toefl essay rubric

TOEFL Writing Task 1: The TOEFL Integrated Writing Practice Task

The TOEFL Integrated Writing Task requires you to read a passage that is about 250-300 words long. You then must listen to a lecture that is 2 to 2.5 minutes long. The lecture will challenge or disagree with the ideas in the reading passage for TOEFL Writing Task 1.

Because this task is so test-specific, it’s difficult to find authentic practice with TOEFL Integrated Writing topics, outside of official TOEFL prep materials that take questions from the real test. But you can find reading passages and audio for TOEFL Integrated Writing in the official TOEFL Writing practice sets . Additional free prep for this task can be found in TOEFL Quick Prep (the tasks all come with reading passages, but some of them have transcripts rather than audio).

You can also find practice for this TOEFL Writing task in the official TOEFL books from ETS . Last but not least, you can sharpen your TOEFL Writing skills by practicing a TOEFL Integrated Writing task from Magoosh, free of charge, right here in this post! Near the bottom of this page there is a TOEFL Writing Task 1 practice exercise with a sample answer.

Before we get to that mock test, though, let’s talk about a few basics of TOEFL Integrated Writing. Click the table of contents below to navigate these basics, and hop down to the practice exercise.

Table of Contents

• TOEFL Integrated Writing Topics: What to Expect
• Structuring Your TOEFL Integrated Writing Task
• Difficult Integrated Writing Tasks: What to Do
• Free TOEFL Integrated Writing Practice Task
• Model Answer for the Free TOEFL Integrated Writing Practice Task
• Additional Practice and Resources for TOEFL Writing Task 1

What should you expect from TOEFL Integrated Writing topics?

Since you’ll still be wearing headphones after the Speaking section, the Writing section begins with the integrated task, for which you’ll need to keep your headphones on.

So what do TOEFL Integrated Writing topics look like? Well, the materials you’ll be using to answer the question are a reading passage and a lecture excerpt. Both of these will be longer than the ones you encountered in the Integrated Speaking questions—the reading passage will give you three minutes to read, and it will go into more detail than the one in the Speaking section did.

Whereas other integrated reading samples have served mainly to define a key concept, the one in the Writing section will describe a process or defend a position. The lecture (actually, it will be a short part of a lecture) will then expand on this information by offering examples, explaining in greater detail, or, most likely, describing conflicting viewpoints on the topic introduced in the reading passage. The author will use reasons that respond directly to the ideas in the reading passage.

The question will follow one of several formulas. The question you answer will probably be almost identical to one of these:

• Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they cast doubt on specific points made in the reading passage.
• Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they challenge specific claims/arguments made in the reading passage.
• Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to specifically explain how they answer the problems raised in the reading passage.
• Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to specifically explain how they support the explanations in the reading passage.
• Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to specifically explain how they strengthen points made in the reading passage.
• Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to include specific reasons that they strengthen points made in the reading passage.

The first two are by far the most common; usually, you will hear a lecture that contrasts with the reading.

Altogether you will have 20 minutes to plan and write your TOEFL Integrated Writing essay. The essay will not be long—most responses are between 150 and 225 words—but there’s still no time to waste, and you’ll want to keep your writing skills sharp. Remember that your organization and content are just as important as your language use. Your essay needs to have a clear structure with separate points and specific examples that transition smoothly. Most of all, it’s very important to draw from both the reading passage and the listening passage. If you only reference the written passage, the very best score your essay can get is a 1. In many ways, the integrated essay is a summary of the lecture that you heard, but be sure to mention both sources.

You can take notes as you read and listen. With enough practice you will be able to identify the important points in the reading passage that will most likely be discussed in the lecture, and your notes should reflect that. Then, when you listen, it will be easy to take notes that relate to the ones that are already on your paper. Make as many connections between the two as possible while listening. If you have trouble with this, it’s okay—you can take a minute to connect information before you start writing, after the lecture is finished.

Typical TOEFL Writing Task 1 topics will be scholarly, the kinds of things that you’d read about or hear lectures about in an academic setting. Typical topics include things such as the spending habits of American consumers, lectures on history or classic literature, scientific debates, and so on. Topics will seldom be contemporary. For example, you are unlikely to see TOEFL Integrated Writing topics that focus on social media, cell phone use, contemporary popular culture, etc. These more modern topics are far more common in the TOEFL Independent Writing task that follows this one.

As you can see, success in TOEFL Integrated Writing is not just a matter of writing, but also comes down to reading and listening. For additional tips on these two skills in TOEFL Writing Task 1, read the following blog posts:

• Good Reading Practice for TOEFL Integrated Writing
• Listening Practice for TOEFL Writing Task 1

How should you structure your TOEFL Integrated Writing task?

Even though the 20 minutes you have to write the integrated essay will fly by, it’s still worth taking a minute or two to write an outline of your own prior to beginning your response (the test proctor will provide as much scratch paper as you need). Even jotting just a few lines that connect parts of your notes and circling the main examples you want to cover will give you the guidance you need to stay on task when writing your response.

Below I’ve written an outline that demonstrates an effective structure to use on the exam when responding to TOEFL Integrated Writing topics. I highly recommend that you practice writing with this outline as your guide, at least at first. Once you’ve gotten some feedback and have some good practice under your belt, you can deviate from it. At first, though, it’s good to know the rules before you break them, and to have a structure you can rely on when test day comes.

Note that this outline template involves a lot of paraphrasing. Before you get started on making a practice outline of your own, be sure to check out Magoosh’s tutorial on paraphrasing in TOEFL Integrated writing .

A. General statement about the relationship between the resources you heard and read.

B. Short description of the structure of the lecture

A. Paragraph on first point

1. Paraphrase the professor’s point

2. Contrast/compare with the reading

3. Give extra detail and additional specific examples on the professor’s point (optional)

B. Paragraph on second point

C. Paragraph on third point

III. Conclusion

Note that you don’t have a conventional essay structure here. There is no thesis statement, and the difference between a body paragraph and introductory paragraph is less pronounced. When responding to TOEFL Integrated Writing topics, you also don’t have a concluding paragraph per se. If you’re having trouble picturing exactly what this looks like, you can see an example task and model answer at the bottom of this post. You can also see some sample essays for this task in the official TOEFL Writing practice set PDF from ETS . (And this PDF contains TOEFL Writing samples for task 1 as well!)

Above all, remember that the key to a good essay here is simply to take good notes on what you read and hear, and translate those notes into a full essay. For more info on the best ways to do that, see my post on note-taking and organizing your answer in TOEFL Integrated writing . Those tips can help you even when you encounter a particularly challenging Independent Writing task. And for more advice to help you through harder prompts, see the section immediately below.

Dealing with an Extra Hard TOEFL Writing Task

In all of the years that I’ve been tutoring the TOEFL, the part of the test that seems to inspire the most extreme reactions in students is the TOEFL Integrated Writing task. Students either happily breeze right through it or get very stressed out. Why? Because the difficulty levels on this task can vary so much! This, combined with the general complexity of the task, makes TOEFL Integrated Writing challenging for the average TOEFL test taker.

Ultimately, the TOEFL Integrated Writing task may be the hardest part of the TOEFL. This task requires not only keen English language skills, but also good analytical abilities. You need to bring together different, opposing ideas from the lecture and passage. This is a complicated job. And to make things even harder, the task comes almost at the very end of the test, when most test-takers are exhausted.

Some TOEFL Integrated Writing topics are harder than others. And if you get a hard Integrated Writing Task, you could be in danger of “blowing” your whole TOEFL IBT Writing section—doing badly on both tasks! An unusually difficult Integrated Writing task can leave you so tired and frustrated that you aren’t able to focus on the easier second TOEFL Writing Task.

So if you come across a harder-than-usual Integrated Writing Task on test day, make sure you handle it carefully. With the right strategies, a really tough TOEFL Writing Task 1 doesn’t need to hurt your TOEFL score at all.

Early detection of hard TOEFL Integrated Writing Topics

The worst thing you can do is not notice how hard an Integrated Writing Task is. If you mistakenly think an Integrated Writing task is relatively easy, you won’t plan for it correctly.

So try to immediately notice how complicated a task is. You should be able to tell just by looking at the reading passage, since the passage is the basis for the lecture. If the passage seems unusually complex, make note of this and proceed carefully. Don’t miss anything important, and don’t lose track of time. It’s really easy to leave out key facts or run down the clock in TOEFL Integrated Writing.

When you come across a potentially hard Integrated Writing Passage, start trying to mentally paraphrase the passage right away. Figure out whether you are able to paraphrase the passage effectively. Paraphrases should be shorter than their source, and should change the original wording significantly. If you are having a lot of trouble doing this, the passage may be too difficult for you to paraphrase.

Strategies once you’ve found a hard TOEFL Integrated Writing Task

If the ideas in the passage are really hard to paraphrase and shorten, don’t panic. For these more difficult Integrated Writing passages, there’s a simple solution: put less of the passage information into your essay. If necessary, put nothing directly from the passage into your essay.

This advice may sound strange. After all, the official TOEFL Writing Rubrics , which are used for scoring on the real test, say it’s important to include all the big ideas from the passage and the reading. But for a harder Integrated Writing Task, it really does pay to adjust your approach in this way.

Think about it. If the passage is really complex, then the lecture that follows will also be complex. And if the passage and the lecture are both very complicated, it can become almost impossible to correctly summarize them both. You won’t have enough time, and it’ll be too hard to focus on absolutely everything in the prompt. The lecture will need to be the main focus, since the task itself asks you to focus on the way that the lecture challenges the passage.

The lecture will of course contain ideas from the passage, since the lecturer is challenging the key points from the reading. So paying attention to what the lecturer says will allow you to indirectly use parts of the passage. And with this approach, you run less of a risk writing an unfocused or incomplete essay.

How this strategy can affect your score

Also remember how the TOEFL scoring system works . If you get a task that is harder-than-average, the TOEFL will adjust your task score upwards at least a little. Relying only on lecture content might hurt your score a bit. But you have a good chance of recovering those lost points when ETS adjusts your score. On the other hand, if you try to take on all of the complicated content in the task and fail, your score could really suffer, even with ETS’s score adjustments for difficulty. Ultimately, getting a high score on TOEFL Integrated Writing is a matter of balancing your priorities and focus, regardless of the difficulty level of a given individual task.

A Free TOEFL Integrated Writing Practice Task

I have written and recorded a task for you that closely follows the real TOEFL Integrated Writing Task in length, content, and format. Read the passage, listen to my lecture and follow the instructions for an (almost) authentic TOEFL writing practice experience. To prepare, you may want to read some of Magoosh’s advice on this task. The official TOEFL Integrated Writing Rubric (page 2 of the linked document) may also be useful. And at the bottom of this post, you’ll be able to view a sample response to this task.

TOEFL Integrated Writing Task Practice

Directions: Give yourself 3 minutes to read the passage.

The “comics medium” includes newspaper comic strips such as Dennis the Menace and comic books such as Spider-Man. Scholars around the world agree that comics are a uniquely American art form.

The first commercially successful comic strip was Hogan’s Alley , a comic strip from the 1890s. Hogan’s Alley featured the Yellow Kid, the world’s first popular cartoon character. This strip and its character marked the beginning of comics and was American in every respect. Set in a low-income neighborhood in New York City, Hogan’s Alley dealt with the lives of ordinary Americans. It was written and drawn by American cartoonist R.F. Outcault. Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, two famous and influential American publishers, printed the comic strip in their newspapers.

The first popular comic book in the world was also American. Action Comics , a series that is still in print today, was initially released in 1938. It featured Superman, the world’s first superhero. Like Hogan’s Alley , Superman was American-created.

Americans invented comic strips, and Americans have exported their unique art form to the rest of the world. Japanese comics, called manga , were inspired by the comics that Americans brought to Japan after World War II. Popular European comics series such as Smurfs and Asterix are influenced by Disney comic books. Today, American-created Disney comic characters are more popular in Europe than ever.

The comics medium started in America. While it has spread around the world, even comics that aren’t created by Americans have an undeniable American influence. This is why so many art and literature scholars recognize the comic strip as a truly American art form.

Directions: Summarize the main points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they challenge the specific points made in the reading passage. You have 20 minutes to plan and write your response. Your response will be judged on the basis of the quality of your writing and how well your response presents the points in the lecture and their relationship to the reading passage.

Listen to the lecture here:

  Once you’ve completed the practice task, you can assess the quality of your answer by comparing it to this sample answer . Good luck!

Ready for a Full Writing Test?

If you’re ready to try the independent and integrated tasks together under test-like conditions, check out our full-length video Writing Test!

And if you want more writing practice, download the FREE TOEFL Practice Test PDF .

Plus, Magoosh TOEFL online prep has six practice tests with sample answers, video explanations, strategies and tips for the every TOEFL speaking question!

TOEFL Integrated Writing Task: Model Answer

I have written a level 5 answer, which you can read below. This answer is followed by some commentary on why this response would earn the full five points.

Model level 5 TOEFL Integrated Writing answer

In the passage, the author argues that comics are an art form that is very unique to the United States, but has been borrowed by other countries. The speaker corrects many things the author wrote about comics being an American art form. Although the writing says all scholars agree that comics are uniquely American, the lecturer says that in modern times, very few scholars agree with that.

The speaker then points out that, contrary to the writing, the first popular comic strips were not American. According to the speaker, 100 years before the first American comic strip, there were popular comic strips in Europe. The lecture also states that Hogan’s Alley , the 1890s comic strip described as American in the article, is not completely American because the comic characters were not Americans. Moreover, the publisher and creator of the comic were immigrants from other countries.

Additionally, the speaker disagrees with the article’s claim that American comic book Superman was the first popular comic book. Instead, the lecturer says the Belgian comic book Tintin was popular before Superman. Also, the author points out that Superman’s creator is Canadian, not American as the article says.

Finally, the speaker disagrees that American cartoon art influenced international comics, as claimed in the writing. He says that popular European comics have a uniquely European style. He also argues that Japanese comics are influenced more by traditional Asian art. Finally, the speaker notes that even American Disney comics characters are drawn by European artists.

Per the official TOEFL Integrated Writing rubric , this answer would get a score of 5. It outlines all the main points from the lecture. It explains how each main point contradicts or challenges the main ideas from the reading. It is organized well, with good transition words for each paragraph. It has no major errors, using correct grammar and vocabulary . Look at this model answer and the rubric linked above as you write your own answer to the sample task . If you need some extra help, you can find a writing template for your own response here .

I also have some resources specific to this essay prompt. For a guide on how to paraphrase as you respond to this specific prompt, see my article “ How to Paraphrase in TOEFL Integrated Writing .” And for advice on how to reise your TOEFL writing, using this model Integrated task as a specific example, see “ How to Revise TOEFL Writing .” All of this advice is applicable to other TOEFL Integrated Writing essays as well! (And it can also be applied to Task 2!)

Follow-up TOEFL Integrated Writing Practice

For more TOEFL Integrated Writing tasks from Magoosh, check our the additional free TOEFL Integrated writing practice task found in Magoosh’s complete guide to TOEFL Writing samples . You may also want to consider signing up for Magoosh TOEFL (you can try a free trial of Magoosh TOEFL prep without entering any payment info, and then “go premium” if you like what you see).

You can also go to “the source”—official TOEFL Integrated Writing practice from ETS. This free TOEFL Integrated Writing task , which focuses on the ecological practices of American companies (a typical Integrated Writing topic) is a good place to start if you’re looking for some quick official practice that you don’t have to pay for. Unfortunately, this readily accessible official practice task is flawed: it has a transcript of a lecture, rather than lecture audio. The only free official TOEFL Integrated Writing task with an actual sound clip for the lecture is the one in the official online TOEFL mock test .

David is a Test Prep Expert for Magoosh TOEFL and IELTS. Additionally, he’s helped students with TOEIC, PET, FCE, BULATS, Eiken, SAT, ACT, GRE, and GMAT. David has a BS from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and an MA from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. His work at Magoosh has been cited in many scholarly articles , his Master’s Thesis is featured on the Reading with Pictures website, and he’s presented at the WITESOL (link to PDF) and NAFSA conferences. David has taught K-12 ESL in South Korea as well as undergraduate English and MBA-level business English at American universities. He has also trained English teachers in America, Italy, and Peru. Come join David and the Magoosh team on Youtube , Facebook , and Instagram , or connect with him via LinkedIn !

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45 responses to “TOEFL Writing Task 1: The TOEFL Integrated Writing Practice Task”

u shud have atleast given a sample answer for us to compare our answers to.

Really that you are complaining? This is a great exercises. Just be grateful!

They have given it under the audio. Can’t you see that?

Hello Rabia,

That’s a good point and an excellent request. To meet your request, I’ll write up an example answer ASAP and make a blog post about it. My post will include an explanation of my writing approach, and reference to the TOEFL Integrated writing rubric. As soon as my example is up and posted, I’ll link it to the comments here.

Have a great day, David

Still waiting for the example answer.

You can find the sample answer here: https://magoosh.com/toefl/2015/toefl-integrated-writing-practice-task-model-answer/ 🙂

thanks for share.it helps me.

Thank you so much, I found a PDF file that was so useful.

You’re welcome! 😀

This is a very helpful integrated writing practice, especially with the sample answer. However, I can’t seem to figure out what question the essay should answer. The directions just say to write a response, but they don’t give any direction as to what is expected in this response. Is this typical of TOEFL integrated writing questions?

Hi K.C. The essay question is in this post, but I think I know why you can’t see it— I’ve just realized it’s kind of oddly placed. Or rather, the lecture track is oddly placed in this post. The lecture audio link appears right below the directions and right above the question, so that the question itself is easy to miss. But look carefully below the audio and you’ll see:

“Summarize the main points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they challenge the specific points made in the reading passage.”

This specific task is typical of the TOEFL, but the confusing screen layout is not. The layout was likely my mistake when I wrote and uploaded this. I’ll check with my editor about fixing that. Thanks for bringing this to our attention!

Hmm…And now I do not see an audio link. Thank you for making the task more visible, though.

Hmm, indeed. I seemed to be having some issue with the external link. I just hosted the file locally, and the sound file should be playable now.

hello sir/Mam I have a question regarding the integrated writing task….will the passage reappear even after the listening part?

Yes, the passage reappears on the screen after you listen to the audio track, and the passage remains available the whole time that you write your response.

Hello Can you please introduce a good source for practicing integrated writing task.

Sadly, there aren’t a lot of good materials out there for TOEFL Integrated Writing tasks, compared to Independent Writing. This is because it’s a lot harder to create an Integrated Writing Task— it requires writing a complete passage and recording a lecture. Still, you get one Integrated Writing Practice task in each and every exam in ETS’s official TOEFL books and materials. And Magoosh TOEFL subscribers get access to quite a few of these practice tasks too.

I’m also happy to tell you that I’ll be putting up a few more Integrated Writing Practice tasks in the next few weeks! Watch this space, Mazdak. 🙂

how to download the given audio? I need to download and copy it in the pen drive so as i can practice when internet connection is not available.

There’s a version of this track on Soundcloud that’s available for download. You can find the link to the track here: https://soundcloud.com/david-recine-1/comics . You’ll need to create a SoundCloud account if you don’t already have one. ( Registering for SoundCloud is fast, easy and free.)

i m not good listening practice and also i have problem in matching and choosing the correct point to reading passage how can i improve score

OK, if I understand correctly, you’re having trouble with the questions that come at the very end of a reading passage question set? The text insertion and prose summary ones? I recommend checking out our blog’s tutorials on those two question types. Here is our guide to TOEFL Reading prose summary strategy , and here’s our tutorial on TOEFL Reading text insertion . 🙂

The reading and the lecture are both about comic medium, which includes newspaper comic strips. The author of the reading believes that the comics are of unique American art form and that scholars all over the globe agree on this. The lecturer casts doubts on the claim made in the article. He thinks that when more study was done, scholars realized that the comic mediums were not uniquely American.

First of all, the author of the reading claims Hogan’s Alley to be the first commercially successful comic strip having first popular cartoon character. He believes that Hogan’s alley focused mainly on the lives of ordinary Americans and that the people involved in making it were all Americans. This point is challenged by the lecturer. He says that Hogan’s Alley was not the first successful comic strip with first famous cartoon character. He adds that during 1790’s many popular comic strips and popular comic character were from Europe, especially from Britain and Switzerland. He adds that the characters and publisher were not uniquely American but were immigrants as well. The publisher of Hogan’s Alley, Joseph Pulitzer was himself an immigrant from Hungary.

Secondly, the author states that the first popular action book comic was American which involved Superman – The first Superhero. He argues that the first popular action comic was American. The lecturer rebuts this argument. He suggests that 16 years before action comic was prevalent, Adventure of Tintin comic from Belgium was popular and it predates superman. He elaborates on this by mentioning that the artist of Superman was not from America but from Canada.

Finally, the author mentions that Americans devised and transferred the art form all around the world. He is of the opinion that Japanese comic strips were influenced by comic from America and that Americans created Disney character that was popular in Europe. The lecturer, on the other hand, feels that Japan and Europe were influenced by various other art forms. He says that Japan was highly influenced by the traditional Asian art and that the Disney characters popular in Europe were drawn in European style and art. He puts forth the idea that the comic strip is from all around the world and not only America.

Normally I don’t approve comments like this, since there isn’t time to review every sample essay that students try to post here. However, in this case, I’ve decided to approve this essay and give some feedback. Sanjay, I think this essay of yours can help other students who read the comments, for two reasons: First, it’s fairly well-written overall. Second, the mistakes you make are common ones. So let’s look at your strengths and weaknesses of this essay.

This essay is incredibly well organized! Sanjay, you did a great job of moving through both the lecture and the essay point-by-point. Also, the grammar and spelling is quite good— you do have a few mistakes in these errors, but the mistakes are so minimal, they’d have little or no impact on your TOEFL score.

WEAKNESSES Your biggest weakness is paraphrasing. Sometimes your wording was way too close to the original source material, so much so that your writing might be judged as plagiarism. This is especially noticeable in the second paragraph. (For more info, see my post on avoiding plagiarism on the TOEFL .) At other times, you misinterpreted information from the sources. For example, Superman was not the first successful action comic; “Action Comics” is the name of a publication, not a description of a kind of comic book.

Your transitions are a bit weak as well. Ideally, TOEFL scorers want to see transitions that are more descriptive— not just numerical words like “first” and “second.” For examples of more varied transitions, see the Magoosh TOEFL Writing Templates ebook, and check out Kate’s tutorial on TOEFL Writing transitions , and mine .

All in all, I’d put this essay in the 3.5-4 point range, per the official TOEFL Writing rubrics . Address those weak points, and you could get your score all the way up to a 5.

how many words should this part have?

The TOEFL doesn’t set any strict, official rules for word count in the TOEFL Integrated Writing Essay. However, ETS reports that most top-scoring Integrated Writing responses are between 150 and 225 words long.

Hey there David or Rachel….I don’t know with who am I talking with …:-) 🙂 But I wanted to ask you about the listening and reading sections. Do paragraphs appear while attending the question ?

Yes, you should be able to see the text (or a relevant portion of the text) when answering questions. 🙂

The passage claims the idea that the comic medium is popularly American, However professor refutes each of the claims by saying that comic medium is not popularly American it is influenced by the whole world.

The passage claims that Hogan Alley the most popular comic of 1890’s was the first successful comic and was developed by Americans, However professor refutes this claim by saying that Hogan Alley was not the first successful comic , In 1970 many comic strips were originated in Europe which were popular and successful.

The passage states that Action comic series which introduced superman as a character was the first popular comic series developed by Americans in 1938, However professor refutes the claim by saying that in 1922 Tin-Tin published in Belgium was the most popular comic ever.

The passage posits that The Japanese comics which are popular throughout Europe are influenced by American art and literature, however professor refutes the claim of the passage by stating that Asterics the most popular Japanese comic was influenced by Canada not from US.

Thus the professor refutes the reading by illustrating some facts and states that the Comic medium is influenced by al over the world it is not popularly American.

Can you please rate this answer

Hi Aakash! Unfortunately, at the moment, we don’t offer a TOEFL essay review service. However, to help you evaluate your response, I recommend the following. First, check out David’s sample essay here . You can compare your structure and the points you make with what David wrote in his essay 🙂 Also, I highly recommend that you check out this page , where we provide some guidelines on how to evaluate your own essays. I hope this helps, at least a little!

One question regarding scoring: although the TOEFL OG recommends essays of 150-225 words for the Integrated Essay, do you think that length correlates with score?

My point is all things being equal (coherency, grammar, vocabulary), would a longer essay tend to score higher than an average one?

In other words, do you think it is worth it to push it to the 250+ words in order to try to get a higher score?

Thank you so much!

Hi Sebastian,

Once again, my statements regarding your identical question for the independent essay apply. In addition, on the integrated essay, including too much (say writing 350 words and covering 6 main points) can demonstrate a lack of concision and an inability to distill the most important points from many. As this test is aimed at demonstrating your ability to handle academic-style writing, you want to showcase this in addition to grammar, argumentation and organization.

I hope that helps! 🙂

Great! I will follow your piece of advice! Apologies for repeating the question. I jut thought that since they were two different tasks, they could yield two different tactics and maybe scoring system. I just wanted to post each question in the appropriate post.

Have a great week and thank you as usual!

No worries, Sebastian! I’m sure these comments will be useful for future students 🙂

Best of luck as you continue studying!

Call me petty, but I would just appreciate Americans like you being totally accurate with facts that you feel you can confidently, expertly provide as subject matter for something that should feel as authoritative as a “lecture”. Joe Shuster was Canadian half by birth and grew up in Canada right into his teens. This time also included his first exploits as a writer for a publication. So it would be nice not to see folks like you casually whitewashing Superman as a wholly American creation. If I tried to claim conversely that Superman was actually just a Canadian creation in basically the exact same way, I’m sure there’d be no end to the uproar. We also helped to give the world the phone and basketball, just in case you planned on overAmericanizing those facts in other tasks too…

Jeffrey, I definitely hear you on that, and I tried to touch on that in the lecture. FYI, although I wrote both the passage and the lecture script, the lecture– which refutes the idea that comics are a purely American art form– reflects my own personal opinions a bit more. On an additional personal note, many of my favorite comic books– and many comics I feel have had some of the greatest influence on the medium worldwide– are made by creators from Canada and other places not in the USA. 🙂

This example has made my day, I’ve spent all evening trying to understand the difference between the lecture and the reading and it has made it more clear than all materials i consulted . Thank you so much, Very helpful.

So glad this tutorial and sample lecture helped, Denis. I had fun putting it all together too. 🙂

Thank you so much Mr. Recine! This example was spot-on! 🙂

Thanks for this sample test. Where can i get more task 1 practice test for my students?

TOEFL Writing Task 1 practice can be a little hard to come by, since it takes a lot of time to put together a proper Writing Task 1 (a passage and a recorded audio lecture). For fast, free TOEFL Writing Task 1 prompts, I recommend TOEFL Quick Prep . The first volume of TOEFL Quick Prep has a Writing Task 1s that come with transcript only, and no actual audio. Fortunately, Magoosh has made unofficial audio for all of the transcript-only lectures in both Volume 1 and Volume 2 of Quick Prep. (See our unofficial audio for TOEFL Quick Prep Vol. 1 and TOEFL Quick Prep Vol. 2 .) You can also get access to some additional free Task 1s if you enroll in ETS’s free official online TOEFL course .

Beyond those resources, there are some good paid resources out there, such as ETS’s official TOEFL books: Official TOEFL iBT Tests Vol. 1 , Official TOEFL iBT Tests Vol. 2 , and The Official Guide to the TOEFL . TOEFL Preparation Online (TPO) is another potential source of high quality official ETS Writing Task 1 practice, although it’s a bit expensive.

Last but certainly not least, consider a subscription to Magoosh TOEFL , if you haven’t already. 🙂 We offer six practice TOEFL Writing Task 1s to our Premium students, as well as many other practice questions and video lessons for the test as a whole.

The lecture challenges the points made in reading passage that comics strips and comics books are original art form from America, they started in America and comics created around the world are influenced by American comics.The lecture disputes the following claims made in the passage. First claim made in the passage is that the first famous comics strip was Hogan Alley and was published in 1890, however the lecture claims that it was not the first and further gives example for a comics published in 1790 in Europe. The characters in the Hogan Alley were immigrants and cartoonist RF Outcalt himself was an immigrant which means that the origin of the comics comes from another country. Second claim in the passage is that the first adventure comics published was in 1938 and was about Superman, lecture refutes the argument by giving example of comic book “Adventures of Tin Tin” which as Belgium origin and it predates Superman. Third claim made in the reading passage is that Japanese comics manga was influence by American, but the lecture contradicts it by claiming that it was influenced traditional Asian comics The last claim made in the passage is that European comics is also influenced by American comics, the lecture clarifies that by the example that even though the disney characters are famous in Europe but these characters are written as European disney characters by the Europeans. In conclusion, the lecture says that comics art were not first originated in America but they did exist in the world much before the comics became famous in America and that the comics around the globe is not influenced by American comics.

The passage and the lecture are both about the originality of comics. The author of the text states that all comics have been influenced by early American art forms. The lecturer, however, strongly disagrees with this idea. To begin, the text points out that the Japanese version of comics, called ‘manga’ were derived from the American comics. They had been taken to Japan after World War two. The lecturer contradicts this claim. He says that the manga relates more to Asian arts than American . Secondly, the author details how Disney inspired the many famous European comic series. He gives examples of Smurfs and Asterix, and how they are very popular. To this, the lecturer differs explaining how the writings, like hash-tag are European styled. Finally, detailing the studies made by scholars on America’s role in early comic industry, the author stamps comics as America’s undeniable creations. Despite this, the professor shuts down these data as rubbish. He explores the history of comics, and how there were many European comics before the start of American ones. In addition, he says that many original American comics were created by immigrants.

Both the reading and the lecture discuss the real origin of comic books and their history. The auther of the reading suggests that comics originally are an amercican art. However the proffesor explains that comics medea is an art actually shared by the whole world. First of all, according to the reading hongn’s aley is the fist popular strip figure disigned by an american. But the lecture opposes to this statement and explains that in fact alley was not the firt influencial strip caracter know world wild but actually lots of caracters made by imigrants from switserland had been there befoor him Secondly, the reading states that popular action comics books were invented by americans. Though the lecture points out that exion comics such as tintin, written in 1922 predated befoor the outcomming of for example spiderman. Finally, the author suggests that american comic strips as for example disney inspiered the creation of mangas on the other side of the world. Oposing to this, the speaker explains that disney had american caracters but the comics are actually made by europeens and traditional asian art developd on its own

Hi, would like to have some feedback. Here’s my response: The reading and the lecture are about comics. The reading as well as the lecture have specific mentions and opposing views about the origin and spread in popularity of comics The writer of the passage puts forth the point that comics are a purely American art form. In contrast, the lecture provides proofs against this idea. Firstly, the passage mentions the first commercially successful comic strip Hogan’s Alley. According to the passage, it dealt with ordinary Americans, was set in New York and published by American publishers. However, the lecture mentions that it was not the first commercially popular comic strip and that its publisher was an immigrant from Hungary. Second, the passage refers to “Action comics”, which featured Superman, as the first popular comic book in the world. The lecture refutes this point by saying that “Action comics” was not the first popular comic book. Tintin was published in Belgium 16 years before it and it is still popular. Also, even the artist of Superman was from Canada. Lastly, the passage mentions that comics were invented in America and then exported to the rest of the world. But the lecture opposes this idea by saying that traditional Asian art has more influence on comics than any other art has. Moreover, though the Disney characters were written in America, they were written and drawn by European creators. Thus, they were not truly American. This is how the lecture refutes the key points in the passage.

Hi Rk! Unfortunately, at the moment, we don’t offer a TOEFL essay review service. However, to help you evaluate your response, I recommend the following. First, check out David’s sample essay here . You can compare your structure and the points you make with what David wrote in his essay 🙂 Also, I highly recommend that you check out this page , where we provide some guidelines on how to evaluate your own essays. I hope this helps, at least a little!

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TOEFL Prep Online Guides and Tips

What’s a good toefl writing score.

Have you been researching the TOEFL Writing section and are wondering what a good TOEFL iBT Writing score is?  What TOEFL Writing score do you need to get into your top schools? What do graders look for in essays? What do you need to include in your essays to help you get the scores you need? We answer all those questions and more in our guide.

How Is the TOEFL Writing Section Scored?

First, let’s do a quick overview of the Writing section, and then we’ll look at how it’s scored. TOEFL Writing is the final section of the TOEFL. It lasts 50 minutes and contains two tasks: Integrated Writing and Independent Writing.  You’ll have 20 minutes to plan and write the Integrated Writing Task and 30 minutes to plan and write the Independent Writing Tasks. Both essays will be typed on the computer.

After you complete the exam, your essays will be graded on a scale from 0-5. These are known as raw scores. The average of those raw scores will then be scaled to a score from 0-30, which is your official Writing score and the one you see when you get your score results.

Below is a conversion chart for raw and scaled Writing scores. The left column shows the average Writing raw score (from 0-5), and the right column shows the corresponding scaled score (from 0-30).

The TOEFL Writing Rubrics

Below are the key points from the rubrics for both Writing tasks. ( You can view complete rubrics for both essays here .) You can see what you need to include in your essays in order to earn certain scores. After each rubric, we also give some analysis to help you understand what a top-scoring essay needs to include.

By the way: we have built the world's best online TOEFL course . Get online practice (TPO-sytle!) and individual grading and feedback on Speaking and Writing.

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The Integrated Writing Task

For this task, you will have three minutes to read a short passage, then you will listen to a short (approximately two-minute long) audio clip of a speaker discussing the same topic the written passage covers.  You will have 20 minutes to plan and write a response that references both of these sources in order to answer the question. You won’t discuss your own opinion.

During the writing time, you’ll be able to look at the written passage again, but you won’t be able to re-hear the audio clip. You’ll be able to take notes while you listen to it though. The suggested response length for this task is 150-225 words.

To score well on the Integrated Writing task, the most important thing you need to do is show the graders that you understood the main points of both the written passage and audio clip and were able to apply those points to the prompt. You need to be able to pick out the main points from both passages and show how they relate to each other and the prompt.

Your essay will also need to be well organized, and it must be very clear within the first few sentences what your thesis statement or main idea of your essay is. Additionally, a high-scoring essay won’t have many spelling or grammar errors.

The Independent Writing Task

For the Independent Writing task, you’ll receive a question on a particular topic or issue. You’ll have 30 minutes to plan and write a response to that topic that explains your opinion on it. You’ll need to give reasons that support your decision. It’s recommended that your response to this task be at least 300 words.

The Independent Writing task’s rubric is pretty straightforward. In order to earn a high score, your essay must:

• Fully answer the prompt: You must completely answer the essay prompt, and it must be clear from early on in your essay (definitely within the first paragraph) what your stance on the prompt is.
• Include specific examples: In order to back up your stance, you need to give specific examples and explain how they strengthen your position. This is one of the most important things you are graded on, and not having enough examples, not making them specific, or not explaining the examples well enough can cause you to get a significantly lower score.
• Be well organized: Your essay should have a clear introduction, body, and conclusion that flow together and form a clear and complete essay.
• Have few or no spelling and grammar errors: You don’t need to be perfect, but the graders shouldn’t have trouble understand what you’re trying to say due to misspellings or grammar mistakes.

What’s a Good TOEFL Writing Score?

So your TOEFL iBT Writing score can be anywhere from 0 to 30, but what’s a good Writing score?  There are two ways to define a good Writing score. The first is by using percentiles, and the second is by using score requirements for the schools you’re applying to. We’ll look at both methods in this section.

Using Percentiles to Determine a Good TOEFL Writing Score

Percentiles show how well you performed on the test compared to everyone else who took the TOEFL. The higher your percentile, the better you did on the TOEFL.  For example, if you scored in the 40th percentile, that means you scored higher than 40% of everyone who took the TOEFL and lower than 60% of all the people who took it. And if you scored in the 95th percentile, then you did better than 95% of people who took the TOEFL.

Below are the raw and scaled scores that correspond to some key TOEFL Writing percentile ranks.  Remember, each essay is given a raw score from 0-5, so your total raw score for both essays will be from 0-10. (You’ll only be given scores in whole points, but we used half points below for rounding.) Your raw score is then converted to a scaled score from 0-30, which is the score you’ll see on your score report.

You can use percentiles to determine what a “good” TOEFL Writing score is. You might define “good” as anything that’s above average, or the 50th percentile. Using that definition, any scaled Writing score higher than a 22 would be a good score.  You might also define good as being in the top quarter of test-takers, or at least the 75th percentile. That would require a Writing score of at least 25.

An excellent Writing score in the 90th percentile would mean you scored higher than 90% of other test-takers on that section. This requires a score of at least a 27.

Using School Requirements to Determine a Good TOEFL Writing Score

While percentiles can be useful for getting a general idea of what a good score is, you’ll probably need more information to set your own TOEFL Writing score goal. The other, and usually more effective, way to figure out a good Writing score is to look at the TOEFL requirements of schools you’re applying to or thinking about applying to.  Almost every university or graduate program will list its TOEFL requirements on its website, typically on the “Admissions” page.

Using this guideline, a good TOEFL Writing score is simply one that gets you into each of the schools you’re interested in. In the next section we go over step-by-step how to use school requirements to set your Writing goal score.

How to Set a TOEFL Writing Goal Score

Follow four steps below to figure out which TOEFL Writing score you should be aiming for. We’ll use Ivan, an international student applying to several universities in America, as an example.

#1: Make a List of the Schools You’re Interested In

Your first step is to make a list of all the schools you’re interested in applying to. Then, put them in a table, like the one you see below. Right now you only need to fill in the first column. At this point, you don’t need to have a final list of the schools you want to apply to; a rough guide of schools you may be interested in attending is enough.

Ivan is applying to four schools: MIT, New York University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and American University. Below is his table.

#2: Find Each School’s Average/Required TOEFL Scores

The next step is to find the required TOEFL Writing score and total TOEFL score for each school. Schools will usually post this information on their admissions page. Some schools have required scores for each TOEFL section. This makes it easy to know what the required Listening score is. For others, there is simply a required total TOEFL score. This means you’ll need to do a bit of math to figure out about what score you’ll need for Writing. To do this, just divide the required total score by four, since there are four sections on the TOEFL.

For example, UW-Madison has a required total score of 92. That means Ivan will need an average of 23 on each section, including Writing, to meet that total score requirement. You may want to make a note that this is just an estimated minimum Writing score, and not required.

#3: Make Adjustments

Now you know the minimum requirements for your list of schools, but should you be aiming higher than those scores? Will getting higher than the minimum required score increase your chances of getting accepted?  In most cases, the answer is no. Getting a TOEFL score that’s significantly higher than the requirements definitely won’t hurt your application, and it will likely make navigating an English-speaking school easier, but, in most cases, it won’t help your application that much.

Most schools choose their TOEFL requirements based on the language skills they believe are required to do well there. As long as you meet the requirement, it’s assumed you’ll be able to manage the language barrier well enough.  However, this isn’t true for every school, and there are some schools where a higher than required TOEFL score can help improve your chances of getting in.

Sometimes this is mentioned directly on a school’s website. The admissions page may state that any TOEFL score that meets or exceeds the requirements is enough, or it may say that scores higher than the requirement help your application. For example, MIT has a required TOEFL score minimum of 80, but a total score of at least 100 is “recommended.” In this case, you should be aiming for a total score of 100 in order to be sure your TOEFL score doesn’t bring down the rest of your application.

Other schools don’t require TOEFL scores if you meet other requirements, such as a certain number of years of schooling at an English-speaking school or a high enough score on the Critical Reading section of the SAT.

Next to each school, include any of this additional information you find to give yourself the most complete picture of what TOEFL score you should be aiming for.  If you can’t find this information on the school’s website, it’s a good idea call or email the admissions office directly to be sure you have the most accurate information.

#4: Find the Highest Score From Your List

Now that you have your list of required and desired TOEFL scores for the schools you’re interested in, look through the list and find the highest score. This is your goal score, and getting it would mean you got a “good” TOEFL score since it would meet the requirements of all the schools you’re interested in.

For Ivan, he would need a Writing score of at least 25 in order to have the best chance of meeting the requirements of all the schools he’s applying to. Once you’ve found this score, write it down and tape it somewhere where you’ll see it, such as your desk. Keep it visible while you’re studying to remind you of the score you need to earn and motivate you to reach your TOEFL goal.

Tips for Getting a Top TOEFL Writing Score

It’s important to know how the TOEFL essays are scored and what score you should aim for on TOEFL Writing. Follow these four additional tips in this section to help produce strong essays that’ll help you meet your goal score.

Tip 1: Take a Few Minutes to Plan Your Essays

Since you only have a limited amount of time to complete your essays, it can be tempting to start writing the second your time starts. You want to avoid doing this, however. Spending just a few minutes planning your essay can help keep your writing focused and on topic, and it can often help you write faster because you know what you’ll be discussing next.

Spend a max of two to three minutes writing a basic outline for your essay. It should include:

• Your thesis statement (the main point you’re making and will discuss throughout the essay)
• The main point of each paragraph you’ll have in your essay
• Any specific examples you can quickly think of (either from the included passages or your own opinion, depending on the essay) to back up your claim

Before you begin writing, reread the essay prompt again to make sure your outline answers the question well (see next section for more details).

Tip 2: Discuss Specific Examples

For both essays, you’ll need to provide multiple examples that support your main argument. For the Integrated Writing Task, these examples will come from the written passage and the audio clip included with the essay prompt. For the Independent Writing Task, you’ll need to come up with your own ideas for examples.

One thing many test takers struggle with is making these examples specific enough. For example, say you’re writing an Independent Writing essay that focuses on the importance of telling the truth. If one of your points is that sometimes you need to tell small lies to protect a friend’s feelings, don’t just say that being honest can be cruel. Give a specific example instead. For example, says a friend asks whether you like her new hat. Even if you really think it’s ugly, it doesn’t harm anyone to say you like it, and it’ll help keep your friendship strong.

Using specific examples makes your argument stronger and can help you get a higher essay score.

Tip 3: Meet the Recommended Essay Lengths

It’s recommended that your Integrated Writing Task be 150-225 words and your Independent Writing Task be at least 300 words.  You should aim to meet both these recommendations because writing less than that will make it difficult to meet all the requirements you need in a strong essay, like an introduction and conclusion and well-supported examples.

However, you don’t need to worry about writing a lot more than the recommended word counts. For example, an Independent Writing Essay that’s 600 words won’t automatically get a higher score than one that’s 350 words. Aim to write the recommended length for each essay, but focus more on giving strong examples than simply writing in order to increase your word count.

Tip 4: Proofread Your Essays

You should always aim to leave at least a few minutes at the end of the section to proofread your essays.  Ideally, you’ll have 2-3 minutes to look over each essay, but even just a minute of extra time can be enough for you to find and fix obvious spelling and grammar errors.

While you can have some errors and still get a high essay score, it’ll be difficult to get a top score if your essays are filled with misspellings and grammar mistakes, even if the content of the essays is strong. Taking a few minutes to correct these errors can give your essay scores a boost.

Recap: What’s a Good TOEFL Writing Score?

What’s a good TOEFL iBT Writing score? That depends on your definition. If you’re basing your score on percentiles, or how well you do compared to other test-takers, a scaled score of 22 will make you above average, and a score of 25 will put you in the top quarter of Writing scores for test takers.

However, it’s better to look at the score requirements of the schools you’re interested in and base your goal score for Writing on that. You’ll need to write two essays, and for each, you’ll need to answer the prompt completely, provide specific and well supported examples, and keep spelling and grammar errors to a minimum in order to get a high score.

What’s Next?

Want more tips on how to prepare for TOEFL Writing questions? Check out our guide to over 300 Writing topics to practice with!

Looking for more information on the TOEFL Writing section? Learn all the tips you need to know in order to ace TOEFL Writing!

What does a high-scoring TOEFL essay look like? Take a look at our analyses of two perfect-scoring TOEFL essays  to learn what   you can do to get a high essay score on test day.

Ready to improve your TOEFL score by 15 points?

Author: Christine Sarikas

Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries. View all posts by Christine Sarikas

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TOEFL Writing Score: Score Calculation, Marking Criteria, and Marking Rubric

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Content Writer - Study Abroad | Updated On - Jun 24, 2024

Highlights:

• Top-ranked universities worldwide requires 25+ TOEFL writing score .
• TOEFL score between 24 and 30 shows an advanced level of proficiency.
• TOEFL writing score rubric scaled on 0 to 6 level , that evaluates your response.
• TOEFL writing scores ranging between 24 and 30 refer to the C1 CEFR level .

TOEFL writing section is divided into two tasks, and the total score ranges from 0 to 30 . TOEFL writing score contributes 25% of your total score. TOEFL has updated this exam syllabus, and the writing section had major changes. TOEFL writing section became shorter and now includes new writing for an academic discussion task. You are achieving a TOEFL writing score scale between 24 and 30 shows an advanced level proficiency . Top-ranked universities worldwide requires on average 25+ TOEFL writing score. Understanding TOEFL writing score rubric is very important for writing a perfect answer.

TOEFL Writing Section Description

Before understanding the score calculation process, let’s understand the contents of the TOEFL writing criteria. The test-takers have 2 tasks here

• Integrated writing task
• Independent writing task

The following table shows the exam pattern of TOEFL writing tasks:

TOEFL Writing Score Conversion

TOEFL writing sections have a specific number of questions and the candidates obtain a raw score based on the number of correct answers given. This is the raw TOEFL score and this raw TOEFL score is converted into the scaled score on a scale of 0-30. The candidates can check the TOEFL IBT writing conversion table for this purpose.

TOEFL Writing Score to CEFR Level

Some of the top-ranked universities published their language score requirements on CEFR level. You can refer to the table below to understand the conversion of TOEFL iBT score to CEFR level:

TOEFL Percentiles Writing Score

Percentiles indicate how well candidates fared on the test. The greater your  TOEFL score , the higher the percentile. For example, a candidate who scored in the 40th percentile scored more than 40% of all individuals who took the TOEFL but lower than 60% of all people who took it. The raw and scaled scores that correlate to some of the most important TOEFL Writing percentile levels are listed below. Remember that each essay is assigned a raw score ranging from 0 to 5, therefore your total raw score for both essays will range from 0 to 10. The raw score of the candidate is then translated to a scaled score ranging from 0 to 30, which is the number you'll see on your score report.

To establish what a "good" TOEFL Writing score is, candidates must consider percentiles. "Good" might be defined as anything above average or in the 50th percentile. Using that criterion, any scaled Writing score better than 22 is considered good. Candidates may alternatively define good as being in the top quarter of test takers, or at the very least in the 75th percentile. That would need a minimum writing score of 25. A 90th percentile Writing score would suggest you outperformed 90% of other test takers on that part. This requires a minimum score of 27.

TOEFL Writing Score: Marking Criteria

The following tables show the marking rubrics of TOEFL writing evaluation criteria for the integrated writing task and TOEFL independent writing task:

Marking Rubric of TOEFL Integrated Writing Task

Essays on the TOEFL iBT's writing section are graded with distinct rubrics for the independent and integrated writing tasks. Both are graded on a scale of 0 to 5. The marks obtained for TOEFL integrated writing task shows:

Marking Rubric of TOEFL Writing for an Academic Discussion Task

TOEFL writing exam pattern has recently updated. TOEFL integrated writing task was removed and a new writing for an academic discussion task has added.

Ques: What is a good TOEFL writing score?

Ans: The total TOEFL writing score ranges on a scale of 0 to 30 level. Achieving a score of 25+ is considered a good score and is accepted by most of the top-ranked universities worldwide.

Ques: How to calculate TOEFL writing score?

Ans: TOEFL writing score rubrics scale from 0 to 5, and then the raw score then calculated to the overall score. Your TOEFL writing score ranges on a scale of 0 to 30 level.

Ques: How to score 30 in TOEFL writing?

Ans: Achieving a score of 30 in TOEFL writing may be challenging. To achieve a high score, you need to practice regularly under expert mentorship.

Ques: Is 25 in TOEFL writing good?

Ans: TOEFL Writing score ranges between 0 and 30 level, and achieving a score of 25 is considered a good writing score. Most of the top-ranked universities worldwide require a 25+ TOEFL writing score.

Ques: How to increase TOEFL writing score?

Ans: To improve TOEFL writing score, practice reading and listening, practice note-taking skills, and improve your time-management skills. Regular practice with sample papers will help you to improve your score.

Ques: How to pass TOEFL writing?

Ans: To pass TOEFL writing easily read and summarize articles, listen to lectures in English lectures, and practice taking notes.

Ques: Is TOEFL writing difficult?

Ans: Difficulty level of TOEFL writing may vary by individual. Candidates with good preparation and a good grasp of the English language can easily achieve a good TOEFL writing score.

Ques: What is the minimum words for TOEFL writing?

Ans: You need to maintain a minimum of words of 150 to 225 words on integrated writing and 100 words on writing for an academic discussion task. 

Ques: How many minutes is TOEFL writing?

Ans: You will be allocated 30 minutes to complete TOEFL writing section. The integrated writing task allocates 20 minutes and writing for an academic discussion task will require 10 minutes. 

Ques: Is it possible to score 30 in TOEFL writing?

Ans: TOEFL writing score ranges on a scale of 0 to 30 level, and achieving the highest score may be challenging. Candidates with a good grasp of the English language and with effective preparation can achieve 30 in writing.

* The article might have information for the previous academic years, which will be updated soon subject to the notification issued by the University/College.

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TOEFL Writing Rubrics and What They Mean

Today’s word is ‘rubrics’. For those who work in the field of education, this word is quite a common word. However, to the rest of us, this may be the first time you have come across this word. So, what does it mean?

Well, to keep it simple, the word ‘rubrics’ is normally used to refer to two things. First, it just means the instructions in a test or exam. For instance, you may get these instructions for one part of a test:

‘Select the appropriate phrases from the answer choices and match them to the type of organism to which they relate. TWO of the answer choices will NOT be used’.

Taken loosely, the above is sometimes referred to as ‘rubrics’, but in simple terms, they are just instructions or directions on what to do in a test.

That is why reputable exams such as TOEFL have ‘rubrics’ for their examiners. The good news is, these rubrics are available to us as well! This means that we can see what examiners look for when marking our essays so we can answer our test questions with this in mind so that we can get a higher score! It’s not a secret. It’s called studying smart.

Let’s consider the rubrics for the Writing Tasks in TOEFL (there are two writing tasks – the Integrated Writing and the Independent Writing ). Each task in the TOEFL Writing section will be given a score from a scale of 0-5 only and the marks for these two tasks will then be converted to 0-30 marks to give you the overall marks for the Writing section. In order to get the highest score of 5 for the Independent Writing, for instance, you will need to: • Address the topic and task • Organise and develop your essay well, with appropriate explanations, examples and details • Show unity, progression and coherence in your essay • Show consistent use of language, with syntactic variety, appropriate word choice and idiomaticity • Have no or minor lexical and grammatical errors

For full details of the rubrics of the TOEFL Writing tasks, you can visit the official TOEFL iBT webpage at https://www.ets.org/s/toefl/pdf/toefl_writing_rubrics.pdf

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Analysis of TOEFL Writing Rubrics for 5.0

An analysis of TOEFL writing rubrics for 5.0 reveals important strategies that you must incorporate into your writing practice.  You should aim at scoring 5.0/5.0 or 30/30 pts.  This blog post will tell exactly what you need to do to get the perfect score.

Analysis of TOEFL Writing Rubics for 5.0: Your essay should focus on the topic, and it MUST complete the writing task.

ETS lists as its first competency descriptor: “Effectively address the topic and task.” Framing your essay around the writing prompt is the most important strategy that you should practice.  If the writing prompt asks you to compare and contrast an idea, you will need to organize your essay as such. Furthermore, if you are asked to choose among a hospital, a school, or a church as an institution that you would donate money to, make sure that you build your essay around one of those topics.  Whatever the writing prompt asks you to write about, stay on topic.

Write a well-organized and developed essay; use appropriate examples and details.

The second descriptor that ETS lists “Is well-organized and well-developed, using clearly appropriate explanations, exemplifications, and or details.” To help you score perfectly, you should aim your writing so that you supersede these expectations. In other words, try to overperform in this area:

• Include a 100-word introduction with a sharply-focused thesis. Avoid using generic thesis statements that you see on popular TOEFL preparation websites. Make sure that your thesis statement is at least 20 words long.
• Each body paragraph should contain a clearly framed topic sentence restating a key point mentioned in the thesis.
• Each body paragrap h should contain approximately 150 words.
• Do not use more than two details in each body paragraph.
• Avoid generic, memorized details that could be used by anyone. Make your examples unique and personable.
• Use a number of cohesive devices such as repetition, transition words, pronouns/determiners, and parallelism to connect ideas.

Analysis of TOEFL Writing Rubrics for 5.0: Show unity, progression, and coherence.

Third, if your essay is coherent, it will be unified. Coherence is achieved by paragraph unity and by cohesion . To show progression, you must be writing at three coherent layers of meaning: main idea (this should be stated in your thesis), support points (these are stated in the topic sentences of your body paragraphs), and sub-support points (these are stated in the form of details such as explanations and examples).

Minimize vocabulary and grammar errors; show sentence variety, appropriate word choice, and idiomaticity.

Lastly, minimize your vocabulary and grammar errors. Make sure that your writing has idiomaticity. In other words, your writing should sound natural.  For example, do not say, “How many years do you have?” Instead, it is more natural to say, “How old are you?” Unfortunately, you may not be able to make significant improvements in this area without the help of an experienced writing tutor.  Therefore, I recommend that you have me evaluate and correct at least two of your independent writing practice tests. In addition, let me evaluate at least two of your integrated writing practice tests. I will be able to tell you what types of vocabulary and grammar improvements you need to make to improve your writing. To purchase a one-hour TOEFL lesson, GO HERE .

To help you improve your sentence variety and word choice, consider the following two suggestions. Use Microsoft Word to help you assess certain features of your essay.

• Keep the average sentence length in your essay to 25 words.
• Make sure that the average word is five characters or longer.
• Aim to have a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of 12 or higher.

Read sample essay that will score 5.0/5.0 or 30/30 pts.

Take time for an analysis of TOEFL Writing Rubrics for 5.0 as they relate to the below model essay.

Which of the following are most important  when choosing a house?

• Close to where you work
• Near where your children attend school
• In a safe neighborhood away from the city

The American dream and the dream of people in other countries is to purchase a home. Like others, I also aspire to purchase a home for my family and me. Before making this monumental financial decision, I will have to consider whether my home should be close to where I work, whether this new house should be close to where my children are attending school, or whether my home is in a safe neighborhood. Of the three options, I prefer purchasing a home in a crime-free suburban neighborhood because this purchase will likely appreciate in value over time, my family and I will have lower crime, and there will be a lot less noise than living in the city.

First of all, this type of home purchase will most likely bring a hefty return on my money.  For example, my friend purchased a home in Pasadena, California, which is about 30 minutes away from Los Angeles, one of the most crime-ridden cities in the United States.  After laborious negotiations with the seller and the lender, my friend paid $560,000 for the home more than 7 years ago. The 2,300 square foot four-bedroom home is now valued at $1.3 million dollars, so if my friend decided to sell his home this year, he would be able to more than double his investment. In addition, the interest that my friend has to pay on his home loan is tax-deductible, so because he owns a home he also pays lower taxes.

Second of all, buying a home in a safe suburban neighborhood will likely have much lower crime compared to people who live in the city. To Illustrate, my friend who purchased the home in Pasadena has never experienced a crime at his new dwelling. No one has ever broken into his Mercedes Benz that is parked outside his house every night, and my friend has never had his home broken into while he was at home or even when he left for two-week vacations. In fact, my friend told me that he is such good friends with his neighbors that they watch over his house while he is gone. Moreover, my friend feels so safe in his neighborhood that he and his wife often go on walks in the evenings for 45 to 60 minutes. On no occasion has my friend ever been bothered during these daily exercise routines.

Finally, choosing a home away from the city will likely lead to a quieter, more peaceful life without the noise of big city life. My friend who lives in Pasadena is far enough away from the freeway that he hears no noise from the heavy traffic on the 210 East/West freeway that takes cars into Los Angeles. In fact, according to my friend, it is so quiet at his house that he can open all the windows at his house before going to bed, and he can go to sleep without being woken up by outside noises in the neighborhood. One of the most attractive parts about the house my friend lives in is the noise ordinance policy that his neighborhood has. To illustrate, if neighbors play loud music, have obnoxiously disruptive parties, or engage in any activities that are a nuisance to others, these offenders will be fined $150 for the first offense, $300 for the second offense, and $1000 for the third offense.  Since my friend has been living in his Pasadena neighborhood, he has never been bothered by loud noises.

To sum up, although many prefer to live in exciting, entertainment-packed big cities, I would prefer to purchase a home away from the hustle and bustle of city life. I feel like I will get a better return on my investment, I will experience less crime, and I will be able to live in a quieter, more peaceful environment.

May the next TOEFL exam you take be your last!

Michael Buckhoff ,  [email protected]

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TOEFL Writing Score: Marking Criteria, Percentiles, and Good Score Range

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Zollege Team

Content Curator | Updated On - Apr 30, 2024

Highlights: TOEFL writing score scale ranges from 0 to 30 based on your performance in 2 tasks: integrated and writing for an academic discussion task. Achieving a 25+ TOEFL writing score is considered a good score . TOEFL writing grading follows a combination of AI scoring and certified human raters .  TOEFL essay evaluation is accomplished on a scale from 0 to 5. These readings are called raw scores. 

Some universities will require the overall TOEFL score, while some have the sectional score requirements . Some of the top-ranked universities worldwide have the minimum TOEFL writing score requirement of 25 . TOEFL writing score scale ranges from 0 to 30 based on your performance in 2 tasks: integrated and writing for an academic discussion task. You will get a total of 30 minutes to complete the writing section. TOEFL writing grading follows a combination of AI scoring and certified human raters. TOEFL writing score system is simple, you get 1 mark for each correct answer, and there is no negative marking .

TOEFL Writing Tasks Overview

TOEFL writing marking scheme is based on two different tasks in the TOEFL writing section:

• Integrated Writing Task
• Independent Writing Task

The following table gives the split-up of the exam pattern of TOEFL writing tasks:

TOEFL Writing Evaluation Criteria

TOEFL essay evaluation is accomplished on a scale from 0 to 5. These readings are called raw scores. The raw scores from the base to calculate an average and score between 0 and 30. This writing TOEFL score will appear on a candidate’s score result.

The TOEFL writing score conversion list is given below:

TOEFL Writing Marking Scheme

The following tables show the marking rubrics of the TOEFL writing score evaluation criteria for both integrated writing tasks and independent writing tasks. Essays are graded with distinct rubrics for both writing tasks. Both are to be graded on a scale of 0 to 5.

Marking Rubrics of TOEFL Integrated Writing Task

The marking rubrics of the TOEFL Integrated Writing Task are given below:

Marking Rubrics of TOEFL Independent Writing Task

The marking rubrics of the TOEFL Independent Writing Task are given below:

Good Score in TOEFL Writing

There is no benchmark for a TOEFL writing perfect score. However, a good TOEFL score makes it possible for a candidate to get admission to a planned college or university. A good TOEFL iBT writing score can generally be 24, 27, or 28. Different universities have different TOEFL writing marking schemes. Some US universities require a sectional cut-off score in TOEFL reading , listening, speaking, and writing. Some universities need a minimum TOEFL score without a sectional cut-off (like 90 or 100 or 107 or more).

TOEFL Writing Score Percentiles

There are two evaluation criteria. They are scaled and raw writing scores.

A good score lies above the average which is the 50th percentile ranking. 22 and the above score is good. An excellent writing score will go above the 90th percentile which is 27 on a scaled writing score.

A centralized scoring network carries out the scoring process through a computer application to take care of the reading and listening sections. The automated AI scoring system is accurate and minimises biased scoring with high quality and consistency.

Ques: What is a good TOEFL writing score?

Ans: The total score of TOEFL writing ranges on a scale of 0 to 30, and achieving a score of 24 or higher is considered a good score and accepted by the top-ranked universities worldwide.

Ques: What is 4 out of 5 in TOEFL writing?

Ans: The two tasks of TOEFL writing were assessed on 0 to 5 levels with half-point increments. Achieving a raw score of 4 is considered a good score in the writing section.

Ques: Is 25 in TOEFL writing good?

Ans: TOEFL score ranges on a scale of 0 to 30, and achieving a score of 25 is considered a good writing score, and is accepted by some of the best universities worldwide.

Ques: How to calculate TOEFL writing score?

Ans: Once you finish your TOEFL writing exam, the examiner will score you on a scale of 0 to 5 raw score level. Then your total raw score will be calculated as your total score that ranges on a scale of 0 to 30.

Ques: Why is my TOEFL writing score so low?

Ans: Many reasons can affect your TOEFL writing score. Writing your response under the minimum word limit and writing grammatically incorrect answers can affect your TOEFL writing score.

Ques: How to score 30/30 in TOEFL writing?

Ans: To get 30 out of 30 in TOEFL writing, you need to do effective preparation with a proper study plan. Solving sample papers regularly can help you achieve a higher score on TOEFL writing.

Ques: How to pass TOEFL writing?

Ans: To pass TOEFL easily read the article carefully and summarize it, listen to lectures and take notes, and focus on writing grammatically correct responses.

Ques: Is writing in TOEFL hard?

Ans: TOEFL writing includes 2 tasks: integrated writing task, and writing for an academic discussion task. Candidates doing effective preparation with updated study materials 

Ques: How to increase TOEFL writing score?

Ans: To increase your TOEFL writing, first read and listen carefully, and improve your note-taking and time management skills. Regularly solving sample papers helps you to achieve a higher score.

Ques: How difficult is it to get 30 in TOEFL writing?

Ans: To get 30 in TOEFL writing, you need to write your answers with perfect word limits and make sure your answers are grammatically correct. Candidates with a good grasp of the English language and effective preparation can achieve 30 in TOEFL writing.

Ques: What is the minimum words for TOEFL writing?

Ans: There is no maximum length for your TOEFL writing answer. The minimum length for best responses is between 150 and 225 words.

Ques: How much time for TOEFL writing?

Ans: TOEFL writing section includes 2 different tasks, and you will be allocated a total of 30 minutes to complete the writing section.

*The article might have information for the previous academic years, please refer the official website of the exam.

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Test Resources

TOEFL® Resources by Michael Goodine

Toefl writing for an academic discussion questions – samples and guide and templates, sample questions and answers.

The “Writing for an Academic Discussion” task is the second TOEFL writing question. 

You will see a question written by a professor and responses written by two students.  Your job is to read everything and then answer the question.  You will have ten minutes to do everything.  You should write about 120 words.

Each link below includes a complete sample question and response.  I also have a guide to answering this question .

• Economic Growth vs the Environment
• Targeted Advertising
• Social Media
• Grading Students
• Taxing Unhealthy Products
• University Spending
• City Spending
• Corporate Impact
• Work From Home
• Online Classes
• Smartphones
• Learning Styles
• Influencers
• Starting a Business
• Space Exploration
• More sample questions from ETS

Need help preparing for the new TOEFL?  Check out my writing evaluation service .  I’ll examine your answers line by line and correct all of your mistakes.  I’ll even estimate your score and tell you how to do better on test day!  Looking for 1 on 1 lessons?  Send me a message !

Question Guide

I’ve written a detailed guide for this question .  It includes updated templates and strategies.

Answer Template 1

• This is a challenging topic, but I think that [respond directly to the question].
• I strongly agree with  [student]’ s idea that  [mention one point made by the student]. 
• I’d add that  [expand on the point with your own idea].
• While [other student] raised the relevant point that [mention one point made by the other student],  he/she didn’t mention that  [challenge that point].
• For example  [elaborate on your challenge with your own ideas].

Answer Template 2

• While I appreciate the points mentioned by both [name] and [name] , I think that …
• [elaborate on your idea for a few sentences]
• Remember that  [elaborate on your point], so [elaborate on your point].
• Some people may feel that [mention a potential challenge], but [respond to this challenge].

Video Guide

(get a free evaluation in the video comments)