TOEFL Writing Section: Structure, Tips, Scoring & More

Overview of the TOEFL Writing Section

The TOEFL iBT writing requires you to write an essay and effectively describe a topic. The answer should be well-organized and well-developed using relevant explanations and detailed support. Moreover, it should also display unity, progression, and coherence. Thus, if you want to achieve a high writing score, make sure that you show the syntactic variety and appropriate word choice with minor grammatical errors. Moreover, you have to complete the tasks of TOEFL iBT test writing within 29-30 minutes, which break down into:

• Integrated Writing Task (20 Minutes): Read a short passage and listen to a short lecture, then write an answer to what you read and heard.
• Academic Discussion Task (10 Minutes): State and support an opinion in an online classroom discussion.

This was all an overview of the TOEFL writing section. Hopefully, you have understood the duration and intent of this task.

TOEFL Writing Task 1: Integrated Writing

The integrated writing task requires you to read a prompt and listen to a lecture. After that, you have to write an answer that summarizes the points in the lecture and describe how they relate to the reading passage. Below, is a detailed breakdown of the task format:

Reading Passage:

• Focus: Introduce a topic, providing three key points or arguments.
• Content: Approx 250-300 words on an academic topic.

Listening Lecture:

• Focus: Discusses the same topic, often offering counterpoints or extra details to the reading passage.
• Content: Approx 150-200 words.

Writing Answer:

• Duration: 20 minutes
• Focus: Summarize the lecture, emphasizing the connection and contrast with the prompt.
• Content: 150-225 words

Integrated Writing Essay: Sample

Here is a sample for the TOEFL Integrated writing task:

• Reading Passage Extract:

The passage discusses some benefits of ecotourism, emphasizing that it promotes environmental conversation. It offers economic benefits to local communities and offers educational options for tourists.

• Lecture Extract:

The lecture challenges these points- arguing that ecotourism can lead to environmental degradation. Moreover, it has limited economic benefits for locals, and the educational impact on tourists is often minimal.

• Essay:

The reading passage presents ecotourism as a beneficial activity that supports environmental conversation, economic growth, and education. However, the lecture provides a contrasting view, suggesting that ecotourism may have negative impacts.

Firstly, the reading passage claims that ecotourism promotes environmental conversation by raising awareness and funds for protected areas. Conversely, the lecture argues that the influx of tourists often leads to environmental degradation. Such as pollution and habitat destruction, which outweigh the conversation efforts. Secondly, the reading asserts that local communities benefit economically from ecotourism via job creation and income. Also, the lecture counters that the majority of profits are taken by foreign investors and large firms, leaving minimal financial benefits for local ones. In addition, jobs created are often low-paying and seasonal.

Lastly, the reading highlights the educational options ecotourism offers for tourists, improving their understanding of environmental issues. The lecture disputes this, stating that the study impact is commonly superficial, as tourists often focus more on recreation than learning.

Summing up, while the reading passage portrays ecotourism in a positive light, the lecture highlights many drawbacks, including environmental harm, limited economic benefits for locals, and inadequate educational impact on tourists.

This was all an overview of the TOEFL integrated essay task. Hopefully, the samples helped you to understand it better.

TOEFL Writing Task 2: Academic Discussion Task

The TOEFL writing part is recently updated where the Independent Writing task is replaced with TOEFL academic discussion task. Moreover, in this part, you have 10 minutes to write an academic essay for the TOEFL, during which you must express and defend an opinion in an online classroom. Your answer can be as you want it to be but ideally, it should be at least 100 words. Below is a short brief of the second writing task on the TOEFL:

Prompt:

• You will be given a prompt that presents an issue, scenario, or question related to an academic topic.
• The prompt will often include various viewpoints or positions on the topic.

Writing answer:

• Duration: 10 minutes
• Length: At least 100 words

Academic Discussion Task: Sample

Here is a academic discussion task sample question along with the answer:

Question:

A marketing course is being taught by your teacher. In your answer, address the professor's query. As you respond, you must:

• Express and support your viewpoint
• Contribute to the conversation using your words.
• A well-written answer will be at least 100 words long.

Professor: Hi everyone in class! We will talk about how social media influencers affect customers' behavior next week. A new class of celebrity has emerged as a result of the growth of social media sites like YouTube and Instagram: the social media influencer. These influencers can affect clients' behavior by promoting goods and services and having large fan bases. I have the following query for the discussion board:

Do customers get much from social media influencers? Why not and why not?

Jack: I believe social media influencers wield considerable influence. Young people tend to buy products and services promoted by influencers they admire and trust. However, since some influencers may endorse products they don't use or believe in, I have concerns about the reliability of these endorsements.

Emily: It appears that social media influencers have minimal impact on shopping habits. Most individuals are savvy enough to make their own buying choices based on personal preferences, despite having sizable followings. Furthermore, with numerous influencers promoting different products, it can be challenging to identify whom to trust.

Answer:

This is one possible answer to the question that was asked. It speaks directly to the other pupil's reactions. As you can see, it explains and rejects the points they raised. This strategy is the easiest for certain test takers.

I completely agree with Emily's assertion that people are too intelligent to be swayed by them. I would also add that, twenty years ago, we might have been convinced to buy something we did not need by a charming person. However, I do not think it happens as often these days. This is because we can use blogs, client magazines, and social media to extensively research anything we are interested in.

These informational resources enable us to identify the products that precisely meet our needs, preventing us from being convinced by the exaggerated arguments made by social media influencers. Jack brought up the important point that young people are particularly susceptible. But he omitted the fact that parents how spend time teaching their children responsible internet usage habits. Young individuals are therefore less inclined to choose their purchase fast.

This was all an overview of the academic discussion task. Hopefully, the samples helped you to understand it better.

What Is the TOEFL Writing Scoring System?

The table below shows the conversion from raw points to scaled scores for the writing task of TOEFL exam:

The average writing score on the TOEFL is 24, which is considered a good result.

This was the scoring criteria of the TOEFL writing task. Hopefully, you understand it better from the conversation table.

TOEFL Writing Practice Tips

By following the below-mentioned tips, you can improve your writing section in TOEFL efficiently and effectively under timed situations:

• Familiarize yourself with both the TOEFL integrated essay and academic discussion section. Also, reviewing the scoring criteria is important.
• Write daily, simulating test conditions with timed sessions.
• Study high-scoring essays to identify efficient techniques to avoid common mistakes, and take TOEFL writing samples for better practice.
• Outline your essay before writing, ensuring a clear introduction, body, and conclusion.
• Learn academic vocabulary, practice grammar exercises, use complex sentences and TOEFL writing resources daily.
• Get feedback from peers or teachers and revise your essay to correct mistakes and improve clarity.
• Utilize online lectures, podcasts, and TED Talks to practice taking notes from different types of audio content.

Conclusion

Summing up, gaining a good score overall and proving your English language ability need you to master the writing part of TOEFL. You can greatly improve your writing ability by understanding the section format, taking the TOEFL writing practice test, examining well-scoring essays, and others. Also, there are some writing sample questions given above for your effective preparation. However, if you face any issues, enroll in our TOEFL online coaching. They will guide you from registration to providing the best study material for better preparation. Thus, visit our Gradding website today to score 30/30 on the exam.