2020-10-19 TOEFL: W samples, R practice

Homework: Write an independent response to this prompt:
Some young adults want independence from their parents as soon as possible. Other young adults prefer to live with their families for a longer time. Which of these situations do you think is better? Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
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https://www.ets.org/s/toefl/pdf/toefl_writing_rubrics.pdf - Description of score levels for writing (graders give 0-5 points for writing)
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A - 1 - There are possibly a couple reasons, but there’s no development or explanation of any of them.
B - 5 - This is well-developed and clear. There are some minor errors (“Every young adults” right at the beginning, for example), but they don’t hurt the meaning at all.
C - 1 - This response has an example, but it’s not connected to any reason. “This essay fails to make any coherent points and is filled with errors of language and usage.”
D - 2 - This has more development than a typical 2, but it has too many language errors to be a 3.
E - 3 - This is stronger than an average 3, but again has too many errors that obscure meaning.
F - 2 - “Limited in development and lacking any organizing principle” gives this a score of 2.
G - 3 - This is longer than a typical 3, but there are errors and it’s redundant near the end. The organization and lack of conclusion make it very unclear what the student’s overall answer to the question is.
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B is a good example of how to include both sides and answer “it depends”, while G is a bad example of the same thing.
(Specifically, if you say the answer depends, you have to explain what it depends on and how. If you simply state advantages and disadvantages of both sides, you won’t get a high score.)
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BREAK
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Your scores for each writing task are added together, and then converted into a total score out of 30:
raw	TOEFL
0	0
1	5
2	8
3	11
4	14
5	17
6	20
7	22
8	25
9	28
10	30
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Reading Practice
- On the TOEFL, you have three or four reading passages and 54 or 72 minutes to complete all the questions about them (10 per passage)
- On the older version of the test, you had 60 or 80 minutes to answer 12-14 questions about each passage.
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Take 20 minutes to answer the questions about deer. Then submit your answers online.
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For the final summary question, if you get all 3 correct, you get 2 points. If you get 2 correct, you get 1 point. (Otherwise you get 0.)
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Questions everyone missed:
2 - inference - B (They leave the highlands during the winter and they can eat plants from the understory in the lowlands.)

fair-weather [something] = [something] only when conditions are good
	(“fair-weather feeding” = feeding when the weather and climate is nice)
	(“fair-weather friend” = a friend only when everything is nice and happy)

11 - paraphrase / sentence simplification - B (There are usually two (or sometimes three) important clauses or phrases in the original sentence, and you need to make sure your answer includes all of them. The phrase “more and better” is very simplified, but it still includes both key parts of the original.)

12 - negative fact - D (Look through the paragraph for the other three things.)

14 - summary - C D E
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Homework: Check the other questions you got wrong on the reading, and if you don’t understand why your answer was wrong (or why the other one is correct), we’ll talk about it tomorrow.