Updated October 2026
TOEFL 2026 Writing: the tasks and how to prepare
Writing is the third section. It has three kinds of task, each on its own clock, and two of them ask for short pieces of real writing.
Build a Sentence
You are given the words of a sentence in the wrong order, often as a reply within a short exchange, and you arrange them correctly. It tests word order: questions, negatives, where adverbs go, and how clauses join.
Work from the fixed points. Find the subject and the main verb first, then attach the rest. Reading the finished sentence in your head catches most mistakes.
Write an Email
You read a situation and write an email in response. The task lists what the email must do, usually three things such as explaining a problem, asking for something and suggesting a next step. You have a few minutes, so the email is short.
Raters look at whether every required point is covered, whether the tone suits the reader, and whether the language is clear and accurate. The commonest way to lose points is to leave one of the required points out, so check them off before you finish.
Write for an Academic Discussion
You see a question posted by a professor in an online class discussion, with replies from two students, and you add your own post. You are expected to give an opinion and support it, and it helps to respond to what the others wrote.
A clear position in the first sentence, one or two developed reasons and a specific example are worth more than a long list of half-explained points. Leave a minute to reread: small grammar errors are easier to fix than to avoid.
Separate clocks
Each writing task is timed on its own, and time left from one does not carry into the next. That makes typing speed matter more than many test takers expect.
Practise typing your answers on a keyboard, under the time limit, without a spelling checker. Handwritten practice does not prepare you for this section.
How to prepare
Write short and often. One email and one discussion post a day, timed, does more than an occasional long essay.
Feedback is what turns practice into progress. Compare each piece with a corrected version and note the two or three changes that would have made the biggest difference, then look for the same problems in your next piece.
This is an independent summary written for test takers. ETS publishes the official specification of the test on its own website.