TOEFL writing task 2 (Independent Writing) showing your position in your writing

In TOEFL writing task 2 (Independent writing), you are asked to express your opinion on a certain topic, for example, agree vs. disagree, advantage vs. disadvantage or express your opinion. You have to use specific language to indicate your feelings, attitudes, judgements and beliefs towards that topic.

There are several ways to do this and in this post, you'll learn 3 specific ways of expressing your opinion clearly in your writing.

Showing your position in your writing:

1. adverbs

2. verbs

3. adjectives

1. Adverbs

You can use adverbs to show your attitude, feelings or assessment of something. Examples of adverbs can be: actually, frankly, fortunately, personally, luckily, interestingly, unfortunately, surprisingly, naturally...

For instance, if you want to correct someone, or say something that is unexpected, you can say:

'Actually, children who are home-schooled have a better education than those who attend school.'

A good example of adverbs can be used in the introduction of your writing task 2, because you are advised to start with a general statement. So, you can use a generalized adverb like so:

'By and large, I think that public schools offer much better education than private institutions.' In this sentence, 'by and large' has the same meaning as 'in general, overall, on the whole... and is a very good way of expressing a broad (general) opinion.

When expressing your opinion on whether you agree or disagree with a topic / point of view, in order to soften your tone, you can use adverbs of possibility:

'Presumably siblings show different behavior patterns compared to children who are an only child.' In this sentence, 'presumably' means possibly, one can assume, maybe...

Sometimes, you might wish to express the opinions of others. In such instances, you can use adverbs such as: according to my friend, apparently, in their eyes.... All of these mean that the opinion you are stating is not yours, but belongs to somebody else.

2. Verbs

In order to show your feelings or opinions, you can use specific verbs such as, think, suppose, believe, feel, guess, see. For instance, 'The way I see it, being educated at home might depend on the child's own aptitude and motivation.' In this sentence, 'the way I see it' is the same as using 'in my opinion, I believe, I think....'.

In expressing opinions, if you want to use 'I', it is definitely recommended that you begin the sentence with 'personally'. For instance,

'Personally, I feel that the teachers did a really good job.'

Sometimes, you may wish to express your idea rather than a fact. In other words, you might wish to exercise caution (you might want to be careful of what you say). In such situations, you can use the 'modal' verbs. For instance, 'I think adults must look back and wish they had not grown up so fast.' In this sentence, it is possible that the adults are sorry that they have grown up so fast and wish that they were still children. However, the writer is only expressing their own opinion, therefore he/she uses a modal verb (must).

Other examples of modal verbs for such a situation could include, seem or appear.

3. Adjectives

Regarding showing feelings, adjectives are very useful. There are many examples of adjectives, however, here are a sample of what you might use in your TOEFL writing task 2: glad, delighted, overwhelmed.

For example, 'I am glad that I was not educated at home.' Here, the writer is expressing relief.

In order to show possibility and opinion together, you can follow this structure:

'it + be + adjective + that'. For example, 'It is likely that homeschooled children will suffer from lack of social skills later in life.' Here, the writer is expressing their opinion along with a possibility.

To sum up, the above 3 ways are how you could show your position in your TOEFL writing task 2 regarding your attitude, feelings and beliefs about a given topic.

I hope you have found this post useful. If so, please 'share'.

Thank you.