The purpose of this research was to analyze EFL writing tasks in two of the most popular English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) exam preparation courses in Iran, namely IELTS and TOEFL. Having collected the criteria of writing task appropriateness in light of the process-oriented approach to writing instruction, we asked 60 learner participants to rate EFL writing tasks in 3 IELTS and 3 TOEFL preparation classes based on a checklist previously gathered and validated. The findings produced significant differences in terms of several features of writing task appropriateness. An observation process was conducted of the actual task performance in the target classes to explain the significant differences between the two groups. A two-sample t-test was later employed to evaluate the differences between the mean scores of ratings in the two groups while the p-level was set at .05.
