TOEFL Write an Email: the complete guide (2026 format)
Seven minutes, one scenario, three required points, and a 0-5 rubric. This guide covers what the prompt actually gives you, what the rubric rewards, how register changes the sentences, and why the word-count "rule" you have read elsewhere is not one.
What the task gives you and what it wants back
Write an Email is the second task in the 2026 Writing section. You read a short situation — who you are writing to, what has happened, and what you need — together with a set of points your email has to cover. You then write the email in about seven minutes. It is a constructed response, scored on a 0-5 rubric rather than marked right or wrong.
The scenario is not decoration. It fixes three things at once: your relationship to the recipient (which sets the register), the purpose of the message (which sets the shape), and the specific information you must include (which is what the content criterion is scored against). Read all three deliberately before writing, because a fluent email that answers a slightly different situation is the most common way to lose marks on this task.
What ETS states
The current Writing section lists 12 items: 10 Build a Sentence items, one Write an Email task, and one Academic Discussion task.
The Write an Email, Write for an Academic Discussion, and all Speaking tasks are AI-scored constructed responses, per the specification’s item-type notes.
Build a Sentence is also machine-scored, so "machine-scored" is not exclusive to Reading and Listening.
Sourced from the ETS 2026 test specifications, read 2026-07-27. Everything outside this box is Reach120’s own reading of it.
What the 0-5 rubric is actually looking at
Open responses on this task are scored on a 0-5 rubric, and the rubric is not a grammar test with a politeness bonus. Four things are in view at once, and the one candidates neglect is the last.
| Criterion | What it rewards | How it is usually lost |
|---|---|---|
| Content | Every required point addressed, each in at least one full sentence | A point mentioned in a sub-clause, or answered vaguely |
| Organisation | Purpose first, points in order, a closing move | One undifferentiated paragraph with the request at the end |
| Language | Controlled tenses, natural collocations, varied but accurate structures | Run-ons under time pressure; over-reaching vocabulary |
| Format and tone | Greeting, sign-off, and a register that matches the recipient | Mixed register — "Hey Professor" or a formal template sent to a friend |
Format and tone is where the easy marks live, because it is almost entirely mechanical: a greeting that matches the relationship, a sign-off, and consistent register in between. It costs about fifteen seconds and it is fully within your control on every prompt you will ever see.
Reach120 scores are practice estimates, not official results. Official score reports for tests taken on or after January 21, 2026 use 1-6 bands in half-band increments, and ETS publishes no simple conversion between a 0-5 rubric score on one response and a reported band.
The five jobs an email is asked to do
Scenarios vary endlessly; the communicative job does not. Almost every prompt is one of five, and each one has a shape you can rehearse until it costs no thinking time.
- Make a request. Name the thing, give the constraint, offer concrete options. Specific enough to act on beats polite but vague every time.
- Report a problem. Identify it precisely, date it, state the effect in one clause, ask for a fix with a timeframe. Precision, not temperature.
- Ask for advice. Say what you are choosing between and what matters to you. An advice question with no stated criterion cannot be answered.
- Invite someone. Give a reason they were asked, the logistics in one block, and a genuine way to decline.
- Disagree or decline. Credit the other position first, evidence the objection, offer a specific alternative, leave the decision open.
The practice page carries one full scenario and model reply for each of the five, with a note on what each reply does to earn its rubric points. Reading them once is worth more than reading a template ten times, because the reply shows the moves in context rather than as slots to fill.
Register: the same request, three ways
Register is the fastest thing to fix and the easiest thing to get wrong under pressure, because the phrases that feel neutral to a non-native writer often sit firmly at one end of the scale.
| Move | Formal | Informal |
|---|---|---|
| Request | Would it be possible to… | Could you… / Any chance you could… |
| Apology | I apologise for the inconvenience. | Sorry about that! |
| Ask for information | Could you let me know whether… | Do you know if… |
| Close | Thank you for your time. | Thanks so much! |
Mixed register costs marks
Weaker
Hey Professor Adeyemi, I am writing to formally request an extension of the aforementioned deadline.
Stronger
Dear Professor Adeyemi, I am writing to ask whether the essay deadline could be extended by two days.
The wrong version opens like a text message and continues like a legal notice. Pick one register from the greeting and hold it to the sign-off.
The seven minutes, planned
| Window | What you do |
|---|---|
| 0:00-0:45 | Read the scenario. Underline the three required points and the recipient. Decide the register. |
| 0:45-1:15 | Decide the order of the points and the closing move. No sentences yet. |
| 1:15-5:45 | Write straight through: greeting, purpose sentence, one or two sentences per point, closing line, sign-off. |
| 5:45-7:00 | Check: all three points present? Register consistent? Verb endings and articles? Sign-off there? |
Six mistakes that show up constantly
- A missing third point. Two points fully developed scores worse than three points adequately covered.
- No greeting or no sign-off. Free marks in the format criterion, routinely dropped under time pressure.
- Writing to the word target instead of to the task. The target is our pacing guidance; the points are the task.
- One long paragraph. The organisation criterion is partly visual — a reader should see the structure before reading it.
- Explaining the backstory. The recipient already knows the situation; the scenario is context for you, not content for them.
- Over-reaching vocabulary in the last minute. A precise ordinary word beats an approximate impressive one.
A practice plan that improves the score, not the typing speed
- 1Write one email per day from a different one of the five jobs, timed at seven minutes. Rotation matters more than volume — most writers are fluent at requests and clumsy at disagreements.
- 2Score your own response against the four criteria before reading any feedback. Naming your own weakness is what makes the feedback stick.
- 3Rewrite one response per week from your own feedback rather than writing a new one. The rewrite is where the correction becomes a habit.
Scored practice on Reach120 returns a 0-5 rubric score, highlighted mistakes, and a higher-scoring rewrite of your own email so the gap is visible rather than described. The sample scenarios and model replies are free to read without an account.
Write an Email: common questions
- How long should a TOEFL 2026 email be?
- ETS publishes no required word count for this task — the prompt asks you to write as much as you can in the time. Reach120 uses an 80-120 word practice target as pacing guidance because that length covers three points with checking time left. Any prep site presenting a fixed range as an ETS requirement is inventing it.
- How much time do you get for Write an Email?
- About 7 minutes. The whole Writing section is listed at an estimated 23 minutes in the 2026 specification (read 2026-07-27); the per-task split is Reach120 pacing guidance, not an ETS figure.
- How is the email task scored?
- It is a constructed response scored on a 0-5 rubric covering content, organisation, language use, and format and tone. Official reported scores use 1-6 bands in half-band increments for tests taken on or after January 21, 2026, and no simple conversion between a single rubric score and a reported band is published.
- Do I need a greeting and a sign-off?
- Yes — they sit inside the format and tone criterion, they take seconds, and they are among the most frequently dropped marks on the task.
- What kinds of email scenarios appear?
- Everyday academic and semi-professional situations: requesting something, reporting a problem, asking for advice, inviting someone, and declining or disagreeing. The recipient — professor, office, classmate, friend — sets the register.
- Can I practise Write an Email for free?
- The scenarios, model replies and the printable task pack are free and need no account. AI-scored practice with rubric feedback and a rewrite of your own email needs a paid plan.