Academic English Skills with Dr. Byrnes

  Today, we’re diving into something a lot of students get completely wrong: How does ETS actually grade your TOEFL essays? We’re going to break down real sample responses published by ETS and, more importantly, learn how to use them the right way . Now, here’s the surprising part… Some of these high-scoring samples actually have weak structure . Seriously. And that’s where many students make a big mistake. What happens is students look at these official responses, assume they are flawless, and then copy the structure as a template . I’ve seen this happen again and again, and it often leads to lower scores , not higher ones. Even worse, ETS has recently started cracking down on "plug-and-play" responses . You know the ones—essays where the template doesn’t naturally match the idea. When that happens, your score can drop fast. So in this blog post, we’re going to: Look at several official ETS sample responses Compare essays scored 5 and 4 Understand exactly why they received ...