TOEFL essay sample with a score of 29

How to get a high score on Toelf writing essay? 29 or 30?

My tactic to get a very high score on Toelf independant wiring is to provide my own experience in my life to give specific examples in my essay. Why? It's easy to write about my experience because it's what I have witnessed, seen, participated or done. It's specific because it's my own experience. It's interesting because it helps the raters to understand and know about real-life situations.

A good essay should have around 500 words. A shorter or longer essay tends to down your score. When I practice writing, I try to type 500 words during 30 minutes.

Here is an example of Toelf essay which can get a score of 29.

130. Some young children spend a great amount of their time practicing sports. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this. Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer 526 words

Practicing sports is very important for children because they have good physical and mental development. Some children spend a great amount of their time practicing sports. There are several advantages and disadvantages of such practice.

One of the advantages of practicing sports is that children learn how to work in team. Doubtlessly, children practice sports with other persons such as their classmates, sports instructors, or parents. Thus, they learn to work with other people and they develop communication and interpersonal skills that are very important for them when they work at companies at their adulthood. For instance, my ten-year old daughter has played badminton at a club near our house in Temple city in France since five years. She has spent a lot of her time practicing the sport with her club members and two instructors. Before joining the club, she had been unable to communicate with other persons. She had not shared toys with her younger brother. She had only thought of herself. After joining the club, she started to overcome her anxiety to speak with her peers and instructors. The more she worked with them, the better she spoke to them. In addition, she learned how to share things with others and to cooperate with them. She also learned to listen to other people and execute instructions. At home, she has been no longer selfish. Instead, she has been very kind, open and helpful to her brother. As you can see, practicing sports helps my daughter change her personality.

On the contrary, a disadvantage of practicing so much any sports is that children do not have enough time to study at school. It is evident that when children love playing a sport, they tend to spend a lot of time doing such sport. When they achieve a certain levels, they want to practice more to get higher levels. As a result, they don’t have enough time to do homework and assignments at home. More seriously, they will get bad academic performance. For example, one of my nephews has been practicing football since ten years in Paris city, France. He loves football so much that he is addicted to playing this sport. He spends at least two hours a day playing it with his classmates or team members after class hours. When he arrives home, he is very tired. Thus, he is unable to do homework and review reading materials and lecture notes. Last year, his team participated in the French national football championship. He spent much time at weekends practicing football. His team own the second prize of the competition. However, he got bad academic results. We learn from this example that children don’t do well at school if they spend a great amount of their time practicing sports.    

All in all, practicing sports is good for children to grow up and develop well their physical and mental abilities. However, practicing too much any sports is not good for them because they do not study well at school. That is why many parents try to control the amount of time their children practice sports to have a balance between school work and physical activities.

My experience in taking TOEFL iBT test for the second time: 112

Exam date : September 23^rd, 2016

Exam time: 10:30 am

Test center: Superlec, Rennes, France

On the test day

There were only 14 people at this time. The test room was much quieter than my first exam.

Reading Section

I had a short reading section with three passages. It was not so difficult but there were new vocabulary that I had never encountered. I did this section on time. 

Tip 1: return to previous question after answering the last question of a passage

Since we can return to previous question in this section during the actual test, I noted questions of which I was not so sure of answers. I returned to these questions after answering the last question of a passage because I had a clearer idea of the central idea of the passage.

Tip 2: steps to answer a reading question

1.      read the question

2.      find keywords in the question to understand what was asked

3.      find keywords in the passage

4.      read related texts (1 sentence before and 1 sentence after the keywords). For some questions, we need to read the beginning of the paragraph

5.      predict the answer

6.      reading four answers

7.      choose the answer which fits with the prediction.  

Tip 3: to answer the summary question, I read all 6 choices first, and then I eliminate wrong choices. It’s easier to detect wrong choices than correct choices

Tip 4: to answer an EXCEPT question

read question and 4 answer choices first

find keywords in the passage

read related texts and paraphrase the text (find synonym, express sentence in a different way)

compare related texts and answer choices 

Listening Section

Unfortunately, I had a long listening section which was quite difficult. I was hungry at lunch time so I was not able to concentrate. Moreover, as I only had three sheets of blank paper, I had to divide each sheet in two columns. However, the column was not large enough to write down flows of listened idea. I think that I did badly this section.

Tip: try to predict answer before the narrator finishes the question. If I did not know the answer because I did not capture the information or missed the information, I guessed. But the probability to get a correct answer was small.

Break

I ate 2 muffins and drank an orange juice. Then, I went to toilette. I spoke a bit the speaking question 1 and 2 to get familiar with speaking (I spoke in the toilette to avoid that the test examiner might think that I was cheating).

Speaking Section

After a ten-minute break, I was very nervous to begin the speaking section because I wanted to get better score in this section this time. When the computer asked me to try the micro, I wrote the answer templates of the six questions. I followed the templates provided by the site Notefull.com.  Then, I tested the micro and advanced the test. I tried to manage my stress by murmuring the answer template.

Tip1: for question 1 and 2: write down the answer + 2 reasons before the narrator finishes the question. During 15 second of preparation time, think of 2 examples.

Tip 2: question 3

When the passage appears, write down the exact title of the passage. It may take 20 seconds or plus depending on the title. Then, read very fast two reasons, write down these reasons if have time left.

During the lecture, I was able to write down few keywords because the speakers speak so fast that writing down more words was not possible. I tried to capture the idea to speak later.

When the narrator finishes reading the question, I finished writing down the first reason in a complete sentence

During the preparation time, I wrote the second reason in a complete sentence and chose words to explain reasons.

When I spoke, I tried to read the template that I already prepared in a natural way as possible. Without these sentences, it would be very difficult to speak fluently because I had to choose vocabulary while speaking. When I spoke reasons, I could not speak so fluently because I needed to retrieve the information during the conversation.  

Tip 3: question 4

When the passage appears, write down the exact title of the passage and the definition of the title. It may take 30 seconds or more to rephrase the definition. Then, read very fast the end of the text to capture the idea of the following lecture.

During the lecture, I was able to write down few keywords because the professor speaks so fast that writing down more words was not possible. I tried to capture the idea to speak later. I paid attention to the verb tense the professor speaks. If he talks about his experience or he describes an experiment, then the verb tense should be past simple tense. If he talks about a general facts, animals, and people, we can use present tense.

When the narrator finishes reading the question, I finished writing down the kind of example (experiment, personal experience, phenomenon, etc)

During the preparation time, I circled the keywords I wrote during the listening time. I chose maxi 40 percent of the content of the lecture.

When I spoke, I tried to read the template that I already prepared in a natural way as possible. Without these sentences, it would be very difficult to speak fluently because I had to choose vocabulary while speaking. When I spoke examples, I could not speak so fluently because I needed to retrieve the information during the lecture.  

Question 5 and 6: I followed the templates of Notefull.com.

The verb form of the question 6: I used singular form and present tense when the professor provides examples of plants, animals, companies.

Writing Section

I applied the advice from Notefull.com. I don’t know whether it works.

Integrated writing: 4 paragraphs: introduction, reason 1, reason 2, reasons 3. No conclusion

Independent writing: introduction, reason 1 + personal example, reason 2 + personal example, conclusion. I tried to use my personal experience because it’s easy to write about in simple sentences and I can provide 5W: what, where, when, why, how

My result for the second time: Reading: 29; Listening: 28; Speaking: 26;  Writing: 29