L’exercice 1 du writing TOEFL IBT

Consignes de l’Exercice 1 du TOEFL Writing

Dans l’exercice 1 de la section Writing du TOEFL, vous devez lire un texte portant sur un sujet académique puis écouter un audio relatif au texte. Il vous sera demandé de rédiger un texte résumant les principaux points abordés, avec exemples et explications, dans un essai de 150 à 225 mots. Vous disposez de :

• 3 minutes pour lire le texte ;
• 1 à 3 minutes d’audio ;
• 20 minutes pour rédiger votre réponse.

Vous serez évalué sur :

• Votre habilité à utiliser et mettre en relation des informations provenant à la fois du texte et de l’audio
• Votre capacité à répondre à la question de la manière la plus complète possible

Vous pouvez prendre des notes pendant la lecture et l’écoute.

Top tips pour réussir l’exercice 1 du TOEFL Writing

Voici nos conseils pour réussir l’épreuve 1 du TOEFL Writing.

Conseil : optimisez votre réponse

Vous pouvez écrire jusqu’à 300 mots mais une réponse « efficace » comporte entre 150 et 225 mots d’après ETS (Educational Testing Service). Mieux vaut écrire un peu trop que pas assez car cela dénoterait un manque de vocabulaire. Néanmoins, l’important est de rester clair et concis !

Remarque : Vous trouverez un compteur de mots en haut à droite de votre écran lors de l’examen, que vous pouvez cacher ou laisser apparent.

Exemples pour s’entraîner à l’Exercice 1 de la partie Writing

La section Writing mesure votre maîtrise de la langue écrite et évalue votre capacité à présenter vos idées de manière claire et organisée.

Elle se compose de deux parties :

• Partie 1 – Integrated Writing Task.

• Partie 2 – Independent Writing Task.

Voici ici un exemple corrigé de ce qui vous sera demandé dans la partie Integrated Writing Task.

Après la lecture d’un texte académique d’environ 260 mots et l’écoute d’un audio sur le même sujet, vous devrez rédiger un résumé des deux documents et expliquer le lien qui les unit, le tout en 150 à 225 mots.

Vous n’entendrez l’extrait qu’une seule fois mais pourrez revenir autant de fois que souhaité sur le texte. Prenez des notes pendant l’écoute de l’enregistrement.

Question 1: Integrated Writing Question

Voici un exemple d’exercice:

Texte

Stonehenge – Glacial Erratics

Several of the rocks which make up Stonehenge, one of England’s most famous historical sites, have been found to come from a nearby quarry in Salisbury, around 25 miles away from the site. These could have been transported by men using sleds or other rudimentary tools. Others, however, have been traced to another location in Wales, almost 200 miles away.

So, how did those rocks, called bluestones, make the long and arduous journey? It is unlikely that the prevailing theory is true; namely, that these bluestones were transported from one location to the other. The technology of the time would have made this back-breaking work, and it is unlikely that they would have gone to so much trouble, when they could simply have used rocks of a different type found closer to the site.

A new and exciting theory is called glacial erratics. This theory states that the rocks were, in fact, transported to the area far earlier by glacial movements during an icier interval in the Earth’s climate, and not instead by a phantom brigade of men. Such erratics are widely known; we tend to think of the Earth’s climate as calm and tranquil, but on a historical basis, there have been several hundred thousand years where half of the planet was covered in glaciers. These tend to be slow but violent in nature; calmly and methodically carving their way through rock and earth. Over many thousand years, it’s entirely possible that these glacial erratics transported the requisite materials to the site, thus solving the conundrum of how they came to be used in a field near Salisbury. It might also explain the unfinished-looking nature of Stonehenge itself; the interior part of it looks as though it’s missing a few pieces. Perhaps there were no more bluestones to use.

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Audio

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Transcription de l’audio

So, all of you will by now have read the rather controversial theory of how the inner circle of Stonehenge came to be. Indeed, how those bluestones ended up in Salisbury is something which has challenged archaeologists for decades.

However, as exciting as the glacial erratics theory is, there are a number of problems with it. For one thing, archaeologists have found no further evidence of bluestones in the surrounding area, even fragments. This seems to pour cold water on the theory. Imagine, for example, that a glacier dragged a boulder hundreds of miles and dropped it on your doorstep. How likely do you think it is that there wouldn’t be trace elements of that boulder somewhere along the way? There’s also the nature of the pillars themselves. Glacial debris tends to be pretty beaten up; it’s hard to be surrounded by tons of crunching, moving ice without looking the worse for it. Yet, the pillars at Stonehenge have no such marks. If you put a car in the middle of a glacier and came back a thousand years later, that car would scarcely look better than if you had put it through a crusher at a garbage tip. Lastly, the assertion that Stonehenge is unfinished is lacking in factual accuracy. It is true that some of the stones are missing; what the author of the paper failed to note is that archaeological evidence indicates there were once more stones there, but that they were removed. Evidence from similar Neolithic sites indicates that such sites were often rearranged, and the absence of stones does not by itself indicate anything except the whims of the people doing the rearranging. If I removed my sofa from my house, and you came across a lighter bit of carpet in my house, along with indentations in the carpet where the legs used to stand, would you assume that there never had been a sofa? Or would you simply assume that I didn’t like it and got rid of it?

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Question

Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they cast doubt on specific points made in the reading passage.

Question 1

Time is Up!

Time's up

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Suggestion

The lecture makes several points in relation to the theory of glacial erratics and their relevance to Stonehenge. Firstly, the professor states that the lack of further bluestones in the area casts doubt on the likelihood that they were deposited there by a glacier. He also talks about the condition of the stones, stating that they could not have been put there by a glacier, as they would be in far worse condition had they been surrounded by ice for thousands of years. The professor gives the example of a car put inside a glacier, saying that a thousand years later, that car would be completely destroyed. Lastly, he refutes the idea that the monument is unfinished, citing the archaeological evidence in the area. According to the professor, the ‘missing’ stones were in fact there, at one time or another, and the available evidence suggests that they were moved later on. He uses the analogy of a once-present sofa, now absent except for the lighter carpet and indent in the carpet, stating that there is nevertheless evidence of such a sofa.

Pour en savoir plus vous pouvez également consulter notre article sur les consignes de la section Writing du TOEFL ou revoir l’exercice 2 de la section Writing.

S’entraîner au TOEFL IBT avec GlobalExam

GlobalExam vous propose différents exercices d’entraînement aux deux parties de la section Writing :

•  Integrated Writing Question.
• Independent Writing Question.

Selon ces parties, vous rédigerez un texte allant de 150 à 300 mots à partir de la lecture et/ou de l’écoute d’un document. Vous devrez être en mesure de pouvoir argumenter un point de vue personnel sur un sujet donné ainsi qu’extraire et confronter les points principaux de deux documents mis en parallèle.

Ces deux parties sont minutées. Vous devrez donc apprendre à gérer votre temps au fur et à mesure de votre progression.

Pensez à bien lire les suggestions de textes et les conseils fournis dans la correction.

Vous pourrez à tout moment visualiser vos statistiques de progression et situer votre niveau. Des fiches de révision sont à votre disposition afin de travailler la grammaire, le vocabulaire et les fonctionnalités de la langue et ainsi renforcer votre maîtrise rédactionnelle de l’anglais. N’hésitez pas à revenir sur vos notions encore fragiles.