If your test date is close, the fastest gains come from two specific levers: making sure every response fully addresses the prompt (task completion is scored independently and is the easiest criterion to fix quickly), and correcting the handful of grammar errors you personally repeat, rather than reviewing grammar broadly.
Take the free TOEFL Benchmark Test and get your estimated band score in about 45 minutes.
Task completion — fully and directly addressing every distinct part of the prompt — is scored independently of writing quality, and it's the fastest criterion to improve because it's mechanical rather than a deep skill. Before writing, briefly list every requirement in the prompt (for Write an Email, that's usually 3 bullet points; for Academic Discussion, stating and supporting a position) and check your draft against that list before finishing. This alone closes a surprising amount of score gap in a short timeline.
General grammar review is slow and low-yield under time pressure. Instead, look at 3–5 of your own recent practice responses and identify the 2–3 errors that show up more than once — a specific tense confusion, a recurring preposition mistake, a subject-verb agreement pattern. Drilling those specific patterns produces faster, more visible improvement than broad grammar review, since you're targeting your actual error profile instead of grammar rules you already handle correctly.
A response padded with general statements doesn't score higher — replacing one vague sentence with one specific, concrete detail or example is consistently the highest-leverage single edit you can make to an existing draft, and it's faster than trying to write more content from scratch.
Take the free TOEFL Benchmark Test and get your estimated band score in about 45 minutes.
If your remaining prep time is short, spend it practicing under the actual time limits (7 minutes for Write an Email, roughly 9 for Academic Discussion) rather than writing untimed responses — pacing under pressure is its own skill, and untimed practice can build false confidence that doesn't hold up on test day.
Read the full Writing rubric to know precisely where to focus your remaining time.