Sustained Speech: Maintaining consistent delivery throughout your speech

Modified on Sat, 20 May 2023 at 08:41 AM

Sustained speech in TOEFL Speaking is like running a marathon. Imagine you are running a long race and you need to keep going without stopping.

When you speak with sustained speech, it means you can talk for a long time without pausing or taking breaks, just like running in a race without stopping to rest.

Having good sustained speech in TOEFL Speaking shows that you can keep your thoughts flowing and continue talking without running out of things to say. It's like having a lot of energy to keep running without getting tired.

When you can sustain your speech, it helps the person listening to you understand your ideas better because they can follow your thoughts without any interruptions or pauses.

So, when you speak in the TOEFL Speaking test, try to keep your speech going without stopping, just like running a marathon. Keep your thoughts flowing and express your ideas without long pauses. This will show that you have good sustained speech and can communicate your thoughts effectively.


Technical Explanation


DimensionModelConstructImpact on OverallDefinition
Sustained SpeechDeliveryFluencyVery strongHow smoothly you speak (number of words without disfluencies).


Responses with a higher Sustained Speech score correlate very strongly with high TOEFL Speaking scores.



Overall Score

  • Good: 26-30
  • Fair: 18-25
  • Limited: 10-17
  • Weak: 0-9


What this chart tells us


For the Sustained Speech dimension, there is a clear relationship between the average length of speech "runs" and your overall TOEFL Speaking score. To earn a high overall TOEFL Speaking score, you probably need to produce uninterrupted speech better than 75% of other test takers


  • the Sustained Speech score for this response is 64 (it scored in the 64th percentile)
  • responses with a Sustained Speech score of 64 are consistent with an overall TOEFL Speaking score in the Fair range (i.e. with an Overall Score of 18-25)
  • 36% of all responses scored higher; 64% of all responses scored lower
  • there are responses with a Sustained Speech score with scores between 65 and 75 that received an overall TOEFL Speaking score in the Good range and the Fair range (i.e. the overlap between the blue and the green bars)
  • same idea for the yellow/blue and red/yellow overlap
  • the Impact of this dimension is 4/4, meaning there is a strong correlation between Sustained Speech your overall TOEFL Speaking score


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