The TOEFL iBT (Test of English as a Foreign Language, Internet based test) is one of the most common test in the world for getting into Universities these days. It evaluates an individual’s ability to understand and use English in an academic setting.
I’m going to look into this test to see what it is all about in this post to see just what you need to do and how you can excel doing it to get a great score.
A quick look at the TOEFL iBT test
The TOEFL iBT test is commonly taken to get into colleges and universities for non-native speakers, but is also a common measure of English proficiency for business, government agencies and scholarship programs.
The score is rated out of 120, with no exact score being a pass or fail. Universities and Colleges will have varying benchmark scores that they use to allow students in. For example, Harvard requires at least a 100/120 score. So participants are required to do a bit of research to see what score they will need to attain for their intended College or University.
The test is administered online, with the spoken section being recorded and sent to real human markers. The whole test is marked using a mix of both automatic markers and human markers. Onto the test preparation.
Here’s how the actual test looks:
1. Reading 3–4 passages, each containing 12–14 questions 60–80 minutes
2. Listening 6–9 passages, each containing 5–6 questions 60–90 minutes
Break 10 minutes
3. Speaking 6 tasks and 6 questions 20 minutes
4. Writing 2 tasks and 2 questions 50 minutes
So essentially, the test is broken down into four areas: reading, listening, speaking and writing. Each section is weighted evenly, so 30 points for each section max.
Let’s look into each section and see what it is really about and how you can improve your score in each.
1. TOEFL iBT Reading
As with all sections, you are allowed to take notes, so make sure you jot down some essential details. Time is an issue here, so when writing notes, use single words or short descriptions, because summarizing with sentences takes too long. It is best to have a dozen or so small helpful 3 word notes as opposed to two to three sentences.
The reading section consists of about 3-4 passages, each 700 words long. Each passage has 12-14 questions. So you have about 20 minutes each passage to read and answer questions. This is all strictly comprehension, so you do not need to know about the certain subject matter itself. The test is for your English skills, not on the passage subject.
You will be tested on your understanding of rhetorical functions such as argumentation and cause-effect. You will need to answer questions on things like, details, main ideas, inferences, sentence insertion, rhetorical purpose, vocabulary, overall ideas and essential information among other things.
So while reading, jot down in 2-3 word blocks max:
Main ideas
Details
Essential info
Do this in a sequential order.
All the other stuff, you are going to have to look at the questions that follow and answer or skim back through. This is why you need to have the above in a sequential order. It will help you know whether or not certain things happened towards the end or at the beginning of the passage, so skimming back is quick.
When reading, use your finger or a pointing device as you follow along. This gives your eyes an anchor and will help you read a lot faster. This is a common technique with speed readers.
Remember to stick to the allocated time for each section, If you do not know an answer, take your best shot at an answer and then move on, to give equal amount of time to all the questions. Then if you have extra time, you can quickly go back before moving onto the next section.
2. TOEFL iBT Listening
In this section, you will get six passages, each 3-5 minutes in length. You will get two student conversations and four academic discussions or lectures. You will only be able to listen once, so listen extremely carefully, and take notes.
Take lots and lots of notes in a sequential order. The conversation is between two people, so make sure you identify what is going on between the two. A lecture may not be between two people, but still take lots of notes. Write down any important details, ideas, information, purpose and speaker attitude. Test takers are allowed to refer to their notes when giving answers.
Listening and participating in every day conversations will give you the edge here. For lecture based listening, try getting a hold of past TOEFL iBT tests for this to get a feeling for how these will work. I suggest going to lingq.com to get their free conversations and lectures that come with scripts to practice your listening and listening comprehension through acquiring words.
3. TOEFL iBT Speaking
This section has six tasks:
2 independent tasks – basically answering opinion questions on familiar topics.
4 integrated tasks – For 2/4 you will be reading a passage and listening to a recording about campus life or a lecture. You will then have answer a question by combining appropriate information from the text and the talk. For the other 2/4, you will listen to another 2 passages (about campus life or a lecture) and answer questions from them.
Once again, take tons of notes to get the main ideas down in a sequential order. You will get a bit of time before you have to begin speaking. These get recorded and get sent away for marking.
You will need good reading, listening and speaking skills here as well as the ability to write quick notes. This all requires a good level of known words in your target language. Use a spaced repetition program like Anki to get the top 2000 most common words learnt.
Also, speaking into a computer can be hard, so practice speaking into the computer before the test to get comfortable. Treat it as if you were just chatting to a friend on the other side. Also, do not overdo it with any advanced sentences. Just keep things simple and you should be fine. You do get extra marks for advanced sentences, but it is always best to be clear and understandable, than be non-comprehensible.
4. TOEFL iBT Writing
Writing I say is by far the hardest section to get down for a language learner. Maybe it’s because you hardly ever need to write these days.
You will be given one integrated task and one independent task.
Integrated task – read a passage and listen to a speaker discuss the same topic. You will then have to write a summary about the important points in the listening passage and explain how these relate to the key aspects of the reading passage.
Independent task- Essay. You will need to ‘argue’ and support your opinions on an issue, as opposed to just listing personal choices or preferences. Keep things simple here. Try not to be too fancy, although a few advanced sentences will look good and get you extra marks. Writing correctly in a non-native language is extremely hard, so keep things simple. Pretend you are writing to a kid. But always remember to keep the essay formal.
Using Lang-8 to get better writing skills for free is a huge asset.
If you have the money, I suggest getting some books and a practice test before taking the final test to get as much practice in as possible. Doing this and combining the above tips should help you raise your TOEFL iBT score.
