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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.

 

An Enhanced TOEFL iBT Experience

Learn about the latest enhancements being made to the TOEFL iBT testing experience, including a shorter test time. Enhancements go into effect on July 26, 2023.

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.
  • Independent writing task (30 minutes) — write an essay based on personal experience or opinion in response to a writing topic.

You'll type your responses on a computer keyboard (or hand write them for the TOEFL iBT Paper Edition).

Test time: You have 50 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

Get The Official Guide to the TOEFL iBT® Test for a list of sample writing topics.

Writing videos

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

Play video button thumbnail for integrated writing

Question 1: Integrated Writing

Play video button thumbnail for independent writing

Question 2: Independent Writing

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.