Your guide to TOEFL Writing question one. Some students say that I talk too much in the beginning, so so I'm just going to get right into it. This is the writing section overview. This is what you're going to see in the writing section, is that there are two tasks, task one and task two. And right now we're gonna talk about task one, which is the Integrated Writing. You you are going to read a passage for three minutes, an academic passage, you are going to listen to a lecture about the passage, and then you have minutes to write about the passage. On test day, the test will look something like this. You'll have the reading passage on the left. On the right-hand side will be where you are allowed to type, that's where you type, and there will be a timer there as well that you can see. So, this is the first thing you'll see. It'll be on the left-hand side where that reading passage is. It'll be directions to this question. They'll be read aloud so you'll hear somebody talking, they'll tell you what to do. And then you will have three minutes to read a topic, a passage, that looks something like this. It'll be about the same length too. It's about 300 words. This is from one of our complete tests, that's why it looks a little different. This is about deforestation. We're going to talk about this in a lot more detail. And then, after that, they're going to ask you a question. I'm sorry, after the reading passage they're going to ask you to listen to a lecture about the same topic. The topic, the person talking in the listening passage will disagree with the reading and the question is almost always the same, something like this. Summarize the points made in the lecture being sure to explain how they cast doubt on the specific points made in the reading. And then you have 20 minutes to write your essay. And that's it. When it's time to write, you'll have the blank space on the right., and you can see the reading passage and the question on the left. And now it's time to write. That's it. That's the integrated writing question. So, is that enough? Maybe? Then that's all you need to know, but if you need to know more, like most people, you need to know more about how the TOEFL Writing question will look and feel, how the passages are structured, how to take helpful and precise notes, how to plan my essay and manage my time, how to identify important information from each passage, and how to use a template to help me with organization. So, usually people want to know more than just what it is, they want to know more about how to write it, how to take notes, how to prepare well. That's what we are going to do together right now. So my name is Josh MacPherson I'm the head instructor of TST Prep, an online TOEFL school where our mission is simple, to help you get the score you need as quickly and as easily as possible. So, let's talk about it right now. TOEFL Writing question number one. [Music] First thing. I want you to think about is that I want you to think like a reporter. So, as a reporter, you should not include your opinion in this response. Imagine that you are describing the news. So, basically, everything in your essay, everything that you write is from the reading and the listening passage, nothing is from your own words, your own ideas, your own history. Everything is in the passages, and your job is to find the important information and report on it. That's what you want to do. Let's look at a couple of different passage types that you'll see for the Integrated Writing. The first type is it's supporting a plan, or point of view, or theory, for example, the advantages of wave farms. If you look here, the reading passage will look something like this, it's about this length, about 300 words, and they will say the topic in the first paragraph, in the last sentence usually. So, for example, here wave farms which harness the power of ocean waves to store energy have three main advantages when compared to other energy sources. So, that's the main idea stated right in the introduction. And you can see this in another example here. This is from the listening passage, same topic about wave farms, but they're going to go against it, and they say it very quickly, in the beginning. In the reading passage the author fails to fully explain the reality behind using wave farms as an alternative energy source. So, stated right in the beginning, and again, the reading and listening passage always goes against each other. The listening is always casting doubt on the reading. So the question is always pretty similar. Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they cast doubt on the specific points made in the reading. Here's a Pro Tip. The listening passage on TOEFL Writing task one will always oppose the ideas in the reading, so this about the fourth time I said it. It's going to make it really clear. They're going to oppose it. Okay, second type of passage, proposing solutions to a problem. So, in this example here this reading passage is about well, let's see what it's about, first paragraph, last sentence. Lately, environmentalists are taking measures to preserve these birds, but they are running into three major problems. So, it's the problems with preserving these birds, which are the Northern Bold Ibis bird. And of course, the listening passage will disagree with it, and they'll say it pretty quickly. First paragraph, the reading passage attacks the preservation efforts of the nearly extinct Hermit Ibis. However, each of the issues mentioned are not nearly as problematic as they appear, and they will go against the ideas from the reading passage. So, don't worry if you don't know about the topic. You might see a word like Hermit Ibis and that might freak you out, you know like what is a Hermit Ibis? I've never heard of this before, oh no, oh no, no. I understand that feeling, but you want to try to cool it down a bit. Everything that you need to know is in the reading and the listening passages. Remember, you're a reporter, you're reporting information. You don't have to know anything about this. All you have to do is read and listen. Well, alright, so just keep that in mind. The third type of passage is speculating on the past. These used to be more common. They're not as common as they used to be, but talking about something in the past and seeing what might have happened. So, for example, here one of them is what really caused the extinction of the Rapa Nui people? There are a few competing theories as to why the Rapa Nui civilization disappeared, why did they disappear, and there are three ideas, three reasons why they might have disappeared. But of course, the listening will be against these ideas. Okay, so although there are a bunch of scholars claiming to have solved the disappearance of the Rapa Nui people, the reality is that all the theories still remain just that theories. There has not been enough evidence to support any of the claims mentioned in the reading. And then they will go against the points made in the reading. So, those are the passage types. Keep in mind that the main idea of the listening and reading will be stated in the beginning of the text or lecture. So, it's always in the beginning. Pay really close attention when the listening starts, and when you're reading that first paragraph. You'll see the main idea right there, and that leads us to note structure. So, when you're taking notes, you have, when you take the TOEFL, you have a pencil and a piece of paper on your desk, and you're allowed to take notes. What should you take notes on? Well, for the reading passage you should find the main idea and the three reasons to support that main idea, if possible, and you can add additional details as well. I have a few tips for note-taking here. Tip number one. The main idea is usually located in the last sentence of the first paragraph, which we already talked about, and you already know. The second tip is that the first sentence of each body paragraph is usually a reason to support the writer's stance. So, these passages are very structured, so it's kind of easy to find the main idea and the reasons for it. I'll read some of this here. This is about deforestation. There are benefits to deforestation, I disagree, but anyway, the first sentence here, the clearing of large areas of land has provided an abundance of farmland. Okay, so talking about farmland. Let's look at the second body paragraph. Secondly, cleared land is not only used for farming but for the development of new residential areas. That's the second reason why deforestation might be a good thing, has more residential areas. Finally, it's important to remember that the forestry industry is an integral part of many national economies, so forestry cutting down trees is an important part of the economy. Those are three reasons to support the main idea. What's the main idea? Deforestation has some positive impact. So, let's take a look at a few more tips here. Tip number three. Your reading notes should prepare you for the listening. And tip number four. Manage your time and be sure to read the entire passage. So let me talk about tip number four for a minute. I'm about to show you my notes, and my notes are pretty long. And you're probably going to see them and think like, wow that's a lot of notes I can't take that many notes. That's Okay, I just want to show you an example of like, like, I don't know, perfect notes or something like that. But I want you to be sure that you read the entire passage, that's the most important thing that you read and understand the passage. When it's time to write, the reading passage will come back, so it's okay if you forget some things from the reading passage. So, you want to use your notes as a tool to help prepare you for the listening, because the listening is going to go against the reading. And if you take good notes from the reading, then it's easier to predict the listening. So, that's why I'm going to recommend these notes, but just keep in mind that your notes won't be the same. And the most important thing is to read the entire passage and understand it. So, these are my notes, they look something like this. On the right-hand side is how they look. On the left-hand side, I typed them out to make them a little bit clearer. The main idea is deforestation, and it has some benefits. And I'll just read the first reason, that there's more farmland, and then I put some details there as well. If you, the most important things to find are the main idea and the reasons. If you miss the detail, that's Okay. I would say to focus on the main idea and the reasons first. And those are easy to spot. If you know the structure of the reading passage, so your notes should look something like this, and then you should have a similar note structure for the listening passage. So, the listening will always cast doubt on the points made in the reading. That's the sixth time I'm saying this. So, when after I listen, these are my notes, they look something like this. I'm not going to do a listening, but just you'll have to trust me that they go against deforestation and against the points made in the reading. I typed them out here to make it clearer. I'm not going to read all of them, but just to show you an idea of what it looks like. And this is what my notes look like on paper, well, on digital paper anyway. So, lots of notes. The reading and the listening are side by side, and they follow the same structure. And you know, as you can see, the listening passage hopefully it's kind of easy to listen to because you understood the reading. If you understood the reading, and that you understood that it's about deforestation and the benefits, then it's easy to predict that the listening passage is going to be about deforestation. Is not a good thing, it's a bad thing, And it's a good thing because it's good for the national economy. Well, maybe the national economy should have another industry that it focuses on, or maybe the national economy is based on low wages for people, you know. So, there's going to be a rebuttal, a casting doubt of the reasons in the reading. So, hopefully that will make your life a little bit easier. In our complete courses at TST Prep we go through this in a lot of detail, but just in general, you can actually predict the listening as well here. All right, so something to keep in mind. Pretty cool, maybe. So, this is the reading and listing, my notes side by side, I typed them out just to make them clearer for you. And now it's time to write. So, your writing, you shouldn't take too much time to outline. I would actually just write a minute to outline, because all of your outlines should be in your notes, I mean you might want to circle a couple things, cross out a few things, but for the most part, you're going to follow the same structure as your notes when you write. your essay. Only take a couple minutes for your introduction. Most of the time will be dedicated to the three body paragraphs that should say, three body paragraphs, in your essay. And then just a minute, if you include a conclusion. So, let's look at a template, and let's talk about this in a little more detail. A template is basically a structure for you to follow that you can use for almost any Integrated Writing task. So, the template here for the introduction is the article introduces the topic of ... and then you say the topic, in this case deforestation, which is the clearing and cutting down of trees. Here's the template. The writer says that ... So, you start talking about the reading. So, what does the writer say? There are benefits to deforestation, but the lecturer disagrees, always disagrees. So, the template's the same, he says that deforestation has many consequences and attacks each of the claims made in the reading. And the structure is the same. You don't have to use the template. I do recommend you following the structure at least, that you introduce the topic, you introduce the author's opinion, and then the counter-opinion from the listening, and that's it for the introduction. Your body paragraph is also pretty simple. You introduce the reading passage, the author's first point, or second, or third, depending on the body paragraph. You state that the listening disagrees and then you explain why. So, first, the author says, this is always the same, no matter what does they say, well, that cutting down trees creates farmland that's suitable for growing crops. The reading passage states, so keep going that this provides more food for people and can benefit the economy. Well, let's see. Second part. The speaker and listening disagrees, the professor believes there are flaws in the author's position. He contends, and you could use that same template every time, he contends that it's not necessary to destroy rain forest for land to farm. He goes on to say and so on. So, follows the same structure, even if you don't use this template, just follow the structure. First, you talk about the first reason from the reading passage. Lecturer disagrees, and then you explain why the lecturer disagrees. It's pretty simple, you can look at some templates and some more example essays in our 24+ guide, I'm going to put a link in the description below. This guide is huge and really helpful. It has templates, self-grading rubrics, a synonym list, example essays, example questions, all that good stuff, very well worth it. It's free, check it out, download the 24+ guide. And I just wanted to show you what this looks like, what a body paragraph looks like with my notes. So, my notes are here and I'm going to use my notes to just write my essay. So, first the author says that cutting down trees creates farmland. So, that's reason number one from my reading, more farmland. I look at reason number one from the listening, that they're cutting sixty percent of the the forest and there are alternative possibilities like hydroponic, hydroponic farming and traditional farming is outdated. So, he contends that it's not necessary to destroy the rain forest for land to farm. He goes on to say that there are advanced technologies, so I'm just using exactly what's in my notes to create these body paragraphs. And I do the same for my second body paragraph using my notes to just include in my essay. My essay is actually kind of easy to write since I took good notes. Of course, your notes will be sloppy, they'll be missing things, totally Okay, but just if you take really good notes, it'll be really easy to write. Pro Tip here. You should have more information from the listening than the reading. As a general rule, include one sentence from the reading and two from the listening. So, if you look at the essay, the blue part is the reading section, I'm sorry, the blue part is the listening section. And the yellow part is the reading passage, and so the reading passage should have less than the listening passage. Why? Because you can see the reading passage when you write. So, your listening is based on memory, the memory is much more important, showing that you have good listening skills and you can identify important information from the listening, and you can remember it or you can write it down in your notes. is proof that you are a good English speaker, listener, writer, all that stuff. So, you want more information from the listening, you can see the reading, you can't see the listening again, you can't hear the listening again. So, most of the information in your body paragraphs should be from the listening, just keep that in mind. Something about the conclusion. Let me go back here for a second. If you notice, there's one sentence there as the conclusion. As you can see, the author and lecturer hold very different views on deforestation. So, it's just one sentence. Your conclusion is optional. Why is it optional? You can see right here, here are three examples, and most of it is like template language, there's not a lot of unique language. You're just repeating what you've already said, so if you're running out of time, you can just skip your conclusion. I include it. I usually include a single sentence, conclusion, just for a personal reason. To me, I think it sounds strange to end an essay with no conclusion. I just don't like how it sounds, it's just weird to me. So. I add a sentence, just for me, but I don't think it actually helps anything. So you can skip it if you want, but I usually do it and I share that with students as well. So, this is the template for the Integrated essay that you can take a deeper look at. And, as you can see, each body paragraph has the same structure pretty much. So, it says, you know, about the reading passage, the listening disagrees, and explain why the listening disagrees. So, you can use part of this template in your own response, but I really want to strongly recommend that you build your own template based on the structure. So, you know that the introduction, you know begins with the topic, the author's opinion, and then the listening's opinion. And you know that the body paragraphs start with the reason from the reading and then how the lecture disagrees. As long as you follow that structure, that's most important, and I want to encourage you to make your own template and write from your own heart, because in that way you're going to feel more comfortable and confident. I think when you're just kind of copying my words, it's hard to feel natural. You'll always feel like what if it doesn't work, what if Josh's template doesn't work. I don't want you to feel that way. I want you to feel like you know exactly what you're going to say, no matter what, and one of the best ways to do that is to make your own template. Remember the structure and then build your own template to help you write. Pro Tip here. You want to spend as much time as possible editing your essay. There's no spell check, you will have some spelling, formatting, and grammatical mistakes. That's just one last thing I wanted to say here is that at the end of your essay you're going to want to go home, you're tired, you're happy that you finished writing, but take a breath, take a minute and check your essay, because there's no spell check, and so you're going to have mistakes, it's just natural. So, the more mistakes you have, just lower your score. You want to reduce those mistakes. So, take the time to edit. And don't forget, you can also check out the 24+ guide, it has actually some tips on how to edit. There's just so much stuff in here, definitely download it. It's in the description below. And if you need help from the experienced teacher, we have a bunch at tstprep.com. Our teachers are there waiting and ready to help you get your score as quickly and as easily as possible. So, but that's it. I hope by now you feel like you've learned how the Writing question one will look and feel, how the passages are structured, how to take helpful notes, how to plan your essay and manage your time, how to identify important information, how to use a template to help you with your essay organization. And let me just take the time to do this. Congratulations guys, you have made it to the end. There are so many other things you could be doing besides studying for the TOEFL. Congratulate yourself, you know, have a cup of coffee, go for a walk, whatever you want to do. Thank you for joining me, please hit the subscribe button, and that's it.
