In this article, I’m continuing to share what I have learned from this book, “The Official Guide to the TOEFL Test,” the fourth edition. This time we will talk about independent writing.
As mentioned before, the TOEFL iBT test contains four parts: Reading, Listening, Speaking and Writing. In the writing section, there are two tasks: an Integrated Writing task and an Independent Writing task. The integrated Writing task comes first and requires some listening. Later the test-taker will work on the Independent Writing task.
The second task in the Writing section is the Independent Writing task. The test-taker is presented with a question and has 30 minutes to write an essay in response. Here is an example:
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Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Always telling the truth is the most important consideration in any relationship. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer. |
This topic supports a variety of approaches. Some writers disagree with the statement and describe instances where to them it is appropriate to lie. For example, white lies or lies to avoid hurting others. Others take the position that lies beget more lies and undermine trust. These writers present examples that support the statement. Still others look at both sides of the issue, often delineating or classifying situations where they consider lying appropriate and others where they consider lying inappropriate or more consequential.
* The suggested essay length
An effective response is typically about 300 words long. If the essay is fewer than 300 words, the test-taker may still receive a top score. But experience has shown that shorter responses typically do not demonstrate the development of ideas needed to earn a score of 5.
Remember to think before you write and keep track of your time.
* How Essays Are Scored
Development is the amount and kinds of support (examples, details, reasons) for your ideas that you present in your essay. Do not “memorize” long introductory and concluding paragraphs just to add words to your essay. Likewise, rater will not look favorably on paragraphs which use a lots of words but fails to develop any real ideas.
Organization is something that raters notice when you fail to organize. If an essay is organized, a reader will be able to read it from the beginning to the end without becoming confused. The scoring guide mentions “unity” as well as “progression” and “coherence.” These are terms that all have to do with how well your essay is organized. To earn a top score, you need to avoid redundancy, digression and unclear connections.
Language use is how an essay displays “consistent facility in the use of language.” A few minor lexical/grammatical errors is acceptable if the essay is not hard to follow. Also, raters will judge your essay based on the complexity of sentence structures and on the quality and complexity of your vocabulary.
| Score | Task description |
| 5 |
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| 4 | * Addresses the topic and task well, though some points may not be fully elaborated. * Is generally well organized and well developed. * Displays unity, progression, and coherence, though it may contain occasional redundancy, digression or unclear connections. * Displays facility in the use of language syntactic variety and range of vocabulary, though it will probably have occasional noticeable minor errors in structure, word form, or use of idiomatic that do not interfere with meaning. |
| 3 | * 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 result in lack of clarity and occasionally obscure meaning. * May display accurate but limited range of syntactic structures and vocabulary. |
| 2 | * Limited development in response to the topic and task * Inadequate organization or connection of ideas. * Inappropriate or insufficient exemplifications, explanations or details. * A noticeably inappropriate choice of words or word forms. * An accumulation of errors in sentence structure and/or usage. |
| 1 | * 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. |
| 0 | * An essay at this level 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. |
* Sample Scored Responses for the Independent Writing Task
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Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Always telling the truth is the most important consideration in any relationship. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer. |
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There are certain considerations or factors that everyone takes into account in a relationship. People may look for honesty, altruism, understanding, loyalty, being thoughtful etc! Everyone would more or less wish that the person s/he is dealing with, has some of these virtues above. Putting them in an order according to their importance, however can be very subjective and relative. When someone ask him/herself the question “What do I consider to be the most important thing in my relationship?” the answer depends on a lot of factors such as how his/her earlier relationships were. After stating that everyone’s opinion can be different about this, for me honesty, in other words, always telling the truth is the most important consideration in a relationship. Opposite of this is inarguably lying and if someone need to lie, either s/he is hiding something or is afriad of telling me something. In any relationship of mine, I would wish that first of all, the person I’m dealing with is honest. Even though s/he thinks that s/he did something wrong that I wouldn’t like, s/he better tell me the truth and not lie about it. Later on if I find out about a lie or hear the truth from someone else, that’d be much more unpleasant. In that case how can I ever believe or trust that person again? How can I ever believe that this person has enough confidence in me to forgive him/her and carry on with the relationship from there. So if I cannot trust a person anymore, if the person doesn’t think I can handle the truth, there’s no point to continuing that relationship. Although I would like to see altruistic, understanding, thoughtful and loyal behavior from people, an instance of the opposite of these behaviors would not upset me as much as dishonesty would. Among all the possible behaviors, dishonesty is the only one for me that terminates how I feel about a person’s reliability. Therefore honesty would be my first concern and the most important consideration in a relationship. |
Rater Comments for this score 5 essay
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In this response the writer first approaches the topic by underscoring that a number of character traits are important to a relationship. The writer then effectively develops an argument that, unlike other negative behaviors, dishonesty or unwillingness to fully disclose some bad action cannot be forgiven and can be the most important factor in destroying a relationship. The writer’s language is fluent, accurate, and varied enough to effectively support the progression and connection of ideas. There is a variety of sentence structures, including rhetorical questions. The essay is not mechanically perfect, but as long as such errors are occasional, are minor, and do no interfere with the reader’s understanding, and essay like this one can still earn a top score. |
In conclusion, we have reviewed the details of how independent writing section is formed and scored. Remember to delivery a organized essay with qualified development and language use. Also, take care of alloted time for your writing. All the content above is described based on the official guide.
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