Unlike the TOEFL Academic Discussion writing task, where you present your own opinion, the TOEFL Integrated Writing task asks you to summarize opinions that you read and hear. This first writing task is all about note-taking, paraphrasing, and reporting. Continue reading to learn everything you need to know about the updated TOEFL Integrated Writing Task!
The 2023 TOEFL Integrated Writing Task now requires you to read a passage of about 250-300 words and listen to a lecture approximately 2 to 2.5 minutes long. The lecture will challenge or present an alternative view to the ideas discussed in the reading passage.
What should you expect from TOEFL Integrated Writing topics?
The Writing phase starts with the integrated task, which requires you to keep your headphones on because you will still be wearing them after the Speaking section.
What are the TOEFL Integrated Writing subjects, then? You will use a reading passage and an excerpt from a lecture to respond to the question. Both of these will be longer than the ones you met in the Integrated Speaking questions; you will have three minutes to read the reading passage, which is more detailed than the Speaking section’s.
The integrated reading example in the Writing part will explain a procedure or support a position, in contrast to prior integrated reading samples that have mostly served to define a crucial idea. The talk (well, it
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 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.
You will have twenty minutes in total to prepare and compose your TOEFL Integrated Writing essay. Although the essay won’t be that long—the majority of responses are between 150 and 225 words—you still don’t have much time, so you should keep up your writing abilities. Keep in mind that your content and arrangement are just as crucial as the language you choose. Your essay must have a coherent structure with distinct ideas and well-transitional examples. Above all, it’s critical to make use of both the reading and listening passages. The best possible score for your essay is a 1 if you solely cite the written passage. The integrated essay is essentially a synopsis of the lecture you attended, however
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.
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
Conclusion
A. Restate the relationship between the two sources (optional)
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
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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
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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.
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.
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
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.
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 Good luck
