2019-11-07 TOEFL: writing practice

Greg Malivuk
gmalivuk@staffordhouse.com
http://www.pastebin.com/u/gmalivuk - notes from all classes
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https://ed.ted.com/lessons/are-the-illuminati-real-chip-berlet
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Homework: Delta 2.5.A and B
p. 249
1 D
2 A
3 B
4 C
5 A
6 B
p. 250
1 B
2 D
3 D
4 A
5 C
6 B
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Read the feedback on your writing and make sure you understand it.
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You get to decide what “cars” means for the purpose of your essay, you just need to make it clear.
You can write specifically about “conventional cars” or “internal combustion cars” or “cars that use petroleum”, but you need to be clear from the beginning that you’re focusing on those cars.
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(You can often use narrower or broader definitions to make your argument stronger, for example in another topic, “young people” could be anyone under 40 or anyone under 18, whichever is most useful to you. If it makes a difference, you should be clear about it in the introduction.)

edge case = a case (example) that may or may not be part of the category you’re talking about
	(Some people might disagree about whether we should include edge cases.)
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“People in rural areas need cars.”
- This could be used to support either answer to the question:
	People move to cities every year, so the number of people who need cars goes down.
	People move to suburbs and countrysides to get out of cities, so the number goes up.
- Therefore, you have to make clear which trend you believe in order to show how this fact supports your main idea.
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Integrated Writing
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Delta p. 392 - Take 3 minutes to read the text.
What are the main points from the reading?
R0 (main idea) = wind power is good (available, abundant, affordable, and clean)
R1 = produces a lot of energy compared to the area that’s used; it’s renewable and available everywhere
R2 = it’s affordable; in some places it’s ½ the price of coal and ⅕ the price of nuclear power
R3 = environmentally friendly and safe, no GHGs or other pollution
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What could you predict about the lecture?
P0 = wind power is not good OR wind power isn’t as good as the reading suggests
P1 = there are places without strong winds, there are times with calm weather
P2 = expensive to build (the text only talks about the price of the electricity after it’s built)
P3 = [environmental problems/disadvantages]

If you had to, you should be able to write a response using only your predictions and the text. (In other words, your predictions are guesses of what the lecture will say.)

	Second, the text describes how affordable wind power is. Electricity from wind power can be half the price of coal power and only one-fifth the price of nuclear power. The speaker, on the other hand, argues that wind turbines are very expensive to build. The electricity itself might be cheap but the initial cost is more expensive than other types of power.
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Listen to the lecture and take notes.
L0 = wind power has drawbacks (disadvantages, problems, issues)
L1 = energy production is unpredictable, wind strength can change, many places aren’t windy enough
L2 = expensive to develop, good locations for wind are far from cities and expensive to connect to
L3 = generators create a lot of noise and kill many birds
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The predictions you made could get a score of 3 even if you didn’t understand anything from the lecture.
https://www.ets.org/s/toefl/pdf/toefl_writing_rubrics.pdf - “The response may omit one major key point made in the lecture.” (You didn’t predict any specific environmental problems.)
(If you don’t try to guess, then you’d have “little or no meaningful or relevant coherent content from the lecture,” which is a score of 1.)
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If you don’t fully understand the points from the lecture, make sure your paragraphs at least make it clear that the lecture disagrees with the point from the text, and try to say something about the details.
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Often the overall point from the lecture is that the points from the reading are not strong evidence for the conclusion of the reading. Each point from the reading may be completely true, but may not be very convincing.
	This is not good evidence for the conclusion.
	The reading doesn’t make a strong argument for the conclusion.
	The facts in the reading are not convincing/compelling.
	The evidence from the reading is insufficient for the conclusion of the reading.
	The lecture acknowledges the facts from the reading, but argues that it is not good evidence…
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BREAK
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Writing Practice - ETS Guide test 3
Send your responses to me when you’re finished.
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Homework (to start in class): Look at the sample responses to today’s writing and the ETS scoring rubric. What score do you think each response should get?