The Writing for an Academic Discussion component has been part of the TOEFL Writing Task 2 test since July 2023, when significant TOEFL changes were made.
TOEFL Writing Task 2: Overview of an Academic Discussion
In this task, you’ll be shown an online academic discussion with a question from a lecturer about a topic. You will need to provide your opinion. Prompts with a couple of responses from other students will be provided, and you’ll need to contribute your ideas to the discussion. You have 10 minutes to complete the TOEFL Writing Task 2.
TOEFL Writing Task 2 Free Sample Question
This post includes our top 3 expert tips to help you master the TOEFL Writing Task 2 of the TOEFL iBT exam. Looking for TOEFL Writing Task 1 expert tips instead? click here.
TOEFL Writing Task 2 Expert Tip 1: Developing your ideas clearly
According to the official TOEFL Writing Task 2 scoring criteria, you must have relevant and clearly developed ideas. Your ideas must contribute to the discussion and be well supported with arguments and examples.
TOEFL Writing Task 2 Free Sample Response 1
| Most students have smartphones these days, so it would be very difficult to ban them completely. Smartphones are very addictive, and I think we are all a bit distracted by them, not just students. That is a big problem for society. If students have access to their smartphones in class, they can use them to help them learn. I think that they are good for learning. If I had had a smartphone when I was at school, I would not have been so bored during class. Having a smartphone would have made lessons much more interesting. We just had to listen to the teacher. We could not use any technology like that. |
The writer discusses an important topic—whether smartphones should be allowed in classrooms—but fails to clearly develop their ideas with supporting reasons and examples. There is also unnecessary repetition and irrelevant details, making it difficult to follow their argument.
TOEFL Writing Task 2 Free Sample Response 2
| It is true that smartphones have the potential to be distracting, but as long as teachers establish some clear rules and guidelines around their use, I think smartphones should be allowed in class. In a traditional classroom, the teacher has only a small number of tools at their disposal, which tends to have a negative impact on student motivation and engagement. However, when students are given access to smartphones in the classroom, the number of tools available increases significantly. For instance, to revise course content, teachers can use apps to create interactive games and quizzes. Rather than asking students to discuss ideas in small groups, they can have students post short videos online that other students can watch. Students usually really enjoy these activities. This makes them more motivated and improves their learning. |
Response number 2 would get a higher TOEFL Writing Task 2 score because the writer’s ideas are much more clearly developed. They give clear reasons that back up their opinion and use examples to help explain their position.
Notice that the writer uses linking words and phrases such as “as long as,” “however,” and “for instance” to help connect their sentences. This makes the response easier to read. Also, the example about interactive games and quizzes helps the reader understand what tools the writer refers to in the previous sentence.
TOEFL Writing Task 2 Expert Tip 2: Variety of language
The second scoring criterion is variety in the use of language. In other words, you need to show the examiner that you can use a rich range of grammatical structures and vocabulary. To get a high score in this area, you must try using more difficult structures and less common vocabulary.
Let’s have a look at the sentence below:
| Students usually really enjoy these activities. This makes them more motivated and improves their learning. |
The text above does not contain mistakes, but we can still make some changes to improve our score.
TOEFL Writing Task 2 Grammar
Both sentences are simple, meaning there’s only one clause in each sentence. There’s nothing wrong with using simple sentences, but if you want to get a high score, you should also try to include some compound and complex sentences. For this example, let’s make a complex sentence using a relative clause.
| Students usually really enjoy these activities, which makes them more motivated and improves their learning. |
TOEFL Writing Task 2 Vocabulary
We can also improve the vocabulary by using some more advanced words.
| Students are typically highly engaged during such activities, which boosts their motivation and enhances their learning. |
We changed:
usually → typically
really enjoy → highly engaged
these activities → such activities
increases → boosts
motivated → motivation
improves → enhances
Note that the words we’ve chosen are still common ones. Students sometimes try to use very sophisticated words that are actually very uncommon. This can make their writing unclear and make it sound very unnatural. Don’t do that. Choose common words that still show how good your vocabulary is, like Jay shows you in the video below:
TOEFL Writing Task 2 Expert Tip 3: Check for language errors for a high score
The final scoring criterion is the correct use of language. This means it’s essential to check your response for grammatical and vocabulary errors, including issues with spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. You can make some minor mistakes and still get a high score, but you should try to make as few mistakes as possible.
Easy things to check for:
- spelling mistakes
- subject–verb agreement
- mistakes with singular and plural forms
- incorrect punctuation
Read the paragraph below. There are 5 language errors. Can you find them? The answer is at the bottom of this page.
| Secondly, they facilitates collaboration between student. If they are working on a group project for instance students can use shared documents to collaborate in real time. This is more efficent than working with pen and paper and better reflect what students will be required to do once they join the workforce. |
More help with TOEFL Writing
We also have a video with free sample questions and answers that you can use to practice.
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Answers
| Secondly, they facilitate collaboration between students. If they are working on a group project, for instance, students can use shared documents to collaborate in real time. This is more efficient than working with pen and paper and better reflects what students will be required to do once they join the workforce. |