TOEFL WRITING

Writing Test

Andrea Dávila Rangel Mariana Guadalupe Alvarado Hurtado T92

The TOEFL Writing section aims to evaluate participants’ abilities to develop a written text under established academic writing criteria that will serve to determine where they are located in the CEFR levels

Description

Types of tasks and structure

integrated writing task

independent writing task

Score

• You need to read a short text and then complement the information with a lecture of a lecture about the same topic.
• You need to develop a written response from 150-225 words within 20 minutes.

• You will develop an essay according to your personal opinion on a given social topic with a minimum of 300 words within 30 minutes.

Score scale: 0–30 points

Duration of the exam

You have 50 minutes to complete this section of the TOEFL exam.

References

ETS TOEFL. (n.d.) TOEFL iBT® Writing Section https://www.ets.org/toefl/test-takers/ibt/about/content/writing/ Collegedunia. (2021, July 4). TOEFL Writing Practice Sets, Practice Questions, and Sample Papers. https://collegedunia.com/exams/toefl/toefl-writing-practice.

TOEFL Writing scores

Rubrics: Independent writing

5 points

• Effectively addresses the topic and task.
• Is well organized and well developed, using clearly appropriate explanations, exemplifications and/or details.
• Displays unity, progression and coherence.
• Displays consistent facility in the use of language, demonstrating syntactic variety, appropriate word choice and idiomaticity, though it may have minor lexical or grammatical errors.

Rubrics: Independent writing

4 points

• Addresses the topic and task well, though some points may not be fully elaborated
• Is generally well organized and well developed, using appropriate and sufficient explanations, exemplification and/or details

• Displays unity, progression and coherence, though it may contain occasional redundancy, digression, or unclear connections

• Displays facility in the use of language, demonstrating syntactic variety and range of vocabulary, though it will probably have occasional noticeable minor errors in structure, word form or use of idiomatic language that do not interfere with meaning.

Rubrics: Independent writing

• Limited development in response to the topic and task.
• Inadequate organization or connection of ideas.
• Inappropriate or insufficient exemplifications, explanations or details to support or illustrate generalizations in response to the task.

• A noticeably inappropriate choice of words or word forms.
• An accumulation of errors in sentence structure and/or usage.

• Addresses the topic and task using somewhat developed explanations, exemplifications and/or details.
• Displays unity, progression and coherence, though connection of ideas may be occasionally obscured.
• May demonstrate inconsistent facility in sentence formation and word choice that may result in lack of clarity and occasionally obscure meaning.

• May display accurate but limited range of syntactic structures and vocabulary.

3 points

2 points

Rubrics: Independent writing

• Merely copies words from the topic, rejects the topic, or is otherwise not connected to the topic, is written in a foreign language, consists of keystroke characters, or is blank.

• Serious disorganization or underdevelopment.
• Little or no detail, or irrelevant specifics, or questionable responsiveness to the task.
• Serious and frequent errors in sentence structure or usage.

1 point

0 points

Rubrics: Integrated writing

4 points

5 points

Successfully selects the important information from the lecture and coherently and accurately presents this information in relation to the relevant information presented in the reading. The response is well organized, and occasional language errors that are present do not result in inaccurate or imprecise presentation of content or connections.

Is generally good in selecting the important information from the lecture and in coherently and accurately presenting this information in relation to the relevant information in the reading, but it may have minor omission, inaccuracy, vagueness, or imprecision of some content from the lecture or in connection to points made in the reading. A response is also scored at this level if it has more frequent or noticeable minor language errors, as long as such usage and grammatical structures do not result in anything more than an occasional lapse of clarity or in the connection of ideas.

Rubrics: Integrated writing

• Although the overall response is definitely oriented to the task, it conveys only vague, global, unclear, or somewhat imprecise connection of the points made in the lecture to points made in the reading.

• The response may omit one major key point made in the lecture.
• Some key points made in the lecture or the reading, or connections between the two, may be incomplete, inaccurate, or imprecise.

• Errors of usage and/or grammar may be more frequent or may result in noticeably vague expressions or obscured meanings in conveying ideas and connections

3 points

Rubrics: Integrated writing

• The response provides little or no meaningful or relevant coherent content from the lecture.
• The language level of the response is so low that it is difficult to derive meaning.

• The response significantly misrepresents or completely omits the overall connection between the lecture and the reading.

• The response significantly omits or significantly misrepresents important points made in the lecture.
• The response contains language errors or expressions that largely obscure connections or meaning at key junctures or that would likely obscure understanding of key ideas for a reader not already familiar with the reading and the lecture.

2 points

1 point

Merely copies sentences from the reading, rejects the topic or is otherwise not connected to the topic, is written in a foreign language, consists of keystroke characters, or is blank.

0 points

Read a lengthy article in English from a magazine or website each day.

Tips to improve your writing skills:

Read short but interesting academic articles in magazines and on websites in your own language each day.

Read and listen to academic articles and other material in your own language.

Practice English writing and typing every day.

Practice writing grammatically correct sentences and use appropriate words to summarize information from text and lecture material.

Pay attention to how you organize ideas.