The TOEFL writing rubric is the set of rules the raters use to score your writing. This page explains it in plain words: how the email and discussion tasks are scored from 0 to 5, how the Writing band from 1 to 6 is built, and where our learners lose points. It covers all three tasks in the current TOEFL Writing test.
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What Is the TOEFL Writing Rubric?
The TOEFL iBT writing rubric is ETS's scoring guide for the Write an Email and Write for an Academic Discussion tasks. Each task gets a score from 0 to 5 from a combination of AI scoring and certified human raters. Build a Sentence items are marked right or wrong. The three results become one Writing section score on a band from 1 to 6.
ETS publishes the rubric for each task but not the weight of each task in the band, so prepare all three. The band uses half-point steps (3.0, 3.5, 4.0) and lines up with the CEFR levels below.
TOEFL Writing Band Scores and CEFR Levels
Your TOEFL writing score is a band from 1 to 6 in half-point steps, and each band matches a CEFR level. The table shows the match, as published by ETS.
TOEFL band |
CEFR level |
|---|---|
6 | C2 |
5 to 5.5 | C1 |
4 to 4.5 | B2 |
3 to 3.5 | B1 |
2 to 2.5 | A2 |
1 to 1.5 | A1 |
Most universities that ask for the TOEFL ask for band 4 or higher in Writing, which means B2. Check the exact band your school wants.
TOEFL Write an Email Rubric
The TOEFL write an email rubric scores your email from 0 to 5 on one question: did you accomplish all three communicative goals in the prompt, in language the reader can follow? ETS uses a separate TOEFL writing grading rubric for each task, but the six levels run in parallel. In plain words, the email levels are:
- 5, fully successful: all three goals are covered and well explained, the sentences vary, and there are almost no errors beyond a typo.
- 4, generally successful: all three goals are covered with enough detail, the word choice fits, and there are few errors.
- 3, partially successful: all three goals are addressed, but a detail is missing or unclear, and errors in sentence structure or word form are noticeable.
- 2, mostly unsuccessful: the ideas are hard to follow, the language range is limited, and errors pile up.
- 1, unsuccessful: the email attempts the task with few coherent ideas and serious, frequent errors.
- 0: blank, off topic, not in English, or copied from the prompt.
In 9,869 emails scored by our tutors, task fulfillment was the lowest score in only 21%, but grammar was the lowest in 92%. Spelling was 23% of all corrections, and 78% of emails had at least one misspelling. So most learners reach the goals and lose points on language.
TOEFL Academic Discussion Rubric
The TOEFL academic discussion rubric scores your post from 0 to 5 as a contribution to the online discussion. The raters look for relevant, well-explained ideas, a variety of sentence structures, precise word choice, and few errors. The levels follow the same six steps as the email rubric:
- 5: a relevant, very clearly expressed contribution with well-elaborated explanations and examples, varied syntax, and almost no errors.
- 4: a relevant contribution that is easy to understand, with adequate explanation, varied syntax, and few errors.
- 3: a mostly relevant contribution in which part of an explanation or example is missing or unclear, with some noticeable errors.
- 2: an attempt to contribute, but the ideas are poorly elaborated or partly relevant and the errors make them hard to follow.
- 1: an ineffective attempt with few coherent ideas and language mostly borrowed from the prompt.
- 0: blank, off topic, not in English, or copied.
In 31,348 AI-reviewed discussion posts, grammar was the lowest criterion in 84%, and the average scores out of 5 were grammar 2.6, vocabulary 2.8, coherence 2.9, support 3.0, organization 3.1, and task fulfillment 3.4. Longer posts score higher: 124 words at a score of 2, 131 at 3, 145 at 4, and 158 at 5.
TOEFL Build a Sentence Scoring
Build a Sentence has no rubric. Each of the 10 items is right or wrong, and a reply is right only when every piece sits in the correct gap. In 48,108 practice tests the average was 3.5 out of 10, which makes it the lowest-scoring part of the Writing test for our learners. Our TOEFL build a sentence practice page explains the task with a free question and six tips.
How BestMyTest Scores Your TOEFL Writing Practice
When you submit an email or a discussion post for review, our AI review and our tutors score it on six TOEFL writing scoring criteria, each from 0 to 5. The score report turns the mean of the six into your band: it scales the mean to 6 and rounds to the nearest half point. The six criteria are:
- Task fulfillment: you answer every part of the task directly.
- Overall organization: your ideas sit in a clear order with an opening and a close.
- Relevance and quality of support: your reasons and examples are on topic and convincing.
- Connections and coherence: your sentences link naturally from one idea to the next.
- Vocabulary usage: you use a range of words correctly and precisely.
- Grammatical usage: your grammar, sentence structure, and spelling are correct, and your mistakes never hide your meaning.
By this rule, our learners' emails average band 3.8, and 57% reach band 4 or higher. Discussion posts average band 3.6, and 47% reach band 4 or higher. 14% of emails and 12% of posts reach band 5.
Figures are from the BestMyTest TOEFL learner performance data: 45,595 AI reviews and 46,124 tutor reviews of TOEFL emails and academic discussion posts, and 48,108 full practice tests, written on BestMyTest between 2023 and 8 October 2026. Criterion figures are averages of AI or tutor scores on a 0 to 5 scale, as labelled. Bands apply the score-report rule to each reviewed response. Last updated 8 October 2026.
How to Raise Your TOEFL Writing Score
The rubric rewards clear, complete, correct writing, and our data says the biggest gains are in grammar. Grammar was the lowest criterion in 84% of discussion posts and 92% of emails, while task fulfillment was the lowest in only 18% and 21%. Fix subject-verb agreement, prepositions, and plural forms first, and check spelling and capital letters in every email. Then develop each reason with an explanation or an example, because posts at band 4 carry about 20 more words of support than posts at band 2.
Practice on our TOEFL writing practice guide, use the TOEFL writing templates for the email and discussion structures, and get your practice reviewed so you can see your six scores and every correction. A free Sample Test 1 gives you the whole Writing section under the real clock.