How TOEFL Writing is scored: Integrated and Academic Discussion

The TOEFL iBT Writing section changed in 2023, and a lot of prep online still describes the old format. Here's what it looks like now, and how the raters actually score it.

Two tasks, each scored 0–5

There are two writing tasks:

• Integrated Writing — you read a short passage, hear a lecture, and explain how they relate. You're not asked for an opinion; you're asked to accurately connect two sources.
• Writing for an Academic Discussion — the task that replaced the old independent essay. You read an online class discussion and add your own well-supported contribution, in about ten minutes.

Each task is scored 0–5 against a published rubric, and those raw scores are scaled to the 0–30 section score.

What the rubric rewards

Across both tasks, raters look at three things: whether your ideas are relevant and well developed, the range of your language, and your accuracy. For Academic Discussion in particular, a top response is clearly expressed, contributes something specific to the conversation, and has almost no errors that get in the way — all under time pressure. Notice what isn't on the list: length for its own sake, or memorised template phrases that don't answer the actual prompt.

How to practise for it

Because both tasks are scored on a rubric, the useful drill is to write a response and then mark it against that rubric — is my contribution actually relevant and developed, or just fluent? Where does my language repeat? Mark's TOEFL Writing feedback scores your practice response against those criteria and quotes the lines that earned or cost you points, so ten-minute practice builds the exact habits the raters reward.

Choosing between tests? The same approach works for IELTS Writing, which is banded on four criteria. Either way, the shortcut is the same: practise against the rubric, not against a word count.