TOEFL Writing (2026): Email, Academic Discussion & Build a Sentence

TOEFL Writing in the 2026 format has three tasks. Build a Sentence is a short, form-focused task that checks whether you can construct grammatically accurate sentences from given elements. Write an Email gives you a situation and asks you to respond appropriately in about seven minutes. Writing for an Academic Discussion is the one task kept from the previous format: you read a short discussion prompt and one or two student replies, then add your own contribution.

Together, these three tasks measure something wider than the old independent essay ever did. You need control of sentence-level grammar, real-world pragmatics (tone, purpose, register), and academic thinking — all in one section.

Your Writing section is reported as a band from 1.0 to 6.0. There is no separate score per task on your official report — the section band reflects your performance across all three tasks together. Raters look at three broad qualities: whether you complete the task the way it was asked, how well your writing is organised, and the accuracy and range of your language.

Because Writing is not adaptive, everyone sees the same tasks and the same time limits. A strong performance on one task cannot fully rescue a weak performance on another, so consistency matters as much as ambition.

The email task feels short, but it is easy to lose the band by rushing. Strong answers share four habits. They open by making the purpose of the email clear in one line, so the reader knows immediately why the message exists. They address every point the prompt asks for — not just the interesting ones. They match tone to context: an email to a professor is not written the same way as a message to a friend. And they close politely, without a wall of formal filler.

Seven minutes is enough time to plan for one minute, write for five, and check for one. Skipping the check almost always costs a band.

Academic Discussion is the one Writing task carried over from the previous format, and it is where many candidates lose easy points. The task is not to summarise the discussion or to agree with one of the student replies. The task is to add something new — a fresh reason, a counter-example, a distinction the others have not made.

Reviewers can tell instantly when an answer just paraphrases the given replies. Strong answers stake out a clear position early, support it with one specific reason and one specific example, and connect briefly to what someone else said instead of ignoring the discussion entirely.

You can write a task on our platform and get AI feedback in minutes on the three things raters actually look at: whether you completed the task, how well the answer is organised, and how accurate and varied your language is. The feedback points at concrete sentences, not vague labels, so you can see what to change on your next attempt.

You do not need an account to try one task. If you want to save your history and see your Writing band trend over time, a free account is enough.