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TOEFL Writing: Exam Format and Sample Questions

TOEFL is one of the most popular language proficiency tests which opens the avenue for thousands of students to study abroad. Along with other functional skills, writing skills are tested for students’ understanding of comprehension, literacy, and writing. As per the new changes introduced in July 2023, the TOEFL iBT writing test integrates listening and reading skills along with writing, for integrated skill testing. The two tasks that are asked in the TOEFL writing test are as follows:

Tasks in TOEFL Writing:

  1. Integrated task: It involves summarizing a lecture in your own words and explaining the narrative therein. In this task, you are given a reading passage and a lecture on a similar theme. You must read the passage, listen to the lecture, and summarize it. You get 20 minutes to plan and type down your response. An ideal response contains 150-225 words.
  2. Academic discussion task: In the given task, you’ll be provided with a question asked by a professor along with two other responses from other students. You need to type down your response, advocating or antagonizing the topic. The time provided for it is 10 minutes and you must put up your points in around 100 words.

The writing test not only evaluates your ability to write in an error-free and lucid way but also your grammar, vocabulary, cohesion, and other skills that are integral to producing a qualified piece of content.  

The writing test follows the familiar classroom format making the test-taker extremely comfortable for the test takers. 

This is a collection of different articles, videos, and sample practice writing PDFs to help you not just build your best strategy to attempt these questions but also practice using high-quality content produced by the Toefl instructors.  

Before delving deeper into each writing task separately let’s understand more about the skills tested in these two tasks and how one can prepare for them.

Here is a comprehensive list of skills tested in TOEFL Writing

  • Academic skills: As this test is a test of one’s proficiency in the academic aspects of the English language, Grammar and Vocabulary have a heavy weightage in the final score. Your grammar skills must be up to the mark for excelling at this coveted test. Vocabulary is also one of the important areas to be worked upon as similar as in any other language proficiency test.
  • Summarizing and Paraphrasing: These skills play a huge role in elevating the score of the test-taker in the writing module. For the writing sections, the summarizing skill must be on point. It portrays a person’s expertise in putting out the content in fewer words.
  • Explanation skills: The writing tasks involve an explanation of the narratives mentioned in the lectures. This requires keen observation on the part of the test-taker to understand the nuances of different types of tasks and the correct strategy to shine at it.
  • Coherence: Your ideas must appear coherent and not forcefully placed without any connection between them.
  • Content generation: This skill is imperative as it is going to help you support your arguments. This will help you place the relevant words at the precise location.

In the following section, you will find more information about each of these tasks and also find sample questions in the form of PDFs or articles for you to practice.

This collection is aimed to provide you with all the information regarding these tasks. Our live online TOEFL classes take you one step further in your TOEFL preparation. You can always drop in for a free demo class before making a final decision.

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TOEFL Integrated Writing

This section involves a reading passage, which needs to be read within three minutes. Post this, the other segments of the section involve a lecture that is to be listened to by the test taker for two minutes. Memorization of the passage isn’t required as it’ll appear before you once you start typing your response. The main emphasis must be on figuring out the central theme of the passage and noting down the most relevant points out of the lot. While listening to the lecture, focus on the points resembling the central theme of the passage. Noting them down would be an excellent strategy to prosper as it is played for once. Once the question comes up on the screen, you’re required to weave out a summary of the points mentioned in the passage and relate them with points mentioned in the lecture.

Strategies to excel in the Integrated Writing task

  • Time management: As the reading and writing part are to be finished within the stipulated time which is 20 minutes, it becomes imperative to manage time effectively. A timer may prove to be helpful for the same.
  • Organization of ideas: The ideas must be organized in a regular fashion and not haphazardly. It helps you write ideas related to the topic, without getting deviated. 
  • Stick to the word limit: An ideal answer has a word limit of 150-225 words. Writing wordy sentences won’t fetch you brownie points. Ensure that the response entails the points mentioned in the passage as per their relation to the lecture. Don’t write ideas, which aren’t mentioned or aren’t related.
  • Effective note-taking: You’ll get to listen to the lecture only once, rather than missing out on the points and regretting them later on. It's always a better strategy to take notes while listening so that you may find it easier to inculcate them in the response later on. Take effective short notes rather than writing elaborate sentences.
  • Laconic language: The response must be written as per the prevalent grammar rules. The choice of various parts of speech must be precise, if not perfect. The usage of Passive voice must be checked for errors if used in the response. This aspect takes you towards a high score. 
  • Precise paraphrasing: It is one of the indispensable skills in any language. An effective response would come up eventually if you’ve tried your hands on paraphrasing earlier. It may not come naturally to you, but practice can prove helpful in it. Try to paraphrase various articles, speeches, news items, etc., a few days before the actual examination. It will acquaint you with the nuances involved.

TOEFL Academic Discussion

This task involves a question posted by a professor about a cosmopolitan, political, scientific, or any other sort of topic. Post that, there are responses given by a group of students. It is an official discussion-based task. These responses usually contain varying ideologies and opinions. The task of the test-taker is to write one’s own opinion about the issue within ten minutes. There’s no word limit ascribed to the task. An ideal response usually contains 100 words. Go through the opinions of the students who’ve posted their opinions about the asked question. You need to put forward a balanced opinion that must not be too striking and not too dim as well. Clear organization of ideas becomes imperative as the time to respond is limited.

Strategies to excel in the TOEFL Academic Discussion task

  • Streamlining the ideas: The ideas need to flow naturally and must not look like random sentences interwoven without any connection with each other. This process helps you to elevate the understandability of the context of your content.
  • Ideal word limit: Although, no specific word count or limit is mentioned a predecided word count helps you to frame your response with ultimate accuracy. This strategy always works in your favor. So an ideal response would contain almost 100 words.
  • Lucidity of the response: The response must be grammatically correct and must include accurate usage of the parts of speech. The word choice must be relevant to the context. The out-of-context word usage may not prove helpful
  • Prior preparation: To excel at it, you may go through real-life debates online. And try to type down your opinion about it. For example, Imagine there’s a debate on the ‘Political Future of Democracy’, the question may be “Which factors may prove detrimental to the survival of Democracy in the coming decades?”. The panelists may talk about representation, diversity, mounting debts, one-party domination, and populist policies. Your answer can include the pros and cons of one or more of these. Our online TOEFL classes may also prove helpful in it.
  • Stay on track: Don’t get carried away in the process of typing down your response. There is always the possibility of getting carried away. One must try to respond to the question and must not forget the central theme the question enquires about.