10 Tips to Improve Your TOEFL Essays

10 Tips to Improve Your TOEFL Essays

Follow this advice and you will be able to see a big improvement in your TOEFL writing scores. It is not a secret for anyone that there exist lots of different ways to improve your TOEFL writing, in addition it should also be noted that many of them do not involve any studying at all. And here is the list of the most useful of them: 1. Answer the question directly It is quite possible that you may know English grammar perfectly and that your ideas may be one of the best. Still, in case if you fail to answer the TOEFL question, nothing mentioned above would matter. If you see that the question asks you for your own point of view, you are to write about what you think and never ever about the opinion of other people. However, if you read the question which is about what other people think or do, there is no need to write about yourself. 2. Express your thoughts with the help of short and simple sentence You may have noticed that famous writers can easily express their complex ideas in some extremely simple way. In case if you feel yourself being able to do so, you will demonstrate strong writing skills. Besides, remember that short and simple sentences usually result in fewer grammatical mistakes. 3. Give your essays a beginning, which is called the introduction, a middle, which is called the body and an end, which is called the conclusion In order to be able to do this correctly, you should get to know about the TOEFL essay structure. It is a must that your essay consisted of an introduction, a body and a conclusion. In addition, with the help of this essay structure it will be easier for you to organize all your thoughts and ideas and you will make them easier for your readers to understand. 4. Have a thesis statement It is generally considered that the thesis statement is the most important sentence in the entire essay. This is how the last sentence of the first paragraph, which also has the name the introduction, is called. This is used to tell the reader exactly what the author’s point of view about the problem, discussed in the essay, is. In case if someone does not write a thesis statement, it will be considered as one of his / her biggest mistakes, which are only possible to make. 5. Use topic sentences The first sentence of each paragraph of the body of the essay is called the topic sentence. It is usually used to play double role: first of all it gives the reader a summary of what will be in the paragraph and it also gives one reason that supports the author’s thesis statement. 6. Get to know and use the conditionals like first, second and third widely In case if you learn the conditionals, it can possibly become even more helpful for you than studying all these complex tenses of the English grammar. Conditionals are considered to be especially useful when you are going to express your opinion and provides reasons – these are two things, which are a must in for any TOEFL independent writing task. Therefore, it is also necessary to point out that each conditional has somewhat different meaning. Everything depends on what the reality, possibility and time is. Before using them in your TOEFL essay, you are to get to know how to use conditional and practice them as much as possible. The reason of it is using the conditionals in an incorrect way is considered to be one of the most widespread mistakes, present in TOEFL essays. 7. You should never begin a sentence with a conjunctionSuch words as and, because, but, etc. are called conjunctions. In English conjunctions are used purely to connect sentences, and a sentence never begins with them. 8. Get to learn hot to use the comma in English correctly In case if you use commas in a correct way, this will bring your writing to life. There is the good news: lots of languages use the comma. And as for the bad news, the rules of how the comma is used are usually different from one language to another. In order to write your TOEFL essay successfully, you will have to be aware of the rules of using commas in English, because it will make your writing much easier to understand and you will be able to get more scores. 9. Use the active voiceYou have probably known already that there are two “voices”, used in English grammar: they are active voice and passive voice. And here they come:  Active voice: Children plant the trees.  Passive voice: The trees are planted by children. Therefore, it is necessary to keep in mind that the active voice is considered to be much stronger than the passive voice. This is why it is greatly advisable to use the active voice as much as possible while writing your TOEFL essay. 10. Use transitional words and phrasesIt should be pointed out that it becomes much easier to understand someone’s writing, if it goes with different transitional words and phrases. It is quite possible and easy to connect ideas and present then to the reader in a logical order. Here come several examples of transitional words and phrases: in addition…, in conclusion…, moreover..., in closing…, more importantly…, first of all…, etc.