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I'm recently revising my Japanese for the upcoming JLPT this July (I'm taking N4), and I came up with difficulties in using these 2 items.

For example:

気分が良くなりました。やっとねつが (下がりました...)。

(I have to choose そうです ・ ようです to fill in the blank)

Can there be a simple way to distinguish between them? Thank you in advance !

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    Clearly, here the two sentences are fine. It's just that そう reports 伝聞 whereas よう describe a 状態. Thus, if you are talking (気分が良くなりました。could be an hint) then you describe your situation (directly) thus you would use よう.
    – 永劫回帰
    May 5, 2016 at 2:42
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    This thread might be some help... japanese.stackexchange.com/q/16312
    – chocolate ♦
    May 5, 2016 at 6:51

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No matter what your choice be, you can append ようです or そうです, the sentence will be grammatically perfect. What is important here is the context.

The sentence

気分が良くなりました。

indicates that the speaker talks about himself, otherwise, the statement should be less direct. Thus the fact that the fever cooled is first-hand information from the speaker, he describes his state (that is what ようです is for: describing a state) whereas そうです when appended to a 終止形 indicates rumor (it seems that, it is said that, ...) not to be mixed up with the そうです that clip itself on the 連用形 and express also a state (in the same way as ようです).

To sum up, here the speaker describes a first-hand fact, thus he can't use そうです here, ようです is the correct answer.

EDIT: As pointed out by chocolate, よう・そう would rather connect to さがった rather than さがりました.

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    そのままくっつけて「さがりました＋ようです」にせず、「 さがった ＋ようです」に形を変えることも、一言、付け加えて差し上げれば、なおのことよろしいかと... ＾＾
    – chocolate ♦
    May 5, 2016 at 7:13

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