TOEFL® essay: Question using numbers, statistics in an independent essay

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Is it okay to use numbers and statistics in the body paragraphs of an independent task to support my opinion or topic sentence? I am not sure if it is ok to do this? (for example: Time magazine says that "In Canada and the US has more than 1,500 students and professional volunteers are looking at ways to bring technology to the world's poor.

Is it okay to use that kind of number in a TOEFL essay if I say Time magazine said this?

thanks!

TOEFL listening lectures: A lecture from a life sciences class (2)