托福写作的提高并非一日之功，复杂句式的使用当然更依赖大量的阅读和联系。然而想要写出比较好的从句，其实也是有技巧的。就拿一位同学写过的一篇作文来举一个例子，来看这道托福作文：
 

Some people like to record their life by sharing pictures and other information on social networking sites. Others keep this information to themselves and never share it online. Which do you prefer?

有一位同学其中一段的观点是，通过在社交网站上分享个人信息，人们可以更好的留存自己的记忆。其中例子部分他时这样写的：

Last year is my parents' 20th anniversary of marriage. I gave them CDs and photos as gift. These CDs and photos are collected from their Facebook home pages. After receiving my gift, they were deeply impressed.

可以看出，这个段落犯了许多同学容易犯的问题——依然是简单句的大量堆砌。然而，想要把这段文字改正比较好的复合句，其实并不难，首先我们要从每一句话在这个例子中所起的作用是什么：

Last year is my parents' 20th anniversary of marriage. 这句说的是时间发生的时间

I gave them CDs and photos as gift. 这是整件事的核心。

These CDs and photos are collected from their Facebook home pages. 这是对礼物的句子描述，也就是定语。

After receiving my gift, they were deeply impressed. 这句说的是时间发生之后的结果。

这样分析就非常简单了，只要把每一个部分起到的作用后面加上“从句”两个字，这个句子的改写方法就呼之欲出了。

Last year is my parents' 20th anniversary of marriage.可以改成时间状语从句，加上when

I gave them CDs and photos as gift.不变

These CDs and photos are collected from their Facebook home pages.可改成定语从句，加上which

After receiving my gift, they were deeply impressed.可改成结果状语从句，也可以选择用非谓语动词表示结果。

把这些句子重新组合在一起，就可以这样写：

For instance, when it comes to my parents' 20th anniversary of marriage last year, I gave them CDs and photos, which were collected from their Facebook home pages, as gift, impressing them deeply.

由此我们可以看出，只需要适当的修改，刚才还是简单句的罗列，现在已经成为了比较规范的复合句。自然这些句子还可以写得更好，如可以选择更贴切的词汇。但对于许多还不习惯使用复合句的学生而言，这已经是符合ETS要求的规范的句式。