seen how another country narrates the same events. World history is not a luxury that comes after the national story; it is the check on it. What I would keep from Rosa is the sequence. Teach the national account first, while children need somewhere to stand, then teach the same events from two directions in the final years, when students are old enough to handle the discomfort of finding their textbook incomplete.

Why this answer earns band 6

Sides with one student while granting the other a real concession, which reads as judgement rather than agreement.
The new argument, that national history is a version rather than a record, is the point neither speaker made.
Ends with a concrete teaching sequence, so the response proposes something instead of only reacting.

Do not memorise model answers; raters recognise recycled essays instantly. Study the moves, then make them with your own ideas, and check where you stand with a scored practice.

Questions about this answer

What band is this model answer?

It is written to band 6, and the notes under it quote the answer's own words to show why.

How long should my answer be?

This model answer is 144 words, and the task asks for at least 100.

What is the most common mistake with a model answer?

Memorising it. Raters recognise recycled answers instantly, so study the moves, then make them with your own ideas.