What are the main points of the passage you read, and what are the main points of the lecture? Be sure you can identify main ideas while reading and listening. For practice, read articles, listen to the news, or listen to podcasts and try to identify the main topics.
Learn how to write and listen at the same time. To do so, try watching TED Talks or listening to podcasts. Take notes while you listen, and pause the recording when you need to. You will quickly learn to be able to do both things at once.
Do not begin writing without having a clear plan. For the Integrated Task, use your notes to make an outline of what you want to say. For the Independent Task, brainstorm ideas based on your experience. Prepare an essay with ideas that connect, and then begin writing.
In the Integrated Task, do not use the exact words from the passage or recording. Learn how to paraphrase (say the same thing using different words). If you do not do this, you are plagiarizing, which can cost you points.
In the Independent Task, do not use the exact words from the prompt. Use synonyms.
Learn how to make more complicated sentence structures and your TOEFL writing score will improve. Here are some examples of grammar concepts to learn in order to improve your score.
Connecting words will help you understand how a lecture or argument changes. For example, if a sentence begins with “however,” we know that the following information will contradict the information before.
The best way to improve your writing is to read. The more you read, the more vocabulary words and sentence structures you will come into contact with. Read the news, read books for pleasure, and read short academic articles to prepare you.
For the Integrated Task, you will have to process information in the text and lecture and then respond to it. Learn which parts are main ideas, which parts are details, and which parts need to be included in your writing.
For the Independent Task, you might have to provide your reader with a backstory or details. Make sure that you can do this efficiently.
Editing your own work can be difficult, but with practice, you can train yourself to look at your work like you are a teacher or an editor. The best way to do this is to edit other people’s work, so find a study partner and trade writing samples. This will teach you how to look for mistakes.
Having your paper edited will also help you to understand the common mistakes that you make. Remember these common mistakes and then look for them when you edit your own paper during the test.
A TOEFL preparation course will provide you with: