这次托福改革最大的变化当属写作部分。原来的Task 2独立写作取消，替换成了一篇10分钟长度的Academic Discussion。写这篇小短文之前是需要考生先阅读一小段文章，是关于一个教授引出的一个课堂讨论的话题以及两位持不同观点的学生给出的自己的想法。

我们需要写的是关于这个话题我们自己同意哪个观点，并且还需要给出一些新的理由来支持自己的观点。我们可以看一下一个示范的题目： 

题目的字数要求是至少100字，建议大家可以写到130-150字。可以看到写作的要求有两点：

• express and support your personal opinion; 

• make a contribution to the response in your own words。

简单来说就是需要首先表明自己的观点，然后添加一些新的内容（两个学生讨论中没有出现的内容），并且加上一些细节或例子。

满分标准：

The response is a relevant and very clearly expressed contribution to the online discussion, and it demonstrates consistent facility in the use of language.

A typical response displays the following:

• Relevant and well-elaborated explanations, exemplifications, and/or details

• Effective use of a variety of syntactic structures and precise, idiomatic word choice

• Almost no lexical or grammatical errors other than those expected from a competent writer writing under timed conditions (e.g., common typos or common misspellings or substitutions like there/their)

如果跟之前的independent writing相比较的话，discussion board相当于已经先分别给出了一个理由来支持两个不同的立场，所以我们英文论文写作的时候需要再想新的理由来支持自己的观点。从官方给的答题小贴士中可以知道“There is no ‘correct’ answer to the question. The important part of this task is to make sure that you state your opinion and provide reasonable, relevant support for it in a way that makes a meaningful contribution to the online discussion. ” 也就是说没有一个唯一正确的写作方向。

可以考虑选择以下的答题思路：

1 顺着自己选择同意的立场继续给出新的一个角度，并且提供支持自己观点的理由，细节或者例子，比如：

In the past 200 years, tons of scientific discoveries or technological inventions have been shown to the world. If I had to choose one in particular it will probably be vaccine or antibiotics. With Pasteur's work and discoveries, the world changed in a way people couldn't imagine. So many people were dying really young because at that time life's conditions were not as good as the one we have now. With vaccine, we could now irradicate diseases that were killing millions of people, we learn so much about the immune system and ways our body was reacting to pathogens and the answers he could produce to defend us against it. Medicine evolved so much and keeps evolving every day because scientists are curious to understand how our body is working and how he is able to communicate with our environment. People aged 40 are now not that old and still have a really long life to live and enjoy when 2 centuries ago it was synonymous of 80% chance of dying. 

2 给出自己同意观点的新的支持的理由，然后讨论没有选择的立场存在的问题，并且给出一些细节或者例子，比如：

I strongly agree with Alex’s idea that our lives will be unpleasant if we focus entirely on economic growth. I would add that if the environment is damaged by industrial development we’ll be more likely to suffer from things like cancer and lung disease.  Maggie raised the relevant point that we can count on profitable companies to solve problems using new technology, but she doesn’t mention that they might arrive far too late to be of use.  For example, it might take decades for a company to create a clean energy source, but people are suffering from environmental problems right now.  Overall, then, I’d say that companies and governments should prioritize the environment right now.

3 我们也可以分情况讨论，比如A观点在什么情况下是有道理的，而B在其他情况下是更加说得过去的。比如：

Public policies make huge differences in our daily life, with the differences ranging from access to education resources to issues related to environment. When priorities are to be set between these two areas, it really depends on which situation is more urgent for local government to deal with. For poor countries in the mire of life-threatening environment hazards, there should be no delay in priotizing the environment over education since it is a matter of life and death they are dealing with, and education doesn’t benefit people overnight, but bettering environment does. For example, many African countries where safe drinking water is still a big issue have every reason to single out environment as their top priority. On the contrary, for those countries with less urgent environment problems, education is the way to go because not only can education act as a driving force for economic development, but also scientific findings powered by education investment will arm those countries with better ability to prevent potential environment problems as well as to solve the existing ones.

总的来说，academic discussion涉及的话题是在之前独立写作基础上更加偏向社会，经济，环境，教育这些大的角度，但是之前独立写作的真题依然是很好地积累改革后的第二部分写作的答题素材。

另外，个人认为改革后的第二部分写作实际上是削弱了之前很多同学在独立写作中使用空洞模版的可能性。因为你需要写的字数也就100来个字，是没有空间给你灌水的，你必须要直截了当，言之有物。所以，这对我们句子表达的能力提出了更高的要求。必须要能够不啰嗦地把自己的意思言简意赅地表达清楚。词汇上从范文中我们可以看出其实并没有太过华丽的词藻，更多地还是需要掌握正确的句子结构以及意思表达的逻辑性。语言方面并不需要刻意地去使用生僻词汇以及复杂的句型，逻辑连接词的使用在academic discussion写作中会显得更加重要，因为你需要让你这一小段的内容读起来更加连贯和思路清晰。