How much does
your grammar, spelling, vocabulary, sentence complexity, and anything
else you think of besides content affect your score? A lot, but not as
much as you think.
Just as with
the speaking section there is a common focus that is absolutely going in
the wrong direction among many students: content is king, not
mechanics. This means that poor content and great mechanics will yield a
fair to low score and great content and poor mechanics will yield a
fair score. In other words, strong content has more power over your
score than mechanics.
Of course, you
need good mechanics, but too many students study grammar instead of
develop listening skill and overall writing skill in preparation for the
TOEFL writing section, which is a massively ineffective way to study.
Content mastery first and writing mechanics second. Remember that.
Remember that. Remember that.
TOEFL Writing Good Stuff
We know that we have 2 questions, right? Each is different and requires
its own specific strategy, so watch and enjoy the videos below to master
them. Don’t forget to take great notes.
TOEFL iBT Writing: Question 1
Here are two fast points for this question. First, it’s all about your
notes and understanding. I receive questions often about what to do if
you didn’t get all the points from the lecture. My advice: do your best
but you must work on your listening and note-taking skill (review the
video and visit our TOEFL listening section for more help on this).
Second, once you have all of the important content, that’s all you need.
250 words is the number of words you need for a perfect score. If you
write more than 250, that's fine but be careful. When we read essays
beyond 250 from students that score 24 or below, they are often wordy,
repetitive and a bit unclear. So, stick to the content and be precise
and exact. This doesn't mean to try to write less; it just means stick
to your notes.
TOEFL iBT Writing: Question 2
Here are two fast points about this question. First, a high word-count
on this question won’t guarantee a high score (remember that content is
king; you need good content with a high word-count). Second, use the
easiest examples you can write well with, but don’t write the simplest.
In other words, it’s better to write an example about a newspaper
article you read about world affairs than what your friend ate for
breakfast; or, it’s better to write an example about your career as a
pharmacist than what you did at the park. Referencing more
“professional” experiences will allow you to write better and use more
advanced vocabulary.
With the TOEFL
writing, it’s important to understand how you’re evaluated so that you
know exactly what you have to do to succeed.
As you should
already know form our TOEFL overview section, the writing consists of 2
questions. Each question is evaluated by a grader and a computerized
e-rater (that’s right; the TOEFL is going to use a computer to assess
half of your writing score). Each will assign your essay a score of 1 to
5 depending on how well it was written.
We’ll discuss in great detail how to earn a top rating below, but for now, here’s a basic breakdown:
Score of 1: the essay is written in English but has little to nothing to do with the content.
Score of 2:
the essay is written in a manner that addresses the topic and deals
with the question, but has poor vocabulary, grammar, punctuation,
connection, and development (writing mechanics). It confuses the reader.
Score of 3:
the essay is on topic and communicates the major points needed well
enough to be understood but has poor writing mechanics and limited
development of content.
Score of 4:
the essay is clear and communicates the intended idea effectively but
is missing either content or writing mechanics necessary to show
complete fluency.
Score of 5:
the essay communicates with all necessary content and a bit more for
complete clarity. It will also contain excellent writing mechanics.
TOEFL Writing Math
The writing
section, as we should also know, score will be anything from 0 to 30.
The ratings will be averaged and converted to a score of 30.
For example, let’s say that you did well on question 1 and didn’t do so well on question 2, so your scores are as follows:
Question 1: 4, 4
Question 2: 2, 3
We know that
the maximum rating possible is 5 and since you have 4 total ratings, the
maximum raw score would be? That’s right: 20. Let’s find our
percentage:
4 + 4 + 2 + 3 = 13 (our total raw score)
13/20 = 65%
Now, let’s convert our percentage to our overall score:
65% X 30 = 19.5, which would be rounded to 20.
Though it’s
unlikely that one question will be great and another poor (since you
will write both of them and will write them with the same skill), you
see how one question can either do much to hurt or help you.
Here's
the good stuff. As I mentioned earlier, speaking smoothly is an
incredibly important, and often overlooked, skill. As you watch these
videos, notice how each word flows from the other without many unnatural
interruptions. Copy this in your answers as you study. If it's a bit
challenging, don't worry; our programs have videos, exercises, and recordings that are meant to help you with this.
Now,
there are 6 questions on the TOEFL and each of these instructional
videos teaches you everything you need to know to answer a question and
earn a 4 with some extra points written below to help you further.
Enjoy!
TOEFL Speaking : Question 1 and 2
Here are two fast key points worth repeating to ensure that you're going
to earn a 4 on these questions. First, in general, you should provide
enough content to show that you're fluent, so record one of your answers
and do a word count; it should be over 100 words. Second, you can be
asked about anything. Sometimes, you'll have to adjust or modify the
format to fit the question well. Your success on this question depends
on how you stayed on topic and demonstrated your fluency with an
intelligent development of your idea.
TOEFL Speaking : Question 3
Here are the two key points. Be exact. Don't paraphrase. You are asked
to report what you heard, not paraphrase it. Also, remember that you're
not just repeating your notes but using them to explain exactly why the
student did or did not agree with the announcement.
TOEFL Speaking : Question 4
The two key points? Don't say everything. You won't demonstrate fluency
to the graders, you won't finish on time, and you won't earn a 4.
Furthermore, explain how the lecture illustrates the definition. One way
to make sure that you do this is to underline the part of your notes
(this should only be a few key words) that is most important in
connecting the lecture to the definition. For example, if the definition
is "light makes people happy" and your notes from the lecture are: "boy
went outside; boy saw sun; boy felt light on face; boy felt happy." You
should underline: "felt light on face" and "felt happy."
TOEFL Speaking : Question 5
Two points: say everything about the problem. For some reason many
students summarize this and don't express the problem completely; don't
be one of these students; you need the complete answer to get a 4 on
this question. Also, don't stress the "even though" statements too much.
I often hear students try to say so much in the "even though"
statements that they don't have time for the more important "as"
statements. So, if you don't finish this question on time, drop the
"even though" statements.
TOEFL Speaking 26: Question 6
Two what? Points. Here they are. Just as in question 4, don't say
everything. Use your timer to guide you and make sure that you don't go
over time. Finally, keep it simple. There is so much to explain in this
question that you don't need to focus on what's not 100% clear to you.
Instead, skip the stuff that's unclear to you because if you try to say
it you'll be inaccurate and that will cost you. Stick to what you know,
say it, and move on.
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