I had a really frustrating practice session yesterday and now I am seriously asking for help on how to improve TOEFL speaking score without sounding robotic. Every time I look up how to improve TOEFL speaking score, the advice is super general like practice more or learn templates, but my problem feels more specific.

What keeps happening is this: when I have 15 seconds to prepare, my brain goes blank. Then I start speaking, the first sentence is okay, and after that I either repeat myself or panic because I think my grammar sounds bad. On independent speaking tasks I can usually think of ideas, but on integrated tasks I struggle to combine the reading and listening fast enough. I especially lose points when I try to summarize and organize at the same time.

My current speaking score in practice is around 19 to 21, and I need something closer to 24. So I am not starting from zero, which honestly makes it more annoying because I feel stuck in the same range.

What I have already tried:

using a fixed template for intro, reason 1, reason 2, conclusion
recording myself on my phone and listening back
shadowing sample responses
timing myself every day for 2 or 3 questions
making myself avoid long pauses by just keeping talking

Some of this helps, but then I listen to my recordings and it sounds too mechanical. If I stop using the template, I become less organized. If I use it, I sound unnatural. So I am kind of stuck between structure and sounding like a real person.

I also noticed a weird pattern: when I practice casually, I sound better. When I do a full timed set, I suddenly get tense and my speaking gets choppy. So maybe this is partly a nerves issue and not only an English issue?

If anyone here raised their TOEFL speaking score, what specifically made the biggest difference?

Did you focus more on pronunciation, structure, or idea development?
Did you memorize a light template or stop using templates completely?
How did you practice integrated speaking without feeling overwhelmed by notes?
Did you do full test conditions every day, or is that actually counterproductive?
How did you get better at sounding fluent even when your answer was not perfect?

I would really appreciate concrete things, like an actual routine that worked for you for 2 to 3 weeks. Even small changes would help. Right now I feel like I am practicing a lot but not practicing the right way.

Also if anyone knows whether raters care more about minor grammar mistakes or about hesitation, I would love to know. I can fix one error type at a time, but right now I do not know what matters most for getting from low 20s to mid 20s.

Thanks in advance. I am tired of hearing my own recorded voice at this point but I guess that is part of the process.