Toefl Writing Section_info&tips.docx

TOEFL iBT Writing tasks [ 2 tasks – 50 minutes ] IBT TOEFL essay 1: INTEGRATED ESSAY (20 minutes) Internet based TOEFL essay 1 is an integrated essay that means the essay will request you to combine and sum up information from two dissimilar sources. For the first TOEFL essay on the iBT, you will be given 3 minutes to read a passage on your screen. After that you will have to listen to a short talk lasting for 2 minutes. As a final point, the iBT requests students to complete the TOEFL essay task 1 writing test. This TOEFL essay is a summary of the points from the reading and lecture. [TIP: TAKE NOTES!]

WORD LIMIT: typically, an effective response would be 150-225 words (< 300w)

TOEFL iBT essay 2: INDEPENDENT ESSAY (30 minutes) The second essay on the new iBT TOEFL is a self-determining task. This means that you write this TOEFL essay from your own ideas and experience and give you point of view. Essays for the second writing task of the iBT TOEFL will be in relation to well-known themes. For example, a TOEFL essay on task 2 might be about the topics of international study or online education. You will be given 30 minutes to complete the second TOEFL essay.

WORD LIMIT: typically, an effective response would be 300-350 words (300-500w)

Test Scores How is the Speaking section scored? • Each of the six tasks is rated from 0 to 4, and the average of these scores is converted to a scaled score of 0 to 30. • Human scorers rate the responses. They estimate the test-taker's ability in topic development, delivery, and language use. How is the Writing section scored? Human scorers rate the responses. • The two tasks are rated from 0 to 5, and the average of these scores is converted to a scaled score of 0 to 30. • Scorers evaluate the both essays based on the following criteria: - Development (BOTH ESSAYS) - Organization (BOTH ESSAYS) - Appropriate and precise use of grammar and vocabulary (BOTH ESSAYS) - Completeness (INTEGRATED ESSAY) - Content accuracy (INTEGRATED ESSAY) Section Score Scale Listening 0-30 Reading 0-30 Speaking 0-30 Writing 0-30 Total Score 0-120 (the total score is the sum of the four skill scores).

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TOEFL Writing Section Scoring Criteria Your essay will receive a score of 6 if: • It addresses the writing task in an effective way. • The essay can be considered as well organized and well developed. • There are clear and appropriate details, which provide strong support to the thesis statement, and / or which illustrate the main ideas, used in the essay. • The essay displays consistent facility in the application of language. • There is a syntactic variety and appropriate word choice.

Your essay will receive a score of 5 if: • Some parts of the task are addressed in more effective way, in comparison with the others. • The essay can generally be considered well organized and developed. • There are details, which provide support to the thesis statement, and / or which illustrate the main ideas, used in the essay. • Your TOEFL essay displays facility in the application of the language. • There is at least some level of syntactic variety and range of vocabulary.

Your essay will receive a score of 4 if: • Parts of the task do not correspond to the topic of the essay, although in general it addresses its topic in quite an adequate way. • The essay can be considered to be organized and developed adequately. • There are details, which provide support to the thesis statement, and / or which illustrate the main idea, used in the essay. • There is an adequate, although somewhat inconsistent facility with syntax, as well as there can be contained some errors, which can obscure the meaning occasionally.

Your essay will receive a score of 3 if: • The essay is considered to be organized and developed in an inadequate way. • It is either inappropriate or there are no sufficient details, which can be used to support or illustrate generalizations, in the TOEFL essay. • The choice of words or of word forms is noticeably inappropriate. • There are multiple errors in the structures and / or usage of sentences.

Your essay will receive a score of 2 if: • There is a serious disorganization and / or underdevelopment noticed in the TOEFL essay. • There are little or no details, which provide support to either thesis statement or which illustrate the main idea of the essay. • The errors, done in sentence structure or usage are either serious or frequent, or both. • There are serious problems with the ability to get focused on the main idea of the essay.

Your essay will receive a score of 1 if: • The essay is considered to be incoherent and underdeveloped. • There are severe and persistent writing grammatical, syntactical and other types of errors.

Your essay will receive a score of 0 if: • There is no response, contained in the TOEFL essay. • The essay does not copy the topic, or if it copies it merely. • The TOEFL essay is considered to be off its topic. • It is written in some foreign language or consists only of keystroke characters.

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TOEFL iBT Writing Tips Read below some suggestions that will help you to build your writing skills: 1. Make outlines of a reading article (300–400 words). An outline must include only the major points of the article. Then use the outline to create a written summary of the information. 2. Practice to paraphrase sentences and entire paragraphs to do this frequently. It is not possible on TOEFL iBT test, just copy words from the reading passage. Learn different synonyms and practice using them. 3. Find reading and listening material on the same topic. They will provide you with similar or different views. The Internet and the library are good places to find such information. Take notes on the reading and listening material and practice: - Summarizing the information and ideas in both. Summarizing is a process of condensing or expressing in short something you have read, watched or heard. A summary conveys a general sense and includes only the main points or ideas, key words or phrases, and crucial details. The objective is to write just enough – not too much and not too little. - Synthesizing by combining the information from the reading and listening materials. Synthesize is a process of putting something together, uniting something, making something out of different parts. If you stitched a quilt together from different scraps of cloth, or built a car out of parts from a junkyard, or made a whole report of two different sources of information, you would be synthesizing. Explain how both ideas are alike, how one idea expands upon another or how the ideas are different or contradict each other. - Practice writing about familiar topics within a 30-minute time-limit, stating an opinion or preference and then coherently supporting it with evidence and detail. 4. As you practice, ask yourself questions such as: Did you complete the task? Did you write clearly? Did you make grammatical errors? Did you use words correctly? Did you organize my ideas clearly and coherently? Did you use the time effectively?

10 Tips to Improve Your TOEFL Essays 1. Answer the question directly It is quite possible that you may know English grammar perfectly and that your ideas may be one of the best. Still, in case if you fail to answer the TOEFL question, nothing mentioned above would matter. If you see that the question asks you for your own point of view, you are to write about what you think and never ever about the opinion of other people. However, if you read the question which is about what other people think or do, there is no need to write

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about yourself. 2. Express your thoughts with the help of short and simple sentences You may have noticed that famous writers can easily express their complex ideas in some extremely simple way. In case if you feel yourself being able to do so, you will demonstrate strong writing skills. Besides, remember that short and simple sentences usually result in fewer grammatical mistakes. 3. Give your essays a beginning, which is called the introduction, a middle, which is called the body and an end, which is called the conclusion In order to be able to do this correctly, you should get to know about the TOEFL essay structure. It is a must that your essay consisted of an introduction, a body and a conclusion. In addition, with the help of this essay structure it will be easier for you to organize all your thoughts and ideas and you will make them easier for your readers to understand. 4. Have a thesis statement It is generally considered that the thesis statement is the most important sentence in the entire essay. This is how the last sentence of the first paragraph, which also has the name the introduction, is called. This is used to tell the reader exactly what the author’s point of view about the problem, discussed in the essay, is. In case if someone does not write a thesis statement, it will be considered as one of his / her biggest mistakes, which are only possible to make.

TOEFL Essay Structure Your TOEFL essay should be about four – five paragraphs long, and it is to consist of three parts: the introduction, the body and the conclusion. Each part of the essay plays it role, and reader expects to receive some certain information from every part of the essay. You should not underestimate the importance of the structure of your TOEFL essay. It is also necessary to mention that not using this structure is considered to be one of the biggest mistakes ever made. Introduction The first paragraph of your essay is called introduction. This is so because a couple of the first sentences of this paragraph simply introduce the reader to the topic of the essay. Introduction also includes thesis statement – the last sentence of the paragraph, which clearly states the opinion of the author of the essay. Thesis statement is generally considered to be the most important sentence of the essay. Body The body of your TOEFL essay should be about two or three paragraphs long. Each paragraph is to begin with a topic sentence, which informs the reader what the rest of the paragraph will be about. All the rest of the sentences of the paragraph are called supporting ideas. The reason of it is because they play a role of “supporters” of the topic sentence. Conclusion The conclusion is the name of the last paragraph of the essay. The thesis statement is restated in it. In addition, conclusion also provides the reader with brief summary of the main points and ideas of the essay. This last paragraph should be about 3 sentences long.

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It is extremely important to keep to the essay structure, because when you do this in your essay, your ideas are presented in a clear way and in a logical order. You essay really seems like flow, which makes it much easier for the reader to understand. And even in case if you make several spelling or grammatical mistakes, your essay, written in this structure, will be much better than the one, in which the grammar and spelling are perfect, but the author of which did not keep to the necessary structure. 1. ESSAY INTRODUCTION It is always necessary to keep in mind that the introduction is really not only the first; it is also the most important paragraph of your TOEFL essay. This is why it is extremely important to make a good impression in it. In case you fail to start out well, it may be very difficult to convince your reader, which is in a given case the TOEFL assessor, to take your writing seriously later on. Here are the facts you are to keep in mind about your essay introduction: • Introduction is the first paragraph of the essay; • Introduction is usually to be 3 to 5 sentences long; • Introduction should introduce the topic of your essay; • It is necessary to express your opinion clearly in the introduction; • Every introduction is to have a strong thesis statement. It is extremely important that all introductions are to meet these five criteria, mentioned above. Remember, if it happened so that your introduction is missing at least one of them, it can be considered as being a weak one. Every introduction consists of the following steps: Step one: beginning the introduction Your introduction should begin with a general statement about the topic of your TOEFL essay. It is necessary to explain what the essay is going to be about in it, which helps to make your reader mentally prepared for the following arguments. Although, you should also remember that your opinion should not be expressed in this sentence, because it is only a general statement about the topic of your essay. Here comes a good example of a typical first sentence: “Many communities debate whether or not police officers should carry guns.” You see that there is no opinion of the writer, provided in this sentence, there is only a general statement about the topic of the essay. Step two: developing the introduction After your first sentence is written, the time of your introduction development comes. It is possible to do with the help of a few more general statements about the topic of the essay. One of the ways to do it is to discuss both sides of the argument. Here comes the example of how it can be done: “There are situations, when guns help to protect the police officer, as well as the public; therefore, from the other point of view, guns can result in serious injuries and even death.”

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When you explain both sides of the argument, the thing, which is called contrasting, you show your reader that you have thought about the issue in the most careful way. It is also important to be aware of the fact, that in case if you are going to contrast both sides of the argument, you should better start with the side of the argument, you do not agree with. It is considered to be more natural in English, in addition, you essay introduction will develop in a logical order toward the thesis statement. Step three: writing the thesis statement After you have developed your essay introduction, it is time to write your thesis statement. This is considered to be the last sentence in you first paragraph. In addition, it is also the most important sentence in the entire essay, because it usually plays two roles: • It provides a direct answer to the question of your essay; • The reader gets to know your opinion. Taking into consideration the introduction, provided as an example, here what the thesis statement can look like: “No police officer should ever carry a gun with him.” The thesis statement here is rather simple and it is direct; it provides the answer to the question of the essay, as well as it tells the reader exactly what the author’s opinion is. It should also be mentioned without a sign of an exaggeration, that thesis statement is the most important sentence of the essay. Moreover, in case if the reader has some difficulty understanding the essay, he/she usually returns to the thesis statement in order to get reminded what the essay is about. There is no need to say that a bad thesis statement usually results in a bad essay. Step four: putting it all together Here is the complete introduction to out essay: “Many communities debate whether or not police officers should carry guns. There are situations, when guns help to protect the police officer, as well as the public; therefore, from the other point of view, guns can result in serious injuries and even death. No police officer should ever carry a gun with him.” In our first sentence the introduction is begun with a general statement about the topic of the essay. After that, in the second sentence, two possible sides of the argument are contrasted. And, finally, the last sentence is called the thesis statement, because it is it, which provides an answer to the question of the essay, as well as gives the author’s opinion. 2. ESSAY BODY The body is really considered to be the meat and bones of any essay, and your TOEFL essay will not be exclusion as well. The body of the essay is called everything that comes between the introduction and the conclusion. Here are some basic rules of what your body is to consist of: • The body should be about 2 paragraphs long; • There is to be a topic sentence in each paragraph of your body; • There are to be 3 to 5 supporting ideas in each paragraph of your body;

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• The aim of the body is to support the thesis statement, which is provided by you in the introduction. As for the paragraphs of the body of the essay, you have already got to know that each paragraph of the body of your TOEFL essay should support your thesis statement, which is provided by you in the introduction. It should also be pointed out that each paragraph should be of the same structure, and it is to consist of one topic sentence, which is followed by 3 to 5 supporting ideas. In case someone does not understand what the topic sentence or supporting ideas are, he / she here are the examples of them, provided below: The topic sentence is how the first sentence of each paragraph called. This sentence has two aims: first of all, it gives one reason to support the thesis statement and it also tells the reader what the rest of the paragraph will be about. Supporting ideas is called everything, which comes in the paragraph after the topic sentence. Supporting ideas has received its name because it is used to “support” the topic sentence of the paragraph. Practically everything can become your supporting idea, for example some story from your life, some philosophical argument, some personal experience of yours or of any other person, and even some statistical information. Therefore, there exists one important thing – it is that supporting idea explains why you consider the topic sentences to be true. 3. ESSAY CONCLUSION The conclusion is called the last paragraph of your TOEFL essay. The thesis is restated and all the main points are summarized in the conclusion. It should be pointed out that the conclusion is considered to be the easiest part to write. Still, it has some criteria to be kept to. These criteria are the following ones: • The conclusion is the last paragraph of the essay; • The conclusion usually consists of three or four sentences; • The conclusion restates the thesis of the essay; • The conclusion summarizes all the main points of the essay. In case if thesis statement is not restated and the main points of the essay are not summarized in the last part of it, it can be considered that the conclusion is bad. In order to be able to write a good conclusion, it is necessary to take a look at four important sentences of the essay. These sentences are the thesis statement and three topic sentences. So, the first thing you are to do is to take a look at your thesis statement. It is the following one: “No police officer should ever carry a gun with him.” After that you should look at your three topic sentences: “There exists too much violence in the nowadays world already; Police officers usually do not need any guns, especially for protection; Any kind of violence is a bad thing.”

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And the last thing to write a good conclusion is to put all these points together into one single paragraph, starting with the thesis statement. It would be good to add some transitional phrases, as in conclusion, to conclude, to summarize, finally, etc. “In conclusion, police officer should ever carry a gun with him. The main reason of it is that there exists too much violence in the nowadays world already. Besides, police officers usually do not need any guns, especially for protection and any kind of violence is a bad thing.”

FULL EXAMPLE: (Topic: Police officers should not be allowed to carry guns) “Many communities debate whether or not police officers should carry guns. There are situations, when guns help to protect the police officer, as well as the public; therefore, from the other point of view, guns can result in serious injuries and even death. No police officer should ever carry a gun with him. First of all, there exists too much violence in the nowadays world already. In addition to the previous point, police officers usually do not need any guns, especially for protection. To finish up with, any kind of violence is a bad thing. In addition to the points, mentioned above, in the majority of cases police officers do not need guns. For example, my friend’s father has been a police officer for more than 25 years, and there was no time he had to use his gun. In fact, he considers that the great majority of people, who break the law, are not armed in any way. Thus, there is often simply no need for police officers to carry guns with them. To finish up with, any kind of violence is a bad thing. Someone has told me that a car thief was caught by the policemen, and after they caught him, they simply shoot him, although he was not armed at all, he just said there was a gun with him. In conclusion, police officer should never carry a gun with him. The main reason of it is that there exists too much violence in the nowadays world already. Besides, police officers usually do not need any guns, especially for protection and any kind of violence is a bad thing.”

Thesis Statement As soon as you have introduced the reader to the subject of your TOEFL essay, you begin to write a thesis statement. This is how the last sentence of the first paragraph is called. It has two roles: first of all, it provides a direct answer to the question of your essay and the reader gets to know your opinion as well. It is generally considered that the thesis statement is the most important sentence in the TOEFL essay, although there are no any specific details, which are to come out later, contained in it. However, when a person reads your thesis statement, he / she should be able to find the answer to such questions as: 1. What is the essay about? 2. What is your personal opinion about the problem, described? Step 1: Express your personal opinion So, in order to make good thesis statement, you need to get your personal opinion about the problem, described. In case if you do not feel like having your personal opinion on the topic of your TOEFL essay, you should be aware that it is not possible to write a thesis statement,

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because the thesis statement is to give the author’s opinion, it is to tell the reader what you think about the problem. There are examples of good and bad thesis statement, coming below: Examples of good thesis statements For example, the topic of your TOEFL essay is something like Do you think that police officers should carry guns with them? As only you have decided what your opinion about some problem is, you can begin to write your thesis statement. First of all, you should decide whether you agree or disagree with this statement. In case if you agree, your thesis statement can be like this: “Police officers should always carry guns with them.” Therefore, if you prefer to disagree, you thesis statement can become slightly different, for example: “ Police officers should not carry guns with them.” Either of the thesis statements, mentioned above is quite acceptable, because they are of a simple structure, they are direct and they inform the reader about what the author’s opinion is, as well as what the essay is going to be about. It would also be extremely useful to you if you added some key words or phrases to your TOEFL essay from the original essay question.

Examples of bad thesis statements. The following thesis statements cannot be acceptable: “Police officers work hard; Guns help to protect police officers; Police officers do not need guns.” As for the first of them, there is no author’s opinion about the problem, discussed. In addition, it does not inform the readers what the essay is going to be about. And, actually, it has no direct relation to the topic of the essay. And although the second unacceptable thesis statement does reveal the topic of the essay, partly, of course, still, we do not see the author’s personal opinion, expressed in it. Now, let us take a look at the third unacceptable thesis statement. There is no doubt that it may be true that police officers usually do not require any guns, still, no author’s opinion is expressed in this unsuccessful thesis statement. And the question of the essay is should police officers carry guns? Step 2: Decide how strong your thesis statement should be. After you have taken a look at the examples of good and unacceptable thesis statements, you should choose the “strength” of your thesis statement. Let us consider the example of one of the successful thesis statements: “Police officers should not carry guns with them. “

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There is no doubt that this is quite an acceptable thesis statement, although it can not be considered to be a great one. It is still possible to improve it by adding some expressive words or phrases, such as no or never. And here how our thesis statement will look like after we have improved it: “No police officer should carry a gun with him. “ It can also be something like this: “No police officer should ever carry a gun with him. “ In case if you are going to make your thesis statement a positive sentence, it can possibly be strengthened with such a word as always. And here comes the good example: “Police officers should always carry guns with them.” Therefore, it is quite possible to make already strong thesis statement even stronger. It can be done with the help of some specific phrases, which are usually used to emphasize the idea. To the most common of these phrases the following can be used: under the circumstances, at no time, without any exception, regardless of…, no matter, etc. And in this case our thesis statement can become something like: “At no time police officer should ever carry a gun with him.” It is also possible to use the phrases, mentioned above in order to provide the opposite opinion in the thesis statement. Then it may sound like this: “Regardless of the situation, police officers should always carry guns with them.” And, in conclusion, it should be pointed out that the only thing which really matters in writing your TOEFL essay successfully is practice and practice again. You should also keep in mind that a thesis statement is really the most important sentence of your essay, and in case if you work hard, you will be rewarded by a higher TOEFL score.

Supporting Ideas The reason they are called supporting ideas is because they “support” the topic sentences. As a rule, the supporting ideas come after the topic sentences. They so-to-say “support” the topic sentences by telling the reader why he considers that the topic sentences are true. Nearly everything can be used as a supporting idea in the essay. There is one important thing about them, however, they are to be related to the topic sentences and they are to support them in some way. Here are several issues, which can be used for supporting ideas: • Someone’s personal experience; • Something an author has heard or read about; • Some logical argument; • Some statistical data; • Any factual information; • The opinion of an expert.

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Anything of the mentioned above can be used as supporting ideas. Therefore, it is also necessary to point out that the great majority of students use their or their friend’s / relative’s personal experience or something they have heard about. The reason of it is probably because it is much easier to express these things on paper. So, let us return to our topic sentences and write several supporting ideas for them. Here are the steps, involved in the process of writing supporting ideas: Step 1. Let us have a look at our first topic sentence. Here what we have so far: “First of all, there exists too much violence in the nowadays world already.” Step 2. You should add transitional phrases to the beginning of the sentences. These phrases are like: moreover, in addition, on the other hand, etc. Step 3. Take a look at your topic sentences and add some information, taken from the newspapers, television, someone’s personal experience in order to support them. Now, after we have our first topic sentence in front of us, it is possible to use something that we have heard or about which we have read for our supporting ideas. Let us consider some newspapers articles. And, finally, we get the paragraph, which looks like the following one: “First of all, there exists too much violence in the nowadays world already. There are lots of stories in newspapers about violence, about people who are shot because of something or even accidently. Moreover, police officers play main parts in some of these stories. In case if guns were not involved in some specific situations, these dramatic accidents could not have happened. Therefore, on the other hand there are very few stories about how someone’s life was saved with the help of a weapon.” After we are over with the first topic sentences, look at the second one. And while writing our supporting ideas, it is possible to take someone’s personal experience into consideration. And here is one way we can write the second paragraph: “In addition to the points, mentioned above, in the majority of cases police officers do not need guns. For example, my friend’s father has been a police officer for more than 25 years, and there was no time he had to use his gun. In fact, he considers that the great majority of people, who break the law, are not armed in any way. Thus, there is often simply no need for police officers to carry guns with them. “ And, finally, our third topic sentence comes. It is possible to support with some ideas, taken from a story, which you heard from someone. And your third paragraph may look like this: “To finish up with, any kind of violence is a bad thing. Someone has told me that a car thief was caught by the policemen, and after they caught him, they simply shoot him, although he was not armed at all, he just said there was a gun with him.” And, finally, here we are! These are our supporting ideas ready. All of them help the reader understand why each of the topic sentences is true.

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Topic Sentences Topic sentences are considered to be one of the most important parts of the TOEFL essay. The main reason of it is that they provide support to the thesis statement. It has already been mentioned that thesis statement is the last sentence of the introduction of the essay. In addition, thesis statement is the sentence, in which the opinion of a writer is expressed. Here is the example of thesis statement, used in the article: “No police officer should ever carry a gun with him.” It can be considered quite a good thesis statement, as it provides the reader with the information of what the essay is about, in addition, it also gives the opinion of the author. But look, the readers will neither be aware of the author’s opinion, nor will they know why it is so. And here topic sentence comes out: it explains the reader why the author has this opinion. And below is the minimum, which it is necessary to know about what a topic sentence is: • Topic sentence is called the first sentence of each paragraph of the body; • Topic sentence gives at least one reason why the thesis statement is true; • Topic sentence tells the reader what will be written further in the paragraph. It should be pointed out that if an author chooses to begin with a list of reasons, which support his / her thesis statement, it will be considered to be a good way of writing a topic sentence. And, finally, when you have your list in front of you, you can simply choose a couple of best reasons. So, taking the thesis statement into consideration, it is possible to make a list of all the reasons why we think it may be true. Here is the list of several of them: 1. There exists too much violence in the nowadays world already; 2. Police officers usually do not need any guns, especially for protection; 3. As a rule, guns cause much more harm than good; 4. Some police officers even like to shoot people; 5. Guns make people frightened; 6. In the great majority of cases police officers do not need any guns; 7. Any kind of violence is a bad thing. After we have the list of reasons, supporting our thesis statement written in front of us, it is possible to choose several best of them. For example, we can choose numbers 1, 2 and 7. After we have chosen the best reasons, which to our point of view support our thesis statement, we are almost finished. There is only one task left – it is putting the finishing touches on. So, the reasons, chosen to support the thesis statement, are the following ones: “There exists too much violence in the nowadays world already; Police officers usually do not need any guns, especially for protection; Any kind of violence is a bad thing.” All these reasons look perfect already, therefore, it is possible to make them even better. And there is one way to improve them – it is with the help of transitional phrases, used at the beginning of each of them. A transitional phrase will help the reader to understand your essay better; in addition, it will also make your essay sound more realistic and natural.

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Thus, for our first topic sentence, it is possible to use the following transitional phrases: to begin with, first, first of all, for one thing, in the first place, etc. And, finally, our topic sentences will look like: “First of all, there exists too much violence in the nowadays world already.” Now, as for our second topic sentence, it can be begun with such transitional phrases, as: next, second, in addition to the previous point, moreover, etc. And now we have a sentence like this: “In addition to the previous point, police officers usually do not need any guns, especially for protection.” For our third and last topic sentence, we can use such transitional phrases as: finally, at last, to cut a long story short, to finish up with, and so on. “To finish up with, any kind of violence is a bad thing. “ And, here we go, our topic sentences are ready, and the only thing we are to do with our TOEFL essay body – is to write supporting ideas.

TOEFL Essay Writing Topics It is generally considered that practice is one of the best ways of TOEFL essay writing improvement. You should keep in mind that the more you would practice, the easier it will be for you to write your TOEFL essays. Use the following topics to practice as much as possible. • A good teacher is a strict teacher. • A job, which requires a lot of thinking, is much more difficult than a job, which does not require any thinking. • All animals should be free and not kept in zoos. • An intelligent person can be considered the one, who is educated. • A person always acts in his/her self-interest. • A successful life is a happy life. • Boys are most influenced by their fathers, while girls are most influenced by their mothers. • Cars should be banned from the city centres of large cities. • Computers have made people’s lives much more complicated. • Education should become free for everybody, governments should pay for colleges and universities. • Extraverts come out to be better leaders in comparison with introverts. • Far not everything that we learn, is contained in books. • Governments of some countries should limit foreign imports in order to provide protection for jobs. • It is always important to try to keep up with the latest fashions. • It is always better and more useful to learn from one’s own experience, rather than from some book. • It is always better to have loved at least once in one’s life and lost, than not to have loved at all. • It is better to have a few close friends, than to have many acquaintances.

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• It is better to live in some small town, rather than in a big city. • It is better to learn by yourself, than with a teacher. • It is better to look for any information in the library, rather than on the Internet. • It is better to work for someone than to work for yourself. • It is extremely important to be actively involved in one’s community life. • It is much more important to study science and technology, rather than arts and humanities. • It is much more useful for a child to grow up in a countryside, rather than in a big city. • It is not acceptable to use animals to test any new drugs or medical treatments. • It is not important to be aware of what a politician does in his/her personal life. • It is not possible to buy happiness for money. • It is not possible to eliminate poverty. • It is not possible to get rid of the violence completely. • It is not possible to measure someone’s level of intelligence with the help of a written test. • It is only possible to achieve success through discipline and hard work. • It is quite acceptable for parents to apply some physical force to discipline their kids. • It is quite possible to get to know much about a person’s character by the way he or she gets dressed. • It is rather impolite to criticize other people. • It is very important and useful to know how to play at least one musical instrument. • Learning new things is always fun. • Life is much easier nowadays, than it was hundreds of years ago. • Magazines, newspapers and television pay too much attention to the lives of famous people. • Medical care should be free for every person. • Military service should become compulsory. • Modern movies and television influence the way we live and behave negatively. • Money is the best way to motivate people. • Our best teachers are our parents. • People have too much free time nowadays. • People should sometimes do things that they do not enjoy doing. • People, who are poor, have more difficult lives than those, who are rich. • People, who immigrate to some country should be forced to learn the language of that country. • Police officers should not be allowed to carry guns. • Practically all politicians are corrupt. • Religion should not be taught in public schools. • Scientific and technological advances are good and useful. • Some people have too much money. • Students, who study at universities, are to be required to attend all their classes. • Television violence is one of the main contributors to the violence in our society. • The best jobs are the ones, which pay a lot of money. • There are cases when making a bad decision is better than making no decision at all. • There are cases, when lie is acceptable. • There is no luck involved in success, everything depends purely on how hard a person works. • There is nothing bad in working while attending school. • There should be no minimum age for drinking alcohol. • Watching television is a mere waste of precious time. • Women come out to be better teachers than men.

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