Tips for TOEFL academic discussion task

Writing Practice Set 2: (Academic Discussion) -- Instructions, Question, and Discussion

Your professor is teaching a class on political science. Write a post responding to the professor’s question.

In your response you should:

• express and support your opinion

• make a contribution to the discussion

An effective response will contain at least 100 words. You will have 10 minutes to write it.

Dr. Gupta

As I mentioned in class, governments make public policies to describe their responses to various problems that affect a community. Part of this process involves setting and defending priorities about which issues deserve the most attention and resources. For example, governments need to decide whether they should spend more money on education or on environmental protections. If you were a policy maker, which issue would you argue is more important—education or environmental protections? Why?

Kelly

We all live on planet Earth, and it is the only planet we have. Therefore, we must take care of it. Clearly, protecting the environment should be the government’s priority over education. I think the REAL question is, which approach to protecting the environment—restricting pollution, regulating population, promoting clean energy, or something else—should be the government’s priority.

Andrew

I disagree with Kelly that that the environment is more important than education. Education is actually the best way to protect the environment. Educated people can see how their decisions affect the world around them. Also, with better science and technology education, we can develop solutions to environmental problems. Therefore, I think the government should spend more money on education.

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Writing Practice Set 2: (Academic Discussion) -- Response Tips
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To earn a top score, you should state and support your opinion about whether education or environmental protections should be the priority for governments to spend money on. Your response is a contribution to the other two students’ posts in an online discussion for the class. Be sure to add your own perspective to the discussion, not merely repeat ideas that have already been stated. Typically, an effective response will contain a minimum of 100 words.

You might agree with Kelly that environmental protections should be the priority. You will need to add your own support for this viewpoint. For example, you could argue that environmental protections are a more important investment to sustain our economies. You could point out that governments currently spend a great deal of money compensating for climate change catastrophes such as increased flooding, wind damage, or ruined crops. Investing more in environmental protections now could actually save governments money later on—which could then be used for more education funding. This would differ from the support Kelly gave for her opinion.

If you agree with Andrew that education should be the bigger priority, you could add to his argument by pointing out the amount of research that universities conduct—not only on solving environmental problems, which Andrew alluded to, but also on treating diseases, creating useful technology, and developing sustainable agriculture. Therefore, education funding has a bigger overall impact on improving human lives than investment in environmental protections only.This would be a meaningful addition to the support Andrew provided for his opinion.

You may find you agree with a point Kelly made about the environment even though you think education is more important. Or you might even find that your opinion about government priorities depends on certain factors—that education should be a priority in some circumstances,environmental protections in others. This is perfectly acceptable as long as you explain and support your reasoning. There is no “correct” answer to the question. The important part of this task is to make sure that you state your opinion and provide reasonable, relevant support for it in a way that makes a meaningful contribution to the online discussion. Try to develop your opinion as well as you can within the time limit. A well-developed response will contain clearly appropriate reasons, examples, and details—ones that do a good job supporting or illustrating your own viewpoint.

The quality and accuracy of the sentence structure and vocabulary you use to express your ideas is also very important and part of what is considered when your response is scored. The task context—a post to an online discussion group—is not quite as informal as you might think.While the task asks you to contribute to a discussion with fellow students, imagine that the professor would also be reading your post. It is true that your tone might be more casual than what you would use in an academic paper, but you should still follow standard grammar rules.Also, if disagreeing with another student post, be sure to express your disagreement in a respectful way as you would in a real online discussion.

This task is scored using the Academic Discussion Rubric.