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TOEFL iBT® Test

The premier test of academic English communication

Learn more by selecting any step in your TOEFL iBT® journey.

 

TOEFL iBT Test Writing Section

The TOEFL iBT test Writing section measures your ability to write in English in an academic setting, and to present your ideas in a clear, well-organized way.

There are two writing tasks.

  • Integrated writing task (20 minutes) — read a short passage and listen to a short lecture, then write in response to what you read and listened to.
  • Writing for an Academic Discussion task (10 minutes) — state and support an opinion in an online classroom discussion.

You'll type your responses on a computer keyboard.

Test time: It should take about 29 minutes to complete the Writing section.

Scoring: Writing tasks are scored based on the Writing Scoring Guides (Rubrics) (PDF) by a combination of AI scoring and certified human raters. Raw scores are converted to a scaled section score of 0–30.

 

Practice Your Writing Skills

Explore a variety of official prep offerings to practice your English-writing skills with TOEFL® TestReady. Get insights and feedback on your grammar, usage, mechanics and more.

Writing videos

Watch these videos to learn about the questions in the Writing section, plus helpful tips.

 

Play video button Video About Integrated Writing

Question 1: Integrated Writing

 

Read a passage and listen to a lecture. Then write a response comparing them.

View Transcript

Play video button Video About Independent Writing

Question 2: Writing for an Academic Discussion

 

Share your opinion in an online discussion with a professor and other students.

View Transcript

Do you need to be an expert on the topics?

The writing tasks measure your English proficiency, so you don't need deep knowledge on a specific topic to get a high score. Score raters recognize that each essay is a first draft, and you can receive a high score with an essay that contains some errors.