TOEFL Academic Passage Structure
TOEFL passages adopt a top down approach to the organization of the passage structure. This means that beginning of each passage starts with a broad discussion around the topic and as the passages continues, more and more specific details are presented.
Reading and listening passages generally contain what’s called a thesis statement. A thesis statement is a statement that provides the main idea of the entire passage. It is usually found in the beginning part of the passage. For reading, the thesis statement is usually the final statement of the introductory paragraph and an introductory paragraph may look like this.