Welcome to TOEFL Writing question two,
your guide.
We're going to talk about a lot of
things together. But let's get
right into what the question is going to
look like so you know what to expect on
test day.
So, the writing section, TOEFL Writing
looks something like this.
Here we are talking about writing task
number two, usually called the
Independent writing,
Basically, you read a simple question
about your opinion and you have 30
minutes to write.
That's it, it's very simple. It looks
something like this. This is from ETS. The
question will appear on the left hand
side,
there'll be a timer that's counting down,
and then you'll have a blank space.
That's where you will do your typing and
write your essay.
And that's pretty much it, really simple.
This is an example from our own site,
tstprep.com.
The part in bold, the darker black text
is the question. And if you notice there
it's kind of long.
It says like "Health and wellness is a
growing concern", and then it keeps going
for a while.
Sometimes you might get a question
that's a little bit longer,
but it's the same idea, it's just a
simple question, do you agree or disagree?
And that's it for the most part. So,
here's the basic essay structure.
You give an introduction, which is your
opinion you talk about. The first body
paragraph, which is where you explain
your first reason.
Second body paragraph. You explain the
second reason for your opinion.
And your conclusion. You restate your
opinion and your reasons. And that's it.
Writing question number two, all done.
So,
you probably want to know a bit more
about what to do for writing task number
two.
So, we're actually going to do a lot and
go into this question in more detail,
because there's more you need to know to
write a high-scoring essay.
You're going to learn how task two will
look and feel,
you'll learn how the questions are
structured, how to create an effective
outline, how to structure your essay and
manage your time,
how to include relevant examples, and how
to use a template
to help with your organization. So, my
name is Josh MacPherson, I am the head
instructor at TST Prep,
an online TOEFL school where our mission
is simple, to help you get the TOEFL
score you need as quickly and as easily
as possible.
I'm excited about this one, let's do it
together. TOEFL writing question
number two.
[Music]
So, there are a couple of topics that are
pretty, I mean you could be asked about
anything, you really don't know,
but most of the questions have to do
with one of these three
subjects, either with school, or with work,
or lifestyle.
We're going to look at three examples
right now, but that's basically what
you're going to be asked about.
They're not going to ask you about
politics, or religion, or
you know, ancient history. They're not going to ask you about
that stuff, it's
about your opinion.
And usually people have opinions about
work, or school, or their personal life,
so that's why these questions. There's a
couple different
types of questions like this, there's
three in particular.
One is agree or disagree, do you agree or
disagree with the following statement?
All university students should be
required to volunteer in order to
graduate.
That's an agree or disagree question and
it's about school.
Personal preference, would you prefer to
have a higher-paying job with longer
hours
or a lower-paying
job with shorter hours?
And that's what you prefer.
Another one is a three-choice option,
which is if you were going to learn a
new hobby, would you choose to study a
new language,
learn how to play an instrument or join
a sports team? Three choices,
pretty simple. All these have to do with
your opinion.
In the past, these questions were pretty
simple, and they were pretty short.
Recently, there's been some questions
that are the same idea but a little bit
longer,
you know, the wording is a bit longer,
like the example we're going to talk
about together, about
health and wellness.
But just so you know, they're all this
type of question basically,
agree or disagree, personal preference,
three choices.
So, you can expect one of those on test
day.
Warning: this is the last task of the
last section
of the TOEFL test, you will want to hurry
up and go home.
Take a deep breath, relax and keep your
composure. Look, sitting for three hours
for a test is tough.
After you finish your essay, you're going
to want to go home, I totally understand.
Just take a breath, relax and be careful.
Write your essay with a clear head,
because you want to do your best. That's
the thing, you want to do your best
possible, you want to get the best
possible score,
and you can't do that if you're in a
hurry. So, just keep that in mind.
So, with the independent task this is
your time management breakdown.
It's not like task number one, where you
have to read passages. It's pretty simple,
you just have a question,
and then you come up with all of the
information.
You have a couple minutes to outline
your essay, about four or five minutes to
write an introduction, I would say four
minutes or less,
eight minutes for each body paragraph,
and a conclusion. You
can write three body paragraphs, if you
would like.
The way that I teach it is usually that
you have two body paragraphs, that are
pretty long,
that are very well developed, I'll show
you an example. You could have three
shorter body paragraphs,
that's fine too, but I usually teach it
with two body paragraphs,
just just that's how I teach it. So,
the independent writing task will ask
for your general opinion,
you will have to use explanations,
examples, and anecdotes to expand on your
opinion.
So, you know, if somebody asks you, "Do you
think all high school students should
wear school uniforms?"
Your answer is probably pretty simple, I
mean, yeah, they should or no they
shouldn't,
but you have to write 350 words in this
essay.
That's a lot of words to write about a
simple opinion.
That's going to be tough to do, so you're
going to have to
think of personal examples, stories,
explanations that help expand your
example.
They're pretty necessary because they
also help you develop the topic,
which is part of your grade. A lot of
students don't like to give personal
examples, they find it difficult.
I strongly recommend them.
I talk about this in another course
at TST Prep, but
basically, we teach it with using
examples. I'm going to show you using an
example
and I'll show you how to do that
right now. So,
let's look at the outline here. The
outline looks like this.
I think that you should spend the time
to outline because
there's a couple reasons, but the big
reason is that you have to write a
really long essay
and so you want to have a good idea of
what you're going to write, you want to
think of what your opinion is,
the two reasons for your opinion, and the
two examples.
This is my own for this question about
what's the best way to stay in shape,
and I think it's to have a balanced diet
and to exercise.
I'm going to talk about how my mom lost
weight on a certain diet.
And then I'm going to talk about how
exercising is best to stay
fit, and talk about when I moved to
Madrid and I didn't have a car
and I walked all the time, that's what
I'm going to include
in my essay. And if you look quite a bit
of my essay
has this information. Everything
highlighted in yellow
is this information that I wrote down in
my outline.
So, your outline is a huge part of your
essay.
It's really going to help you stay
focused. So, I
strongly encourage you, let me go back
for a minute, I strongly
encourage you to write an outline.
Another reason
is because sometimes you read the
question,
you think you understand it and then you
start writing your essay,
and everything's great. At the end of
your essay,
you look back at the question and you
realize, oh,
I answered the wrong question. That
happens more often than you think.
So, don't fall for that trap, write an
outline,
because it'll force
you to look at the
question pretty carefully
and you have to make sure that you're
staying on track,
on topic. So that's another reason to
write an outline,
besides the fact that it helps guide
your essay and your writing.
It also reduces the likelihood reduces
the likelihood of what reduces the
the likelihood that you will go
off topic, so you want to make sure that
you don't do that. Okay,
let me get back to it here. That's
all the parts highlighted in yellow are
from my outline,
and here is my template for the
introduction.
So I don't always hit every part of the
structure, I'm going to read this,
but I usually hit most of it. Begin with
a general statement,
make the general statement more specific,
restate the question,
state your opinion, provide two reasons
for your opinion.
The template looks like this. There's no
shortage of opinion on...
In my opinion, I feel this way for two
reasons which I will explore in the
following paragraphs.
So, it looks something like this. There's
no shortage of opinion on the best way
to stay in shape, so that's the topic.
I give my opinion. I believe a
combination of a balanced diet and
exercise is the best way to
to remain in shape, that's my opinion. And
my reasons, I feel this way for two
reasons which I will explore
in the paragraph. You can say your
reasons specifically.
I don't say them specifically here. You
can, if you want,
it's up to you. You can also check out
our TOEFL Writing 24 + Guide. I
recommend this very often,
there's a link in the description below,
because it has pretty much
everything you need to create your own
template.
It's part of our complete course, but
this is free.
Whereas our complete course is something
you would have to pay for, so
check out this guide, it'll have all
the templates you need,
all the information you need, including
example essays to help you
write your own introduction template.
A lot of students have trouble starting
their essay, they have trouble
starting, so I have a couple of different
like, kind of, like template, stock phrases
that you can use for
almost any introduction. Feel free to
pick one that you think, that you like,
and you that you'll find helpful on test
day. So, for example, there's no shortage
of opinion on -
and then the topic, no one can deny that -
topic,
many people have different beliefs about -
topic, societies around the world have
various ideas about -
topic, recently there has been a ton of
debate about as to -
topic, life today is - topic, so
those are some ways that you can begin
your essay.
Sometimes it won't make sense based on
the topic. So, a very
popular question about templates, is that
does this work for every question?
No, it doesn't. It works for a lot, but not
for every question,
so make sure that you feel comfortable
with your writing.
Make sure you feel comfortable with what
you're using. These are just some
ideas for you. This isn't like you have
to do this all the time, I just want to
give you a lot of ideas,
a lot of structure to help you write an
essay,
that you feel comfortable with, that's
comfortable and confident for you.
I don't want you to just copy what I say.
I want you to find a template that works
best for you.
Find a way of writing that works best
for you. Okay,
let me keep going. The body paragraph
structure.
The first thing you want to do is state
your reason and then you want to provide
details about your reason, explain it a
little bit,
connect your reason to the topic what
you're talking about.
Give a personal example, that's the heart
of your paragraphm
and then connect your example back to
the topic.
So, let's look here, and the topic here is
what's the best way to stay fit.
And this person thinks it's a
well-balanced diet and exercise.
And in this paragraph, they're going to
talk about a well-balanced diet.
First of all, okay there you go first, a
well-balanced diet has been proven to
help people stay
fit throughout history, that's the reason.
They need to explain it a bit more.
Most importantly, cutting out heavily
processed foods and fast foods is an
absolute must for those who are
overweight, okay?
Personal example. My personal experience
is a great example of this.
Then they're going to talk about their
personal example and then to finish it
up, they're going to connect
back to the topic. The last sentence. For
this reason,
I would start by altering my diet if I
wanted to improve my overall health.
And so that's what she did here. First,
second, third, points.
State your reason, provide more details,
connect to the topic.
That's in the first part, first of all,
well-balanced diet,
most importantly, cutting out heavily
processed foods is a must
for those who are overweight, all right,
so talking about people who are
overweight and how to stay fit.
And then they give the example and talk
about,
and then connect the example back to
the topic.
For this reason, I would start by
altering my diet
if i wanted to improve my overall health.
That's the structure pretty much. This is
from the TOEFL Writing 24+ Guide.
The structure for both body paragraphs
is exactly the same.
The template is slightly different. For
example, it says first of all
in body paragraph one, but secondly in
body paragraph two,
but it's the same idea, same, they're
transitioning to the same things. Let's
look at the second body paragraph here.
State the second reason. Secondly,
exercise is the
best is the next best way to stay fit
and active.
Provide more details. Working out causes
the heart rate to increase and this
leads to burning calories and fat.
Connect your reason back to the topic. it
is not necessary to spend hours and
hours at the gym either.
The most important thing is to get a
little bit of exercise every single day.
Alright, so it didn't really connect the
reason back to the topic, but that's okay.
They explained the second reason and
gave details about it.
Going to the personal example, drawing
from my own experience, when I moved to
Madrid, I didn't have a car.
I had to walk 45 minutes to and from
school. Moreover,
adding some more details, on weekends I
would ride my bicycle around the local
neighborhood to go
shopping and meet friends. Connect back
to the topic.
It's certainly clear to see how daily
moderate exercise
is a key component to improving one's
overall health,
uses the structure. You don't have to use
that template, it's just
an idea, but you want to follow that
structure. Give your reason,
explain it, connect it back to the topic
maybe,
give your personal example, and then
connect back to the topic again.
Also, 24+ Guide. check it out, got a
lot of this stuff there.
Your conclusion structure is pretty
short and simple.
You're not going to say anything new,
you're going to restate your stance, your
opinion,
remind the reader of your two supporting
reasons and provide a final suggestion.
That third part is optional, you don't
have to do that.
Here in conclusion. I do believe that
good health is best achieved by treating
the body to good food and moderate
exercise.
This is because these two habits will
eventually lead to a reduction in weight
and an increase in overall well-being.
Same thing,
different way, following the structure.
It doesn't provide a final suggestion, but
that would be something like,
if they were to say at the end I think
everyone should
diet and exercise if they want to stay
fit and live a long healthy life. That's
like a final suggestion.
It could be something like that, not
necessary, but you could do that at the
end.
Pro Tip. The more time you have to edit,
the higher your score.
Don't forget that when you're writing
your essay, there's no spell-check.
So, it's going to be hard to see all your
formatting,
spelling, grammar mistakes, so try to
leave yourself enough time to edit.
My suggestion is when you're practicing
at home,
try to finish your essay around 25
minutes.
That gives you four or five minutes to
edit. I think that's a good amount of
time.
If you only have two minutes, one minute,
that's okay, you know, you do what you can,
most important to finish your essay, but
if you can
have five minutes to edit, that would be
grea,. because you're going to
have mistakes. It's going to happen,
and the more mistakes you have, the lower
your score. So, when you're practicing at
home, that's your goal,
you want to try to finish at that
25-minute mark.
So, that's about it in terms of the essay.
This is an
overall idea of the template and what it
looks like. I wanted to just put it on
one screen
so you can see it there, but it follows
the structure.
And the structure is what I really want
you to focus on is that I want you to
make sure that you,
I'm going to go through this with the
introduction, you begin with a general
statement,
you make it more specific, you restate
the question,
give your opinion, and provide two
reasons. You can say the reasons or just
be general, that's fine. In your body, you
want to state your reason,
provide more details about it, maybe
connect it back to the topic,
give an example and definitely connect
back to the topic at the end.
A lot of students forget to do that, in
the last sentence of your body paragraph,
you need to remind the reader why you
gave this example,
why are you talking about your mom's
diet. Oh, yeah, because you think that
a diet an exercise is the best way to
stay fit.
You need to have that last sentence. And
in your conclusion,
restate your opinion, remind the reader
of your two supporting reasons and give
a final suggestion.
And again, Writing 24+, can't say it
enough,
check that out. If you need more help
from a professional teacher,
our teachers at tstprep.com are there to
help you get your score as quickly and
as easily as possible.
The best way to improve your writing is
feedback from a teacher, so definitely
check that out,
tstprep.com. Hopefully, you feel like
you've learned
how TOEFL Writing question two will look
and feel, how the questions are
structured,
how to create an effective outline, how
to structure essay and manage your time,
how to include good examples and
anecdotes, and how to use a template to
help you
organize your essay. That's it.
Congratulations on making it to the end,
thank you for watching. Please hit the
subscribe button and also check out our
site, tstprep.com.
On our home page, we have a free and
complete test that you can check out
with some essay examples as well. That's
it guys. Thanks for watching.