0: What's going on guys, and welcome to How To Get 24+ on the Writing Section.

4: First of all, let me say that I am NOT going to do an overview of the writing

9: section here, so if you're not sure about the TOEFL writing or if you're still new

13: to it, I'll leave a link in the description below to a couple of other

16: videos that would be more helpful. This video is specifically for students who

21: have taken the TOEFL writing before or know a bit about it and they're not

25: really sure how to improve their score. Lots of students need 22-24 or higher, so

29: I'm going to show you how to do that, and I'm going to show you two strategies in

33: particular. The first strategy I'm going to do, is what we're going to do together,

38: is we're going to talk about ultimate templates, and basically what they are

42: advanced templates with a little bit more complicated grammar and vocabulary.

46: And I'm going to explain how it works, and you'll feel pretty comfortable using

50: it by the end. Also, I'm going to show you what conditional sentences are, a very

56: brief overview of conditional sentences and why they are important to put in

60: your writing. Both of these things are gonna help expand your vocabulary and

65: grammar, which is crucial to get a twenty four or higher the TOEFL writing. My name

70: is Josh McPherson, I am the head instructor at tstprep.com where our

74: mission is simple, to help you get a TOEFL score you need as quickly and

78: easily as possible. And today we're gonna talk about the TOEFL writing section.

90: Really quickly, I just want to promote our new course the TOEFL writing section

95: course, How To Get 24+ in Two Simple Steps, it's now available at our site tstprep.com,

101: and this is just a little taste of everything that's available in

105: that course, okay. Now, the first thing we're going to do is we're gonna talk

109: about templates. Now, I'm sure that you've probably used templates, but I'm going to

114: show you actually how to use advanced templates, and why they're important. So

119: let me start with that, why they're important? And to do that we have to look

122: at the grading and how the TOEFL writing is graded. So I'm gonna need my computer.

127: So come with us. So before I show you the advanced

132: templates and how to use conditional sentences, I just first want to quickly

136: go over how the test is graded, how the writing section is graded. So Michael

143: Goodine from TOEFL resources recently came out with an excellent video about

146: the grading criteria. If you have 20 minutes to spare, I definitely recommend

150: it, and I will link to it in the link below. He goes through a couple different

155: areas of how the test is graded, and all this information is from ETS and from

160: academic research. And, basically, there are two parts, that I broke it down even

167: less than how he broke it down, to make it really simple, is that you are graded

171: on organization and development, which is basically your structure, and then

175: vocabulary and grammar. And, if you notice that your organization and development

179: is about 65% of your grade, and about 35% is vocabulary and grammar, but I am going

186: to be focusing on the smaller number, the vocabulary and grammar, excuse me.

192: Why is that? Because most students, who come to me, who say that they're

197: struggling with the TOEFL they can't get the score that they want, and I look

201: at their essays, almost all the students know templates, almost all of them know

206: to give a personal example, almost all of them know how to organize their

210: paragraphs, but they have some problems with vocabulary and grammar, and that's

214: the thing that's holding them back. And that's also a really hard thing to fix.

218: The structure is actually kind of easy to follow. Once you know about templates,

223: once you start getting into the nitty-gritty and trying to improve your

227: writing, that's when it's vocabulary and grammar, and that's where it gets really

230: difficult. So I've created templates, ultimate templates, I call them advanced

236: templates, to help show that you have a more expansive vocabulary and a more

241: expansive grammar. And I'm going to show you an example from one for the

246: independent writing. So we want to improve our vocabulary and grammar. So

251: let me show you these advanced templates. And I'm just going to show you one, I'm

255: gonna leave a link in the description below for for the other, for the template

260: what is it like, PDF download thing, maybe you can get, okay. So here it is. So

266: you'll notice that there are gonna be longer sentences, more sophisticated

269: vocabulary, more complicated grammatical structures, and more colloquial phrases.

276: So first let me just show you the kind of basic template that you're probably

280: used to, okay. So here, "There is no shortage of opinion on it", so this is a

286: nice little phrase to start, and you have to say the question a different way. So

290: if the question is something like, give your friend advice on the healthiest way

295: to, or the best way to lose weight. So there's no shortage of opinion on ways

299: to lose weight or the best way to lose weight, whatever it is. In my opinion, I

304: think that the best way to lose weight is to diet and exercise. I feel this way

308: for two main, okay so, so on. And let me make something very clear, that you can get

314: even a perfect score with these traditional templates. They don't,

318: you don't need an advanced template to get a high score. It's just if you're

323: struggling, it's because of your vocabulary and grammar, so we're gonna

327: use an advanced template to try to help you boost that, all right. Now, let's look

333: at the advanced template for the same introduction. No one can deny that there

339: are both positive and negative aspects of ... okay. So, if you notice here, I use the

344: phrase no one can deny, so like there's no shortage of opinion of, it's also a

349: phrase, okay. So when you use this kind of phrases, the

353: e-rater actually can pick up on those phrases, it's been programmed to be able

357: to identify idioms, colloquial phrases, and so on. So you want to use them. And

363: then, the next sentence you'll see, "If I were forced to choose, comma, I would

368: definitely", so you have a comma in there, you have to use a conditional sentence.

372: I'm going to talk about this next, and so it's a more complicated grammatical

377: structure. The next thing you'll see is that "It is my firm belief that", so

383: instead of saying "I feel this way", "It is my firm belief" and this phrase "firm

388: belief" is a phrase, you want to try to include phrases, commas, longer sentences,

393: and these are things that the e-rater, which is the computer that grades your

397: essay, has been programmed to pick up on, and also, by the way, the graders,

402: the human graders will also see that you're writing at a pretty advanced

406: level. It's my firm belief that, and then you paraphrase the question, so and for a

413: number of reasons and, again, I put another comma here, and I will develop

417: these ideas in the subsequent paragraph. So this kind of difficult vocabulary,

422: instead of saying "following" paragraph, "subsequent". So we try to just make the

427: vocabulary a bit richer and try to make the sentences a bit longer. So it's just

432: these little things you've want to stack these little things up, and these little

436: things pile on each other, and they help you get to the next level. So that's the

442: advanced template for the introduction for the independent writing. I'm actually

447: not going to go into too much detail with this because you can just take a

450: look at it on your own and see. I just wanted to introduce the idea and you can

454: see why I've developed these templates this way. And, if you look at the e-rater

460: features really quickly, there are a couple things that they are programmed

464: to look for. Now, this is not a list of all the things that they're to look for,

468: these are things that are easy for other writing programs to program in a robot

475: basically. So these are just easy things for a computer to check for your essay,

479: and so, obviously, ETS, the company who makes the TOEFL, will use these criteria

485: to help grade your essay. Here's a couple

488: of examples. The amount of words in your essay of course, repeated words, if you

495: say the same word too much, it might hurt your score, will hurt your score, the

499: amount of phrasal verbs and idioms, yeah you want to try to use these colloquial

503: phrases. You don't want to use too many idioms like "I'm so hungry I can eat a

506: horse" or something like that, because then that's a little too casual, but you

510: do want to use colloquial phrases, phrases that have two or more words,

516: because they show an advanced level of vocabulary. They can also see the average

522: length per word. They can take all of your words into account and see how long

525: your average words are. They can see the average length of your sentences. If

529: your sentences are too short, that could be a problem, and they could also count

533: the number of commas you have. So, you see, all of this stuff builds on each other.

537: So that's why you want to use these advanced templates, and you'll notice

541: some of them are pretty similar. There's some phrases that are similar, but

544: there's just a couple extra things that are really help boost your score to the

548: next level to get 24. Now, and some of you might be wondering why don't you start

554: with advanced templates, why aren't these the first templates that teachers teach.

557: Because the first goal of any teacher is to just get you used to the structure of

563: the TOEFL, and these simple templates work for the most part. They work well, so

568: that there's not really too much of a reason to teach you an advanced template,

572: unless you can't improve your score. If you can't improve your score, and that's

577: why you're watching this video right now, probably then that's why you need to

581: start using a more advanced template. The next thing I want to talk about is

585: conditional sentences. Now, I'm not going to turn this into a grammar lesson

589: because, to be honest, it´ll be pretty boring, and just conditional sentences are, you

595: know, they're not so easy to teach, to be honest, and they're not so easy to learn.

598: And so, I don't want you to learn about conditional sentences, I want to teach

602: you two specific places, with two specific types of conditional sentences

609: for you to use a conditional sentence in your essay. I'm going to just show you

613: two places in your independent essay where you can use it. Now, hopefully by

618: now you understand why you should put a conditional sentence in your essay,

622: because it makes your sentence longer, and the e-rater is checking for that.

627: Alright, so let's get right into it. So the first place that you should put your

632: conditional sentence, and you saw it already is in your introduction

635: paragraph of the independent essay, and I've already shared it with the ultimate

640: template, but I'll show it here in action. When this question, your friend wants to

645: lose weight, what would advise, and so here is the sentence at the end. If my friend

649: asked me how to lose weight, I would suggest the following two things: a balanced

653: diet and exercise. So if you see here, if my friend asked me, so this is one way

662: that you can form it, if my friend asked me, I would do this. Another thing if you

668: could say is, if I were asked, which I believe this what's in the ultimate

672: template. Let's go back to the ultimate template really quickly, yeah. So in the

676: ultimate template you'll see here, if I were forced to choose. So here this

682: template work, if there's two choices, like do you agree or disagree, but this

687: other question is about advice. And so, when you're asking about advice, it would

691: be better to say, if I had to tell my friend, okay. So that's when you want to

697: use this conditional sentence. So in this situation you're going to say "if" and

702: then you're going to use a noun or pronoun here, the subject. So, if my

708: friend asked, if I were asked, if I had to choose, if I were forced to choose, so

717: that's the first part. It's going to be one of those, and then you put a comma

721: after that, "I would" and then the base form of the verb. If I were forced to

727: choose, let´s say for example the question is, do you agree or disagree all high

732: school students should wear school uniforms, if I were forced to choose, I

736: would say that all students should not wear school uniforms, like that, okay. In

742: this situation, if my friend asked me how to lose weight, I would say, I would

746: suggest, and then you have the base form of the verb. So that's the first

751: place that you can put a conditional, towards the end of

754: your introduction paragraph. Now, the second place that you can put a

759: conditional sentence to expand your vocabulary and make your grammar look a

764: bit more complicated is towards the end of your body paragraphs. Basically, it

770: should be the conclusion of your personal example. By now you probably

775: know that in your writing, in the body paragraph, you probably have a personal

782: example to connect to your reason. So here, for example, the person says, the

788: writer here says, a well-balanced diet has been proven to help people lose

792: weight, so they think of well-balanced diet. Now, they should have a personal

796: example explaining why they believe that. They're gonna talk about their mother

800: here and talk about my mother, okay. So after you tell your story, it's very

807: important that your end shows like a lesson that was learned, shows why this

815: example helped inform your reason. It should show how your personal example is

824: connected to your reason and what happened. So you use this conditional to

830: imagine a past, this conditional is called,

834: it's a very complicated word, you don't need to know about past unreal

837: conditional, you imagine something in the past and what your life would be like if

845: it happened. If my mother had never consulted a nutritionist, she would have

852: never known the importance of a well-balanced diet. So you see, this is

855: pretty difficult grammar, which is why I teach it, because if you can just put

860: this one difficult grammar form in your essay, it shows a pretty strong handle of

867: English grammar. So the form here is "if" and then the subject, and then "had". If

874: I had gone, it's like the past perfect, so if I had gone to college, if I had lived

882: in America, if I had been born to somebody else,

886: so that that's the expression. And then the second clauses, I would have, I would

893: have never known, I would have never been, I would have lived, I would have seen, so

900: on. So that's the structure of that conditional sentence. Try this and see

907: how it works. I know it's a little difficult, so these

909: strategies are a little bit difficult to do, so it's up to you if you want to do them

915: or not. But the reason, I hope you understand my reason, and I just want to

919: go back to the grading criteria really quickly, because you're probably

923: struggling with vocabulary and grammar, and I want to find some ways

927: for you to improve your vocabulary and grammar, and make your sentences a bit

934: longer, and to get that score just a couple points more to where it needs to

939: be. You have made it to the end. You have learned how to use advanced templates

945: and why they're important, so they can show to the e-rater and the human grader

950: that you have an expansive vocabulary and English grammatical knowledge. You've

955: also learned how to use conditional sentences to put in your independent

959: essay so you can have some examples of longer sentences and, again, that helps

963: improve your score. You can visit our website for more of this kind of stuff

968: tstprep.com. And I strongly recommend that you do an evaluation, because

973: that'll save you a ton of time. You'll know your strengths and weaknesses and

977: what you need to do to get to that 24 or more. All right, thank you for watching

982: guys. Good luck and

985: I take care guys. Bye-bye.