The Writing Section of the TOEFL iBT® Test

If you are an applicant, or have a client that will be taking the TOEFL iBT® test for skilled migration or other visas, then you are going to need to familiarise yourself with the test, so you’ll know what to expect, especially on the Writing section.

What can you expect from the Writing section?

The Writing section has a total time of 50 minutes, and the takers of the test are going to be asked to write down what their response would be to 2 writing tasks, which are the Integrated Writing Task, and the Independent Writing task.

You will be given 20 minutes to finish the Integrated Writing task, and you as the test taker, are going to read a short passage. After that, you will be made to listen to a short lecture. Once done with these, you will be asked to write down in response to what you have read and listened to. The Independent Writing task has 30 minutes on the clock, and as a response to a particular topic for writing, the test taker would need to write an essay.

The answers will be typed using the keyboard of the computer, and it will be sent through the internet to ETS so they can begin marking them.

How are the responses to the Writing tasks scored?

Holistically, each response in the writing tasks are scored on a scale of 0 to 5, and for the Writing section, the scores will then be converted to a single score on a scale of 0 to 30.

The holistic scores are going to be based on 3 main criteria, and they are 1.) development; 2.) organisation, and 3.) language use. To learn more about each score level, please refer to the Writing Rubrics document.

The takers of the test are not expected to come out with a complete and thorough essay regarding a specialised topic, as the answers or the responses are considered as a good first draft. It is a possibility to get a high score with an essay even if you have committed a few minor errors.

You can watch the following videos of the TOEFL test by clicking on the links below, so you can find out more information about the content and scoring of the TOEFL iBT Writing questions:

Source: MigrationAlliance.com.au