Things you should know before taking TOEFL

(Test of English as a Foreign Language)

What is TOEFL?
The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) is required for international students seeking an admission in US
universities and colleges for higher studies. TOEFL measures the ability of non-native speakers of English to use and
understand North American English as it is spoken, written and heard in college and university settings.

TOEFL is an exam required by most US and Canadian university to prove proficiency (especially international students
coming from countries where English is not native language) in English. It measures your listening, reading, speaking and
writing skills to perform academic tasks in English. Many Universities in Europe and other countries also accept TOEFL
(IELTS is popular outside USA). Popularity of TOEFL is growing.

There are two formats for the TOEFL test. The format you take depends on the location of your test center. Most test
takers take the TOEFL iBT test. Test centers that do not have Internet access offer the Paper-based Test (PBT).

TOEFL iBT
The TOEFL iBT® test is given in English and administered via the Internet. There are four sections (listening, reading,
speaking, and writing) which take a total of about four and a half hours to complete, including check-in.

Who Takes the TOEFL® Test?

More than 30 million people from all over the world have taken the TOEFL® test to demonstrate their English-language
proficiency. The average English skill level ranges between Intermediate and Advanced.

 Students planning to study at a higher education institution

 English-language learning program admissions and exit
 Scholarship and certification candidates
 English-language learners who want to track their progress
 Students and workers applying for visas

Where and When Can I Take the TOEFL iBT Test?

The TOEFL test has more test dates (over 50 per year) and locations than any other English-language test in the world.
You can retake the test as many times as you wish, but you cannot take it more than once in a 12-day period. If you
already have a test appointment, you cannot register for another test date that is within 12 days of your existing
appointment.

This retake policy will be enforced even if a violation is not immediately identified (e.g., inconsistent registration
information).

 If the violation is identified after registration but before the test date, your test appointment will be canceled
and your test fees will not be refunded.
  If the violation is identified after your test scores have been reported, your scores will be canceled, you will be
notified of the cancellation and your test fees will not be refunded.

Is there an age requirement?

- No, there ae no age or eligibility requirements to take the TOEFL test.

Do TOEFL scores expire?

- Scores are valid for 2 years from the test date.

How often is the test given?

- The TOEFL iBT test is given on predetermined dates, over 50 times a year, at thousands of secure, Internet-
based test centers around the world.

- The TOEFL Paper-based Test (or TOEFL® PBT) is offered in areas where testing via the Internet is not available.
You can register online or by mail.

What score is needed in universities?

- There are no passing or failing scores for the TOEFL test. Universities and programs that accept TOEFL scores set
their own score requirements based on specific English skills their students need to have. Therefore, score
requirements can vary. It’s recommended that you contact the institution directly to fully understand the
requirements.

Combining All Four Skills: Listening, Reading, Speaking, and Writing

During the test, you are asked to perform tasks that combine more than one skill, such as:

 Read, listen and then speak in response to a question

 Listen and then speak in response to a question
 Read, listen and then write in response to a question
Native-speaker English Accents
The Listening and Speaking sections of the TOEFL iBT test include other native-speaker English accents in addition to
accents from North America. You may hear accents from the U.K., New Zealand or Australia.

ETS added these accents to better reflect the variety of native English accents you may encounter while studying abroad.

TOEFL IBT READING

The Reading section of the TOEFL measures your ability to read and understand passages in English. This is a critical skill
because students in North American universities are expected to read (a lot!), and to understand, discuss, write about,
paraphrase, and summarize the ideas they have read.

The reading passages in the TOEFL iBT deal with subjects that students normally study in the first and second years of
university. These include the natural sciences, social sciences, business, and the arts. The language used in the reading
passages is formal and academic.

Nevertheless, you don’t need any specific subject knowledge to do well in the Reading section. Of course, if your subject
is economics, and there is a passage about economics, then no doubt you will feel more comfortable but you don't need
to have specific knowledge about economics to answer the questions.

In fact, the exam is testing your ability to read about different types of subject areas and still gain a basic, intelligent
understanding of what has been written.

The purpose of the passages may be to describe something, to make an argument, to provide historical information or
to give a biography of someone's life.

TWO POSSIBLE VERSIONS

There are two possible versions of the TOEFL Reading Section:

- The short version

- The long version

The reason for this difference is that ETS – the makers of the TOEFL – experiment with certain passages for future tests
and students are the ones they experiment on. That's how it is.

So that means you may get three passages to read on your exam, or you might get five. Also, you don't know which
passages will be graded and which ones are experimental, so you have to do all of them as well as you can.

So if you have the short format, you have three passages of 20 minutes each and 12–14 questions each. That means this
whole section would be 3 x 20 minutes, or 60 minutes long.

If you have the long format, you could get two additional passages which would mean that this section would be 100
minutes in all.
QUESTION TYPES
There are about 10 types of questions which you could get after each reading passage on the TOEFL. The way to get a
high TOEFL Reading score is to become familiar with and master each type of question and to learn how to answer those
types of questions correctly. The question types include identifying and recognizing:

 facts and details

 negative facts
 referrents
 vocabulary in context
 inferences
 purpose
 paraphrases
 coherence
 main ideas
 logic of the information

ACADEMIC STRATEGIES
Learning and practicing certain reading and academic strategies can help you succeed on the TOEFL and after the TOEFL.
These include: pre-viewing, reading faster, using context, making inferences, skimming, scanning, making connections,
summarizing, taking notes and synthesizing,

Improving each of these sub-skills will enable you to get a higher overall score in the reading section.

TOEFL iBT LISTENING

The Listening section of the TOEFL iBT measures your ability to understand conversations and lectures in English.

In this part of the TOEFL iBT, you will encounter two types of language:

 Informal, Non-academic, and Conversational - in the form of typical campus conversations – for example,
between two students, a student and professor, etc.
 Formal and Academic – in the form of lectures from various fields of study such as natural sciences, social
sciences, the arts and business. Again, you don't need any special knowledge to do well in this section.

The entire listening section consists of 2-3 conversational passages and 4-6 lectures. This takes about 40–60 minutes to
complete because you could get some extra experimental listening passages. You hear the conversations and lectures
only once but you are allowed to take notes. You will see the questions on the screen in addition to hearing them.

In general, the questions in the TOEFL iBT Listening section fall into three categories:

- Basic comprehension questions

- Pragmatic understanding questions
- Connecting and synthesizing questions

TOEFL iBT SPEAKING

The Speaking section of the TOEFL iBT is about 20 minutes long and measures your ability to express yourself orally in
English about a variety of topics. There are six tasks in this section, of two different kinds: independent and integrated.
The first two are independent tasks in which you are asked questions based on your personal knowledge and
experience. An example of an independent task is "What event in your life made you very happy?" You are given the
topic, you have 15 seconds to prepare, and 45 seconds to speak.

The next four are integrated speaking tasks, which are divided in the following way:

In the first two, you have a short reading passage, then a listening, and then you have to speak. You are given 30
seconds to prepare and 60 seconds to speak.

In the last two, you listen to a conversation or lecture and then speak in response to a question about it. You are given
20 seconds to prepare, and 60 seconds to speak.

You can take notes on paper, but you don't have much time to write. The 30 seconds given during the Listening section
of the TOEFL is just to organize your thoughts, not to actually think. Your preparation time is really in all your life up to
that point.

TOEFL iBT WRITING

The last section on the TOEFL iBT is Writing, for which you have a total of 50 minutes. This part measures your ability to
communicate clearly in writing and compose well-organized essays using correct grammar, spelling, vocabulary, and
sentence structure.

You are given two types of writing tasks:

 Integrated
 Independent

In the integrated TOEFL writing section, you will be given a short reading passage and listening passage on the same
topic. You can take notes during this time. Then you will be given 20 minutes to write an essay of about 150-225 words,
explaining how the listening passage either supports the reading passage or contradicts the reading.

The second part of the TOEFL Writing section is the independent essay. You are given one topic, and you have 30
minutes to write an essay of about 4-5 paragraphs, or 300-350 words. For key transition words and essay strategies
which can earn you a top score in the independent essay, check the Writing Skills section.

INTEGRATED WRITING
The integrated writing task comes first and is organized in the following way:

You read a passage - 3 minutes

You listen to a related lecture - 2 minutes

You write an essay - 20 minutes

In your response to the integrated question, you will be asked to summarize the points made in the lecture and either
show how the lecture supports the points made in the reading passage or show how the lecture casts doubt on the
points made in the reading passage.

It is helpful to make notes of the main points as you read, though the reading passage does reappear when it is time to
write. More importantly, you must make notes while listening, as you have only one opportunity to hear the lecture.
Listen carefully for arguments, explanations and examples which support or challenge the points made in the reading. It
is essential that you take detailed notes while listening or you won’t have enough material to write about.

Your essay may be set up as one long paragraph or three paragraphs. In terms of organization, you have two ways in
which you could structure your response: You could compare and contrast each point as you go along. For example,
“The reading passage states that….” , “On the other hand, the lecture argues that… .” Alternatively, you could list all of
the points made in the reading passage in one paragraph and all the points made in the lecture in the next paragraph.