TOEFL - Writing Preparation

There are two tasks in TOEFL iBT writing section and they are used to measure the ability to write in standard academic English. They are the independent and the integrated writing tasks. This writing section is the very last part of the test. There are different sections in the TOEFL test, however, my goal in this article is to provide some information students need to succeed with the TOEFL independent and integrated writing tasks.

First, let me start with the independent writing task in which students are asked to write an essay on a given general question. In this task, you need to state your opinions or express ideas on topics that are based on personal knowledge and experience. You should support your ideas and opinions with examples, details, and explanations. Thirty minutes is the amount of time to write the essay that should be approximately 300 words.

Second, there is the integrated writing task when you are asked to demonstrate that you have understood information from different sources (reading and listening). Here there is no need to express opinion or your own ideas. Instead, combine the information from the provided sources in a coherent, well organized, and summarized written form. Compare and contrast the information from the sources and draw conclusions from them, not your conclusion. Your opinion is not welcome in this task. The time in the integrated task is as follows: You will have 3 minutes to read a passage of 230-300 words.

You will have reading and listening sources. When you listen to the audio, the reading passage is hidden. The audio takes two minutes and it is a short lecture that is related to the reading passage. The listening adds new information or present a different point of view. As you read or listen to the materials, take short notes. Although the reading passage comes back to the screen, having some specific and the right notes on a scrap paper can be much more useful than the whole reading passage, simply because you should not spend time on reading the passage again. You have only 20 minutes to write a response to a question, and it should be between 150-225 words.

A great piece of advice, in my opinion, and one of the best roads to good writing is reading. Think of the kind of reading activity that you have done. You might have loved some and maybe hated others. Remember the well and clear reading and apply it to your writing, however, it should be formal English. That is definitely the type of writing that the TOEFL rater expects from you, so you must produce it – well and clearly. This will impress your test rater and you can get a high score on your TOEFL test because this is how you must write in university level, and it is the kind of language professors will ask you to discuss or write about several topics all the time.

TOEFL raters also look at your ability to make different types of sentences. Use simple, compound, and complex sentences in your essay. If you only use simple short sentences, your response will not receive a good score. Show that you know how to use different types of sentences. This is the first thing your rater will see. Include your opening paragraph in your essay, but you do not necessarily need an introductory paragraph because you are given a prompt that you can use as a reference to develop the ideas in your essay from there on. For example, if your prompt says, 

“In some countries, young children are allowed to have jobs when they were supposed to be at school. What do you think about this?”

You can start your writing as it follows: 

“I think it is a good idea for young children to have jobs and do not go to school”

 or 

“I do not think it is a good idea for the children to have jobs because they have the right to go to school.” 

Start your essay by taking the words from the original prompt and develop your own sentences and built the text from the prompt, and then clearly states your opinion on the topic. Give reasons to support your opinion or ideas because a response receives a higher or lower score; it depends on the number of reasons and examples you give. In order to get the highest scores, you will need three different and well-written reasons along with specific details. Do your very best then, but create your own reasons. Do not memorize prompts or anything. Do your own work.

TOEFL raters or professors look for pre-made essays. So, do not memorize essays before the TOEFL exam or try to use them instead of writing your own. Some students make that big mistake. I would never recommend trying to memorize any essay. When you dedicate yourself, you are able to master and achieve best results. It is always a good idea to see some TOEFL prompts, so you can practice before your test. You may find some unfamiliar words in the prompts, then you can use context to guess their meanings and move on.

Every essay should have an organizational structure (introduction, body, and conclusion). Within its structure, use different types of sentences as well as transition words. They all should be chosen carefully so that your essay will be clear for the reader. For example, do not use "first, second, third" unless you are describing steps in a process or explaining events chronologically! To indicate that an example or an illustration follows: chiefly, especially, for instance, in particular, particularly, including, specifically, such as, as an example, in this case etc.

When you want to show how one action is similar to another, use words like “comparatively, likewise, similar to, moreover, together with”. If you want to contrast ideas, use “although, however, instead, on the other hand, in contrast etc.” Nevertheless, if you want to emphasize one point, use “above all, chiefly, with attention to, especially, particularly”. Finally yet importantly, when you need to summarize or conclude, use “all in all, all things considered, in brief, in conclusion, overall, in short, in summary, in the final analysis, in the long run, to sum up, to summarize etc. These are the best choices you have in order to guarantee a great score on your TOEFL test.