2020-02-28 TOEFL: writing practice

Greg Malivuk
[email protected]
http://www.pastebin.com/u/gmalivuk - notes from all classes
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Writing Practice - ETS Guide practice tests
Email your responses to me when you’re finished.
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Read the sample integrated responses and compare them with the official scoring rubric. What score do you think each one should receive?
A - 4 - The points are all present, but it’s not clear what the “second error...which is mentioned in the text” is. There are grammar and vocabulary problems that occasionally interfere with clarity.
B - 1 - “A response that leaves out all or most of the information from the lecture cannot receive a score higher than 1.” (There are also a lot of errors in the sentences that aren’t simply copied from the reading.)
C - 2 - While this also isn’t a great response, the writer understood that “the listenig resolvs many mistakes”, and that the explanations are all related to the changes made later to the painting. Unfortunately, the language level is low, and many details are completely absent.
D - 3 - “Although this response clearly describes the relationship between the reading and the lecture in the first paragraph, it earns a score of 3 because it lacks some important details related to the three main points that follow.”
E - 5 - The light and shadow issue could be explained more clearly and concretely, and there are some minor errors, but they never interfere with meaning.
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Do the same for the independent responses.
A - 4 - There are four points that address the topic, and each is introduced with a clear topic sentence. There are errors that don’t interfere significanly with meaning “but are frequent enough to earn this essay a score of 4.”
B - 3 - “This essay earns a score of 3 because it lacks development of its key points.” There are also a few mistakes that are hard to understand. Overall, clear connections between the points and the writer’s overall opinion are lacking. There are a few instances of wrong word choice where the correct word is totally unclear.
C - 5 - This is an excellent example of how a compromise or “it depends” answer can be developed. It addresses each of several points that we might normally use to argue that young people are happier, and shows that that conclusion may not be as strong as we think. There are some very minor mistakes (e.g. “take a decision”) that don’t interfere with clarity.
D - 1 - “This essay earns a score of 1 mainly because it lacks any development of the main ideas.”
E - 2 - This attempts to present a similar argument to C, but the writer simply isn’t as good at writing as the student from C. None of the points are developed enough, and there are not enough specific examples to support them.