Writing Scoring Guide

The following scoring guidelines relate to the TOEFL® PBT Writing section:

Score of 6

An essay at this level:

• effectively addresses the writing task
• is well organized and well developed
• uses clearly appropriate details to support a thesis or illustrate ideas displays consistent facility in the use of language
• demonstrates syntactic variety and appropriate word choice

Score of 5

An essay at this level:

• may address some parts of the task more effectively than others
• is generally well organized and developed
• uses details to support a thesis or illustrate an idea
• displays facility in the use of the language
• demonstrates some syntactic variety and range of vocabulary

Score of 4

An essay at this level:

• addresses the writing topic adequately but may slight parts of the task
• is adequately organized and developed
• uses some details to support a thesis or illustrate an idea
• demonstrates adequate but possibly inconsistent facility with syntax and usage may contain some errors that occasionally obscure meaning

Score of 3

An essay at this level may reveal 1 or more of the following weaknesses:

• inadequate organization or development
• inappropriate or insufficient details to support or illustrate generalizations
• a noticeably inappropriate choice of words or word forms
• an accumulation of errors in sentence structure and/or usage

Score of 2

An essay at this level is seriously flawed by 1 or more of the following weaknesses:

• serious disorganization or underdevelopment
• little or no detail, or irrelevant specifics
• serious and frequent errors in sentence structure or usage
• serious problems with focus

Score of 1

An essay at this level:

• may be incoherent may be undeveloped
• may contain severe and persistent writing errors

Score of 0

An essay will be rated 0 if it:

• contains no response
• merely copies the topic
• is off-topic, is written in a foreign language or consists only of keystroke characters

See Also: How the Test is Scored