TOEFL Integrated Essay: Avoid This Grammar Mistake - Confusing Facts and Possibilities
Summarizing Arguments
Distinguishing between facts and possibilities—and using modal auxiliary verbs to express possibilities—is essential when writing the TOEFL Integrated Essay. Why? Because in this section, your task is to summarize arguments from the lecture, which responds to arguments in the reading.
Arguments consist of evidence and conclusions drawn from that evidence. While evidence may be factual, conclusions are interpretations and not absolute truths—they are possibilities. If you fail to use modal verbs (e.g., might, could, may) or other words that indicate possibility (e.g., probably, very likely), your summary may misrepresent the argument as fact. Take this example:
❌ Dinosaurs lived at the North Pole.
This sentence uses simple past tense, which we use for past facts. But since nobody knows for sure whether dinosaurs lived at the North Pole, the sentence is incorrect.
✔ Dinosaurs could have lived at the North Pole.
This sentence is correct as it expresses past possibility.
To avoid confusion, always clarify whether you are presenting a fact or a possibility. This post examines how to use modal verbs correctly when summarizing lecture arguments for TOEFL writing
Indicative mood for facts
For facts, consider when the fact was true. Depending on the situation and logical tense agreement, you will need to use:
Simple tenses (am, was, will be)
Progressive tenses (be + present participle)
Perfect tenses (have + past participle)
Since TOEFL integrated discussion topics can be about past, present, or future events, tense choice is critical:
Past events → Use simple past and past perfect.
Present events → Use simple present, present perfect, or present progressive.
Future events → Use simple future or future perfect.
When stating straightforward facts, simple tenses are best. However, when showing time relationships between events, perfect tenses are key:
Past perfect → Used for events before other past events.
Present perfect → Used for past events relevant now.
Future perfect → Used for events before other future events.
These tenses are used for factual statements—what we call the indicative mood.
Subjunctive mood for impossibility
Before talking about possibilities with modal auxiliary verbs, let's briefly consider impossibility or situations: impossible fact = contrary to fact, also known as counterfactuals.
To talk about impossible facts, English uses the subjunctive mood:
To express present impossibility, use the subjunctive past → (If + past verb, would...)
To express past impossibility, use the subjunctive past perfect → (If had + past participle, would have + past participle).
Understanding subjunctive mood is essential for the TOEFL integrated essay because professors often use these structures when making inferences:
“If X were the case, Y would happen.” → Meaning: Because X isn’t the case, Y isn’t happening.
“If X had been the case, Y would have happened.” → Meaning: Since X wasn’t the case, Y didn’t happen.
Modal Auxiliary Verbs for possibility
To express possibility is by using modal auxiliary verbs.
English has 10 modal verbs:
Can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, must, ought to.
These verbs add nuance to other verbs, expressing meanings like possibility, ability, obligation, permission, and prediction.
When used for certainty or possibility, they can be ranked from strongest to weakest:
Must → Strongest certainty (It must be true.)
Cannot/Can’t → Absolute impossibility (It cannot be true.)
Should/Ought to → Strong probability (It should be true.)
Will → High likelihood (It will happen.)
Would → Hypothetical/conditional (It would happen if...)
Could → Possible but uncertain (It could be true.)
May → Slightly more formal possibility (It may be true.)
Might → Weakest possibility (It might be true.)
In American English, could, might, and may are often used interchangeably for lower possibilities.
Expressing Past Possibilities
For past possibilities, you must use the structure:
Modal verb + have + past participle
For example:
❌ Dinosaurs lived at the North Pole.
✔ Dinosaurs must have lived in the North Pole. (Correct)
Sample Integrated Essay
Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they challenge the specific theories presented in the reading passage.
Reading
Underwater, whales produce loud noises, known as songs. Scientists use whale songs to study the movements, or migrations, of groups of whales. Recently, scientists discovered something unusual: a single, solitary whale whose song is unlike that of all other known whales. The most notable difference between this unusual whale’s song and those of other whales is its high pitch or frequency. This unique whale is called the 52-hertz whale because it sings at the unusual frequency of 52 hertz, a much higher pitch than normal. When the 52-hertz whale was first detected, the cause of its uniquely high-pitched song was unknown; however, scientists now have several theories to explain it.
One theory holds that the 52-hertz whale may be a hybrid: the offspring of two different whale species. Whales of different species are known to interbreed and produce hybrid offspring that combine characteristics from each of their parents’ species. As a hybrid, the whale may have a unique song, different from that of either of its parents because it resulted from a combination of the two.
A second theory is that the 52-hertz whale may have a damaged sense of hearing. Just as people learn to speak by copying the sounds they hear, whales may learn to sing by listening to the sounds of other whales’ songs. When people are born deaf, their speech may sound different from that of people born hearing. Similarly, the 52-hertz whale’s songs may sound different simply because it cannot hear the songs of other whales.
A third theory holds that the 52-hertz whale may be the only known member of a rare species. Perhaps there were once many more whales of this species, but most are now gone. It seems to be entirely unique only because most of its species has died out.
Lecture: script
Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic you just read about.
While scientists have attempted to explain the 52-hertz whale’s unusual song, each of their theories is flawed, and the whale’s uniqueness remains a mystery.
First, it’s unlikely that the 52-hertz whale is a hybrid. Its migration pattern is too unusual.All hybrid whales that we know follow the migration patterns of nonhybrid whales, and so all hybrids typically travel together with normal whales.If the 52-hertz whale were a hybrid, it would likely do the same.By listening to the locations of the 52-hertz whale’s song, however, scientists have been able to determine that it does not migrate alongside other whales.Unlike all other known hybrids, it has its own unusual migration pattern and migrates alone.
Second, deafness or poor hearing cannot really explain one important feature of the 52-hertz whale’s song: its extremely high pitch.The pitch actually depends upon the physical structure of the whale’s throat.You see, just like in humans, the vocal sounds that a whale makes originate in its throat, in its vocal apparatus.To produce a song of such an extremely high pitch, the throat structure of this particular whale must be very unusual.And this unusual throat structure cannot be caused by a damaged sense of hearing, because there’s typically no connection between hearing and throat structure.
Third, it’s also unlikely that the 52-hertz whale is the only known member of a rare species.Even if the species was rare, the whale had to have parents.Those parents would have also sung at the 52-hertz frequency.But the technology that detects whale sounds underwater has been in use for many decades.So if other 52-hertz whales—such as the parents of today’s whale—had been around at a relatively recent time, scientists would have heard them.But no such whale songs have ever been heard before this one.
Sample response
The reading presents three possible theories that may explain the cause of the 52-hertz whale's unusually high-pitched song. However, the professor rejects all three theories as implausible.
One theory in the reading suggests that the whale could be a hybrid between two different whale species. The professor refutes this theory by pointing to the whale’s unusual migration pattern. He asserts that all hybrid whales observed so far tend to follow non-hybrid whales and travel along with them. If the 52-hertz whale were a hybrid, it would be expected to migrate with non-hybrid whales. However, it does not and instead travels alone. Therefore, it cannot be a hybrid.
Another theory in the reading proposes that the whale may have a hearing disability, which prevents it from learning and imitating other whales' songs, causing it to produce an unusual sound. The professor rebuts this claim as well. According to him, the extremely high pitch results from the whale’s physical throat structure, which should be independent of its hearing ability. Thus, the extreme pitch could not have been caused by deafness.
The professor also counters the third theory, which suggests that the whale's unusual song could be due to it being the only known member of a rare species. He argues that this claim is implausible because no other 52-hertz whale sounds have ever been detected, despite the fact that underwater sonar technology has been in use for a long time. If the whale belonged to a rare species, its parents would have also sung at 52 hertz, and scientists would have recorded their sounds. However, since no such recordings exist, it is reasonable to conclude that the whale is not a member of a rare species.