Differences My friends and I often talk to each other about boyfriends.

It's interesting that we mostly agree on what kind of boy we like best. We all like boys who are quite self-confident-not shy or nervous when we speak to them. We also like boys who help us with our problems and who aren't afraid to talk about them. Boys who are sympathetic like that are quite hard to find at our school! Girls in my class also like their boyfriends to be good-looking, but we hate it if they're vain and looking at themselves all the time. That's often the problem with handsome boys, and pretty girls as well, I suppose. Most of us like boys who are romantic too. It's great to be sent a love letter or to be given a present like a box of chocolates!

How have computers changed the lives of ordinary people over the past ten years? One of the first things I do each day is switch on my computer. I check my emails to see if there's any news from my friends who are travelling in Australia, or from my sister who now lives in the USA. Luckily, I don't get much spam these days. After I've sent a few replies and checked my online diary, I go on the net. I've got broadband at home so connection is really fast. It's much easier and quicker than when we had a phone modem. Once online, I usually visit my favourite websites. I might look at the weather forecast for the day or go to a web page that gives a summary of the day's news or click on my internet dating site. My best friend at university met her husband online! After that, I might go to a website where I do a lot of online shopping or to my university's home page to see if there are any interesting events on. When I'm ready to start work, I click on the icon, which takes me to my documents, and open whichever file is the most urgent. The cut and paste facilities make writing essays so much easier. When my mother was at university, everything had to be written by hand. What a nightmare! I've just bought some new software so I can design my own website. I've taken some digital photos that I want to publish on my website and I'm hoping to sell some of them. Who knows? Have computers changed the lives of ordinary people like me? Judge for yourself!

Note

The words in bold in the model essays are topic vocabulary that you can learn by looking them up in the Word Banks or in the Longman Essential Activator. Try and use these words when writing about these particular topics. In addition, typical phrases and expressions are underlined in some essays to show you how to link your sentences or paragraphs.