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I see a lot of questions from students asking for resources about how to get ideas for writing task 2 in TOEFL, the academic discussion response. And there are indeed many resources devoted to this topic including the best Google searches and AI prompts to use.
But I actually think this is the wrong approach. Let me explain.
I analyzed the original 28 practice questions provided by ETS when the academic discussion question was first introduced. You can see the distribution of academic disciplines in the picture below. Most of the questions (55%) are about education or business topics.
You’ve probably already got a lot of experience in those areas and I’m sure you have many of your own opinions about them.
Then I looked at the individual questions from the other academic disciplines very carefully. Those questions are general and don’t require any discipline specific knowledge. They are on the sorts of topics that you most likely have experience of from your daily life.
Also, I analyzed the types of questions. In three quarters of the questions, the professor provides you with a choice. You don’t even have to think of an idea at all. You have to select the option that matches your opinion then explain it. In other words, you have to explain WHY you think that way. Just like in TOEFL speaking task 1.
In the academic discussion question, the graders aren’t interested in the brilliance or uniqueness of your ideas. They are not testing your philosophy or assessing your views of the world.
They want to know that you can state your opinion in clear English and then support it. That’s it! Don’t waste your precious studying time searching for the ‘best’ ideas to use in these questions.
🌟 Choose a straightforward opinion based on something you’re familiar with from your experience of being in the world.
🌟 Then explain it and support it using clear, standard English.
🌟 Make sure you focus on exactly what the question is asking you. Too many students write general responses based on templates and lose a lot of points that way.
🌟 Spend your studying time by improving your fluency in English.
🌟 Learn new vocabulary and use complex grammar structures to build your proficiency.
🌟 Make sure you can explain everything well.
🌟 And DON'T fill up your response with unnecessary template filler phrases. They rarely help.
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