Today we're going to talk about TOEFL Essentials versus TOEFL iBT, the Writing section and which
one should you take. But before I do that, one question that people keep asking me is where are
you getting this information from and why should I believe you, so let me just say that really quickly.
So this information in this lecture is coming from first, of all my experience teaching the TOEFL iBT,
but also this TOEFL Essentials framework which was released by ETS
about two months ago now and also the three free TOEFL Essentials practice tests at the ETS website.
I will put a link in the description below to both of them, and 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 TOEFL score you need as quickly and as easily as possible. I've been doing this for a
couple years now, I know a lot about this test. I don't know if that's a good thing or not, maybe.
So, a little bit of a boring subject, but hopefully, you find this helpful. All right, so let's talk
about the writing section. And this is what we're going to do together today. We're going to talk
about the iBT Writing section really quickly, just to give you an overview. We're going to
then compare it to the Essentials Writing section and see some of the similarities and differences.
We're going to talk about academic text in iBT and Essentials and what's the difference between
the two. We're also going to talk about essay writing in the TOEFL essentials and finally,
of course, which tests should you take. So, the structure of the iBT, let's talk about that
first. There are two questions, two essays and you have about an hour to do it. You have an integrated
essay and an independent essay. The integrated essay basically asks you to read a passage,
it takes about three minutes. Listen to a lecture about the passage and then you have 20 minutes to
write, and usually your essay should be about 200 words. This is what it looks like on test day. You
have the passage on the left and you have a timer and some blank space to write on the right. So,
quite a bit of text and it's all academic for the first question. The second question is independent.
It just asks you for your opinion about, for your opinion on a pretty simple topic usually. So, for
example, this question. Do you agree or disagree it's important for students to understand ideas
and concepts than it is for them to learn facts? Well, this is kind of a hard question,
but anyway, that's an example of a question on the TOEFL iBT Writing section, independent.
After you read this question, you have to write 300, ETS says 250-270, I usually recommend
at least 300 words. So, it's pretty long, you have to write for quite a while.
So, let's start talking about the Essentials Test. So, in this test there are 15 grammar
questions, two writing tasks, and it takes about 30 minutes. So, there's more tasks, but it takes less
time, we'll talk about why in a minute. There are 15 what are called build-a- sentence questions, one
general writing task, and one academic discussion writing task. So, let me explain. The first thing is
these build-a-sentence questions, there will be 15 of them. Basically, there are, there's a person that
asks a question or says something, for example here, the first guy on top says, "Peter told me that he
may be late tonight." And then you have to construct a question that makes sense. So, "Did he mention," and
then you have to put these in the correct position. So for example, "Did he mention why he cannot
make it on time?" So, you have to put them in the correct position. There are 15 questions like that.
This is another example of the same type of question. I put this here because sometimes they
give you more examples, more possibilities than you need. So, for example, bought, it, was, I, 25 euros.
There are five possibilities, but there are only four blanks, so you will not use all the words. So,
sometimes you'll have a build-a-sentence question like this as well, but just wanted to show you that
after those 15 questions, not really writing, more like grammar questions,
then this is more of a writing task, this will be an email, sometimes it's also a social media post
where you have to describe the photo like imagine you're on Instagram, you post the
picture and then you have to describe it. That's the idea behind this example, very cool,
um not really. And so then this example is kind of like what you would see in an online discussion.
There's a lot of text, but basically, the professor, Dr Gupta is giving an example of
something and then he asks a question at the end, and then two students respond, and then
you have to respond to the same question. I'll talk about this more in a minute.
So, another difference between these two tests is that iBT has an extended academic Reading
and Listening section or question where you have to listen to passages and write about them,
Essentials have no academic passages. Now, what do I mean by this? So, this is what the iBT looks
like. It's a reading passage, it's about 300 words, this will be followed by a listening passage
which is about three minutes, about the same length. This is the academic discussion in the Essentials
test. Now, there's not a lot of things that you have to learn, there's not really an academic talk.
All there is Dr. Gupta talking about a subject and I can just read this a little bit here.
As I mentioned in class, governments make public policies to describe their responses to various
problems that affect a community. Part of this process involves setting and defending priorities
about which issues deserve the most attention and resources. For example, governments need to
decide whether they should spend more money on education or on environmental protections.
If you were a policy maker, which issue would you argue is more important -education or environmental
protection? Notice how you don't really have to read all of that, you just need to see the question
at the end. If you were a policy maker, would you argue education or environmental protections
are more important? That's what you have to do. So you don't really have to learn about an academic
topic which is what the iBT was like. The iBT, you had to read a passage about something new,
you had to listen to a passage about something new, and then you had to explain it. This you don't have
to do that. It's basically a long question, and you have to talk about your opinion to the question.
So, it's not really like an academic passage, like you have in the iBT.
Even the students, when they talk about their opinions, they give reasons and examples, but
they're not talking about some academic topic that you have to learn about. So, there's nothing
to learn about except their opinion and their reasons for their opinion. And then you have to
write about that, so not so much academic stuff here, for the most part. Even though it's an
academic question, it looks a little academic, you don't really have to learn anything academic, like
you do in the iBT writing. Okay, so how much do you have to write? In the iBT you have
to write at least 200 words per essay. This is actually kind of low, I usually recommend
at least 250 for the integrated essay and 300 for the independent essay at least, so that's 550 words.
In this Essentials test for the two writing tasks, general writing is about 50 words, academic
discussions about 100 words, probably a little bit more than that, but let's say 75 and 150, that's
still a lot less that you have to write in the Essentials. Let's look at an example. This is the
email that you have to write. And if you look at the question where it says, "Write an email to the
theater", the bold part I'm reading, "In your e-mail, do the following. Thank the tour guide for the tour.
Describe something you remember. Ask whether your friend's mobile phone has been found." So,
you just have to do those three things. They give you an example at ETS website.
I'll read it really quickly. This morning I took a tour of the theater with a friend and we
thoroughly enjoyed it. We learned a lot about the history of the theater from the pictures showing
the theater's construction, and it was exciting to see the actors rehearsing for the upcoming play.
However, somehow during the tour, my friend lost her mobile phone. Can you tell me has anybody
seen it? Answers all the questions, 66 words. This is very simple, very short. Compare this to a 300-word
independent essay that you would have to write on the iBT. This is again, the same example,
this is the example that they give for a good response. I'm not going to read all this.
If you want, you can pause and read this, but this is only 105 words, much shorter than the iBT.
So, if you look here, another thing about the iBT versus Essentials is that the iBT is not adaptive
and the Essentials is adaptive. What does that mean? Basically, it means that the test changes
based on how well you're doing. So, if you are doing these build-a-sentence questions
and you're not doing so well, you're getting a lot of them wrong, then the questions will actually get
easier for you. If you are doing really well on the build-a-sentence questions, then they will
get more difficult as you keep going, but this is only for build-a-sentence questions, it's not for
the email or social media post, and it's not for the online discussion academic writing. So, the
writing stays the same those two, but the build-a-sentence will change, if you're doing well or if
you're not doing well, so that's adaptive. All right, so in conclusion, the biggest difference between
the iBT and Essentials is that you have to write at least 400 words in iBT, more like 550 actually,
and Essentials you have to write at least 150 words, probably more like 200, but less than half.
So, look at this. You only write 66 words for this email. This is an independent essay where
you would write at least 300 words, this is more like 400 words here. This is the academic task now,
105 words for your, for the example here. This is 270 words for the iBT independent essay. This
is an example. So, which test should you take? It's pretty simple. If you have a choice, do the TOEFL
Essentials test. The writing tests include hardly any academic vocabulary, and also you're required
to rate far less than the TOEFL iBT Writing section. So, if you want a challenge, you know,
you can take the iBT, and see how you do. It can also probably better prepare you for university
because you actually have to write essays that are similar to university, but the Essentials test is
way easier. You write a lot less and you have to write just an email and an online discussion task.
It's not an essay but an online discussion response, let's say. Really simple, straightforward.
I hope this helped you. I hope you find the Essentials test a little bit more understandable
now. Also, now that we're at the end, please hit the subscribe button, it really helps me a lot, but
that's it about the Essentials and iBT Writing section. Check out my site tstprep.com for more
TOEFL stuff and I'll see you next week in the last video about Essentials versus
iBT, the Speaking section. Thanks for watching guys and I'll see you then. Alright, take care.