I think TOEFL writing is the most difficult to deal with. You can master and use templates, many English words and expressions, but your score will not increase because TOEFL Writing evaluates whether natural English is used rather than English words and expressions, and above all, sentence structure and consistency.
In other words, it depends largely on the writing ability and logic of the person, but if you polish up, you will surely be able to have the ability. To put it the other way around, if you have an good ability for making sentence structure, you can get almost 70% points. Another 30% is English words, expressions, and luck of the day. Now, I will introduce the way to prepare for writing specifically.
Preparing for TOEFL Writing
Know what TOEFL Listening requires
As mentioned in Preparing for TOEFL Speaking, it is important to know about the TOEFL test itself if you want to increase your TOEFL score. There is a video explaining this accurately, so I will share.
This person is Josh MacPherson and is the head of instructor of an online TOEFL school called TST Prep. In TST Prep site, there is not only about Reading, but also about Listening, Speaking, and Writing, as well as a lot of useful free materials, so please use it for TOEFL study!
Also, there is speaking templates in the explanation section of the video below, so please utilize it too!
The summary of this video is as follows.
Tips for Speaking
- Keep your verb tenses simple – Simple tenses give more consistency and unity. Also, their roles differ depending on the tense. For Example ① Present tense – Used to express your reasons or opinions ② Past tense – Used to talk about personal experience ③ Conditional sentence – Used to end with a conclusion about personal experience or when expressing your opinion in the introduction
- Practicing typing your essays without spell check – you need to get used to it because it won’t automatically convert you if you misspell.
- Be confidence in the writing topics – it’s important that what you hear and what’s written is included in your essays
- Use templates – templates are useful, but don’t rely too much on them
- Write more words – it’s good to have a lot of characters, but it’s really the structure that matters, so don’t overdo it
- Maximize your editing time – avoid mistakes and losing points
- Check your writing – Getting feedback facilitates learning English
- Utilize technology – use services like Grammrly
- Resist the urge to leave – write more words to improve it, or edit it to correct mistakes until the end of the exam.
- Looking for a teacher who has good ability for English – Getting feedback facilitates learning English
If you want to understand this in more detail, I recommend that you watch the video above to learn.
Learning the background of the academias
TOEFL asks many questions related to education and knowledge that college students need to know.
For example, anthropology, archaeology, world civilization, American history and law, ecology, biology, botany, environmental issues, meteorology, astronomy, geology, human body, chemistry, art, economics, architecture, psychology, advanced technology, etc.
On the day of the exam, there will be questions such as the history, the technology, the research, etc. So, it’s a good idea to keep these simple knowledge in mind beforehand. This is because when you take a test, the speed of information processing in your head is completely different when you don’t know anything. If you want to have some spare time during the exam, I recommend you to learn these in advance.
Think like a Western way
In the West, logic and rationality are emphasized, and the examination evaluates the quality of the way of thinking. Therefore, if you go outside the framework, your score will naturally be deducted. Specifically, the following are the arguments that should not be used for Western thinking. If these are not the case, you will naturally be able to think logically.
- Hasty Generalization
- Post Hoe Ergo proper Hoe
- Slippery Slope
- Red Herring
- Appeal to Tradition
- False Dilemma
- Bandwagon
- Ad Hominem
① is a fallacy that makes claim based on insufficient or unrepresentative examples. it is not logical to assume that all politicians are taking bribes when news circulates that two or three politicians are taking bribes, because not all are taking bribes.
② is a chronological fallacy that says a. prior event caused a subsequent event. For example, because when you win, or get a lot of money, you’re wearing a red jacket, you may have a hard time gambling. because logically speaking, there’s no correlation between gambling wins and red jackets.
③ is a fallacy of causation that says one action inevitably sets a chain of events in motion. For example, the idea that if the consumption tax reaches 5%, it will reach 7%, and then 10%, is not logical. That’s because it’s based on the possibilities that might happen in the future, and not on the credibility of the numbers going up.
④ is a fallacy that introduces irrelevant issues to deflect attention from the subject under discussion. For example, politicians often try to divert themselves from questions by introducing irrelevant topics, but this is not a reasonable factor because they have not answered that question. It is recommended to be especially aware of the frequent occurrence of essays and discussions.
⑤ is a fallacy that opposes change by arguing that old ways are superior to new ways. For example, people living now may be happier than they used to be. it does not make sense from the standpoint of logic, and what makes them happy depends on the individual.
⑥ is a fallacy that confronts listeners with two choices when in reality, more option exists. For example, if you offered to have to work at the company and to get results without having to work overtime within two weeks, it is not logical. Because you may be able to come up with innovative ideas.
⑦ is a fallacy that determines truth, goodness or wisdom by popular opinion. In this restaurant, for example, it is common sense to tip $5 in advance. This doesn’t make sense. Because Common sense may apply to individuals and societies,
⑧ is a fallacy that urges listeners to reject as idea because of the allegedly poor character of the person voicing it.For example, if you were said that you are too early to be a boss, this would’t make sense because if you show your ability and achieve results, you may be a boss right now.
Below is an article related to the above. Please use it as a reference.
Memorizing (creating) templates
Remembering the template in advance and challenging the test is a great way to do it, but there are a few things to keep in mind.
- The template is just an example
- Don’t rely too much on templates
- Create your own template if possible
- In the end, you should be flexible enough to answer all questions without templates
There are many useful templates on the Internet. Keep in mind that templates are just an example, though it’s a great thing to learn from them. Also, when you try to talk about the template you learned on the day of the exam, if the content of the topics or questions doesn’t match the template you learned, there are many cases where it didn’t work.
Therefore, it is better to create your own templates to deal with these problems. Make one template that fits you well at first so that you can write essays immediately. Once you’ve done that, let’s make up to two extra templates.
If you make a template or memorize words or expressions, you will get the hang of it. In the end, you will be able to write smoothly without templates.
Use friends and various media to receive regular output and correction
You can’t say that you’ve mastered words, expressions and templates just by memorizing them. Make sure to output what you memorize. Be sure to output your memorization in essays, diaries, etc. and have them corrected. The reason is as follows.
- Learning English words and expressions by writing essays
- The correction gives you feedback so you can write essays with confidence.
- Learning to write essays in proper and natural English
Needless to say, if you want to improve your writing, you must write an essay first. You can memorize words and expressions by writing. When you finish writing your essay, I recommend you to have it corrected because you can learn how to use English correctly. English has the same meaning, but there are many words with a slight difference in nuance, so your essay may be subtracted in the TOEFL test. Correction is essential to prevent this.
Solving past questions
I recommends solving past questions because it is divided between Integrated Writing and Independent Writing.
In Independent Writing, you can just write an essay on the topic, but in Integrated Writing, you first read the explanatory text for about 3 minutes and then listen for about 3 minutes. Most of the content is opposed to the explanatory text. After that, you will write the explanatory writing and the explanatory writing about the counterargument.
It’s a simple task, but you need to practice to get used to it. That’s because it not only helps you write essays, but also helps you practice listening and taking notes.
In the end
The above content can be applied not only to English study but also to other languages, so please make use of it! I would appreciate it if you could leave a comment if this article was helpful for TOEFL study or if you thought your language learning method was like this (о´∀`о)
References – YouTube.com
thumbnail – edubenchmark.com
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