The TOEFL Writing section changed completely on January 21, 2026. The old Integrated Writing task — summarizing a reading passage and a lecture — was removed entirely. In its place, the section now has three tasks: Build a Sentence, Write an Email, and Write for an Academic Discussion, completed in about 23 minutes total across 12 items, and scored on the new 1.0–6.0 band scale.
If you prepared using older TOEFL materials, or you took the test before 2026, this is not a minor update — it's a different section with different skills being tested. The old Integrated Writing task rewarded careful reading and listening comprehension folded into a summary; the current three tasks reward fast, accurate grammar, practical real-world writing, and structured argumentation instead. This guide covers every task in detail, how scoring works, and how to prepare efficiently for the current format.
Take the free TOEFL Benchmark Test and get your estimated band score in about 45 minutes.
The three tasks are delivered in order, each with its own timer, for a combined base time of roughly 23 minutes.
| Task | What You Do | Time | Items |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build a Sentence | Arrange scrambled words into a correct sentence | ~7 minutes | 10 sentences |
| Write an Email | Respond to a real-world scenario in 100–120 words | ~7 minutes | 1 email |
| Write for an Academic Discussion | State and support a position in a class discussion thread | ~9 minutes | 1 response |
In this task, you're given a set of scrambled words and a short prompt, and you need to arrange the words into a grammatically correct, meaningful sentence that answers the prompt. You'll do this 10 times in about 7 minutes — roughly 40 seconds per sentence, which rewards fast, confident grammar instincts over careful deliberation.
Build a Sentence isolates your control of English sentence structure: word order, verb agreement, correct use of articles and prepositions, and how clauses connect. There's no creative or content component — you're not being asked to have an opinion or explain an idea, just to demonstrate that you know how a correct English sentence is put together.
The most frequent errors are subject-verb agreement mistakes made under time pressure, misplaced modifiers (putting a descriptive phrase next to the wrong noun), and incorrect article usage (a/an/the) — a well-known trouble spot for speakers of languages that don't use articles the same way English does. Because the task moves fast, test-takers under time pressure often rearrange words into something that reads acceptably but breaks a specific grammar rule, like verb tense agreement across a sentence with two clauses.
Drill sentence-scrambling exercises specifically, rather than general grammar review. Time yourself at 40 seconds per sentence from the start of your practice, not just closer to test day, since the time pressure itself is part of what the task is testing. Pay particular attention to the grammar patterns you personally get wrong most often — most test-takers have two or three recurring error types, and fixing those specifically moves the needle faster than broad review.
You're given a short scenario, about 90 words long, describing a real-world situation — something from school, work, or daily life — with three bullet points telling you what to address. You then write an email response of 100 to 120 words in about 7 minutes.
Common prompts are deliberately everyday and academic-adjacent, not abstract or hypothetical:
TOEFL email tasks almost always expect a neutral, professional register — not overly casual, and not overly formal either. Address every bullet point in the scenario with at least some specific detail; a response that only vaguely gestures at a bullet point without engaging with it loses points even if the overall email reads smoothly. Structure matters: a brief, appropriate greeting, a clear body that works through each required point, and a professional closing.
100–120 words is a tight window. That's long enough to address all three bullet points with some real detail, but short enough that padding or repetition will push you over before you've covered everything you need to. Practice writing to this exact length until it feels natural — most students either run short on content or run long on unnecessary elaboration until they've calibrated against the real limit several times.
Take the free TOEFL Benchmark Test and get your estimated band score in about 45 minutes.
This task, which actually predates the January 2026 changes (it replaced the old Independent Writing essay back in July 2023), asks you to join a short online class discussion. You'll read a professor's question and two brief student posts responding to it, then write your own response in about 9 minutes.
Three things matter most:
Strong responses also engage with at least one of the two student posts already in the thread — agreeing, disagreeing, or building on a point they made — rather than writing in isolation as if the other posts didn't exist.
A reliable structure: open with your position stated in one clear sentence, follow with your main supporting reason and a specific example, optionally reference or respond to one of the student posts, and close with a brief restatement or implication of your view. This isn't a five-paragraph essay — it's a focused, single-idea response that reads like a genuine, well-organized contribution to a real discussion thread.
You don't have to respond to every student post, but referencing at least one — even briefly — signals that you're engaging with the discussion as a discussion, not just answering the professor in isolation. A simple, natural way to do this: "Like [student name], I also think..." or "Unlike [student name]'s view, I'd argue..." followed by your own reasoning.
Scenario: "You are a student in Professor Lee's Introduction to Sociology course. You recently learned that the midterm exam has been moved to a date when you have a scheduled medical appointment that cannot be rescheduled. Write an email to Professor Lee that: explains your conflict, requests an alternative arrangement, and proposes a specific solution."
A strong response addresses all three bullet points directly, in a professional but not stiff tone, within the 100–120 word range:
"Dear Professor Lee, I'm writing regarding the midterm exam date change to October 14th. Unfortunately, I have a medical appointment scheduled that day that I'm unable to reschedule, as it was booked several weeks in advance. I wanted to let you know as early as possible so we can find a solution together. Would it be possible for me to take the exam either the day before or the day after the rest of the class? I'm also happy to take it during your office hours if that's more convenient for you. Please let me know what would work best. Thank you for understanding, and I apologize for any inconvenience this causes."
Notice the structure: the conflict is explained in the first two sentences, a specific proposed solution follows immediately, a flexible alternative is offered, and the email closes politely — all three required elements are covered without padding, landing right around 115 words.
Prompt: The professor asks, "Should university students be required to complete an internship before graduating?" One student argues internships take time away from academic study; another argues they're essential for career readiness.
A band 5-level response might read: "I agree with Maria that internships are essential, but I'd add that the academic-time-tradeoff concern Jason raises can be addressed through timing rather than avoidance. Requiring an internship doesn't have to mean sacrificing coursework — many universities now offer structured internship terms during summer breaks or as a final-semester requirement that replaces one elective rather than competing with core classes. From personal experience, students who complete a relevant internship report feeling significantly more prepared for job interviews than those who rely on coursework alone, since employers consistently value demonstrated real-world application over GPA. A well-timed, structured internship requirement gives students the career readiness Maria describes without the academic disruption Jason is worried about."
This response states a clear position immediately, explicitly engages with both student posts by name, offers a specific reasoning (timing structure resolves the tradeoff) rather than a vague assertion, and closes by tying the argument back to both classmates' original points — exactly the kind of engaged, well-organized response the task rewards.
Start structured TOEFL preparation built around the current 2026 format.
Clear transitions signal logical structure to the grader and make your response easier to follow at speed — a real advantage when your writing is being read and scored quickly. Useful categories to have ready:
Adding a reason or example: "for example," "specifically," "in addition," "furthermore."
Showing contrast: "however," "on the other hand," "while," "although."
Showing consequence: "therefore," "as a result," "consequently."
Referencing another view (Academic Discussion task): "like [name]," "unlike [name]'s view," "building on [name]'s point."
Avoid overusing any single transition — rotating through two or three options for each function reads more naturally than repeating "furthermore" in every sentence, and graders do notice repetitive, formulaic phrasing.
AI-graded feedback tools have become genuinely useful for TOEFL Writing practice — they're available instantly, catch most grammar and mechanical errors reliably, and let you iterate quickly across many practice responses without waiting for a human reviewer. For high-volume practice, especially on Build a Sentence and early Email drafts, this speed is a real advantage.
Where human feedback still tends to outperform automated tools is in judging argument quality and register on the Academic Discussion and Email tasks — whether your stated position is genuinely well-supported rather than just grammatically sound, and whether your tone actually fits the scenario rather than just avoiding obvious errors. A response can be grammatically flawless and still score lower than expected because it doesn't engage with the discussion thread meaningfully, or because its tone misreads the situation — the kind of nuance automated scoring is more likely to miss. A combination — high-volume AI-assisted practice for mechanics, with periodic human review for argument and tone — tends to produce faster, more reliable improvement than relying on either alone.
The old Integrated Writing task asked you to read a passage, listen to a lecture that challenged or supported it, and summarize how the two related — a task that mixed reading, listening, and writing skills into one measurement. As part of the broader January 2026 overhaul that shortened the overall test to about 2 hours (with the four sections' combined item-response time now totaling roughly 90 minutes), ETS restructured Writing around tasks that more directly isolate specific, real-world writing skills: sentence-level grammar control (Build a Sentence), practical correspondence (Write an Email), and structured argumentation (Write for an Academic Discussion, which had already replaced the old Independent Writing essay in 2023).
If you're studying from older prep materials or a course that hasn't been updated, you may still encounter Integrated Writing practice questions. These are no longer representative of the current test and shouldn't form part of your active preparation — practicing a removed task type doesn't transfer meaningfully to the current three-task format. The Speaking section changed just as dramatically in the same overhaul — see our TOEFL Speaking section guide for the full breakdown.
Take the free TOEFL Benchmark Test and get your estimated band score in about 45 minutes.
Each of the 12 items is scored, and your Writing section band is calculated from those scores and converted to the 1.0–6.0 scale in 0.5 increments, the same rule used across all four TOEFL sections. Scoring criteria differ slightly by task but generally reward: task completion (did you actually address what was asked), organization and coherence, grammatical range and accuracy, and vocabulary appropriate to the context.
For Write an Email and Write for an Academic Discussion specifically, graders are also assessing whether your response demonstrates an appropriate register for the situation — a professional but not overly stiff tone for the email, and a genuinely argumentative, discussion-appropriate tone for the academic discussion response. A grammatically perfect response that misses the expected tone for its context will score lower than a slightly less polished response that gets the register right. This is one reason generic, memorized templates tend to underperform on these two tasks — a template can supply structure, but it can't adapt tone to a scenario it wasn't written for, and graders are trained to notice responses that feel copied rather than composed for the actual prompt in front of them.
With three tasks and a combined ~23-minute window, pacing discipline matters as much as writing quality. Roughly: budget 7 minutes for the 10 Build a Sentence items (about 40 seconds each), 7 minutes for the Email task, and 9 minutes for the Academic Discussion response, including a brief planning moment before you start typing each of the longer two tasks.
The most common pacing mistake is over-investing time in Build a Sentence — since it's the first task, test-takers sometimes second-guess individual sentences repeatedly, eating into time that's needed for the two more content-heavy tasks later. Practice trusting your first instinct on Build a Sentence items during timed drills, so that habit is already automatic by test day.
Across all three tasks, a small number of grammar issues account for a disproportionate share of point loss. Prioritize these in your review:
Start structured TOEFL preparation built around the current 2026 format.
Practice each task type separately before combining them into full timed sections — Build a Sentence, Write an Email, and Write for an Academic Discussion draw on different skills, and mixing them too early makes it harder to isolate what you're actually struggling with.
For Write an Email and Write for an Academic Discussion specifically, feedback matters more than raw volume of practice. Writing twenty untouched practice responses teaches you far less than writing five responses that each get detailed feedback and a revision pass. If you don't have access to a human reviewer, AI-graded feedback tools can catch a meaningful share of grammar and structure issues, though a proper human review — particularly for tone and argument quality on the Academic Discussion task — still tends to catch nuances that automated feedback misses.
Keep a running log of your own recurring mistakes across practice sessions. Most test-takers have a small, consistent set of error patterns — a specific grammar rule, a habitual word-choice mistake, a structural tendency like forgetting to state a clear position up front — and targeting that specific list is far more efficient than generic additional practice once you've identified it.
Finally, simulate real test conditions regularly, not just occasionally. Practicing Write an Email or Write for an Academic Discussion without a strict timer builds a false sense of confidence, since the actual test gives you no flexibility once the clock starts. Aim to complete at least a few full timed Writing sections — all three tasks back-to-back, under the real 23-minute limit — in the two weeks before your test date, so the pacing itself feels familiar rather than stressful on the day. If you're working with a tight timeline, our 2-week TOEFL study plan shows how to fit daily Writing practice into a compressed schedule.
Drill all three 2026 Writing tasks with realistic timing and get feedback on your responses.