What do test-takers need to perform well on the new TOEFL “writing for an academic discussion” task?
Conjunctions, I guess.
The scoring rubric for this task hints at this when it says that a high-scoring answer contains “effective use of a variety of syntactic structures.”
I started today’s experiments by submitting a response consisting of only simple sentences. It certainly lacked syntactic variety, and received a score of 4.0 from the AI scoring engine:
I like the ideas noted by Claire and Kelly. I feel that the only way to truly solve this problem is to build better schools. Parents want their children to be educated at the best possible places. It is almost impossible to find great schools in the country. The government currently has money for good things like science laboratories and nice libraries in cities. They ignore rural areas all the time. Rural schools like the one I attended lack even basic educational supplies like computers and sports equipment. Parents who are concerned about their kids go to bigger places.
I tried to beef it up with some impressive vocabulary but it still scored 4.0:
I respect the ideas noted by Claire and Kelly. I feel that the sole way to truly resolve this dilemma is to construct better schools. Parents want their children to be educated at the best possible facilities. It is almost impossible to find impressive schools in the country. The government currently has money for valuable things like science laboratories and fantastic libraries in cities. They ignore rural areas all the time. Rural schools like the one I attended lack even basic educational supplies like computers and sports equipment. Parents who are concerned about their kids go to bigger places.
I wrote a really long version (197 words) but still scored 4.0:
I like the ideas noted by Claire and Kelly. I feel that the only way to truly solve this problem is to build better schools. Schools are the bedrock of all academic systems. Parents want their children to be educated at the best possible places. It is almost impossible to find great schools in the country. The country only has a limited range of places to learn. The government currently has money for good things like science laboratories and nice libraries in cities. These facilities give adolescents there an advantage. It is clear to see that they learn much more. Their test scores on university entrance exams are the highest in the entire nation. This means they can attend the best universities. The government ignores rural areas all the time. Rural schools like the one I attended lack even basic educational supplies like computers and sports equipment. Students at those schools perform poorly. They struggle to learn advanced concepts. I think they have poor reading comprehension as well. They are unable to go to good universities. It is likely that they don’t enjoy impressive careers either. Parents who are concerned about their kids go to bigger places.
I’ll spare you the pain of reading it, but a long version with better vocabulary also scored 4.0.
In an effort to insert some syntactic variety, I wrote a version of the original answer with two different coordinating conjunctions (but, but, so). It also got 4.0:
I like the ideas noted by Claire and Kelly, but I feel that the only way to truly solve this problem is to build better schools. Parents want their children to be educated at the best possible places, but it is almost impossible to find great schools in the country. The government currently has money for good things like science laboratories and nice libraries in cities. They ignore rural areas all the time. Rural schools like the one I attended lack even basic educational supplies like computers and sports equipment, so parents who are concerned about their kids go to bigger places.
And when I used three different coordinating conjunctions (but, yet, so)? It still scored 4.0:
I like the ideas noted by Claire and Kelly, but I feel that the only way to truly solve this problem is to build better schools. Parents want their children to be educated at the best possible places. It is almost impossible to find great schools in the country. The government currently has money for good things like science laboratories and nice libraries in cities, yet they ignore rural areas all the time. Rural schools like the one I attended lack even basic educational supplies like computers and sports equipment, so parents who are concerned about their kids go to bigger places.
Next, I wrote a version with two different coordinating conjunctions (but, so) and one subordinating conjunction (while) and it scored 5.0:
While I like the ideas noted by Claire and Kelly, I feel that the only way to truly solve this problem is to build better schools. Parents want their children to be educated at the best possible places, but it is almost impossible to find great schools in the country. The government currently has money for good things like science laboratories and nice libraries in cities. They ignore rural areas all the time. Rural schools like the one I attended lack even basic educational supplies like computers and sports equipment, so parents are concerned about their kids and go to bigger places.
Finally!
It still scored 5.0 when I moved the conjunctions around a bit:
I like the ideas noted by Claire and Kelly, but I feel that the only way to truly solve this problem is to build better schools. Parents want their children to be educated at the best possible places. It is almost impossible to find great schools in the country. While the government currently has money for good things like science laboratories and nice libraries in cities, they ignore rural areas all the time. Rural schools like the one I attended lack even basic educational supplies like computers and sports equipment, so parents who are concerned about their kids go to bigger places.
And it still scored 5.0 when I used a different subordinating conjunction (when):
I like the ideas noted by Claire and Kelly, but I feel that the only way to truly solve this problem is to build better schools. Parents want their children to be educated at the best possible places. It is almost impossible to find great schools in the country. The government currently has money for good things like science laboratories and nice libraries in cities, so they should not ignore rural areas all the time. When rural schools like the one I attended lack even basic educational supplies like computers and sports equipment, parents who are concerned about their kids go to bigger places.
So there ya go. If you are planning to take the new TOEFL after July 26, make your writing a bit more sophisticated by including both types of conjunctions. That could certainly show off your ability to effectively “use of a variety of syntactic structures.”
One takeaway of this research is that a possible “magic formula” for the new writing task is: 100+ words, one subordinating conjunction, two coordinating conjunctions.
You can find all of my submissions on this page.