TOEFL test – what is it?
TOEFL is the test of English as a foreign language. More than seven thousand colleges and universities in one hundred and thirty countries, including the best universities in the U.S., Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand, taking the results of this exam. You can see the whole list of schools on the official website of the exam.
Wherever you decide to do – enter a foreign college, university or graduate school, you will need to demonstrate your knowledge and ability to communicate in English during the entrance exams.
TOEFL test enables students to prove that they can freely express their thoughts in English in the study and in everyday life. Language that is used in the test is modern English, the language that is used in lectures and seminars. The same language teachers express when they discuss with students the practical and theoretical problems of course.
TOEFL developed by ETS, the American testing service at Princeton University. TOEFL test was introduced in 1964, since then it’d passed more than 20 million people.
There are three types of the test: paper version (PBT - Paper-based Test), computer-based (CBT - Computer-based Test) and online version (iBT - Internet-based Test). Currently TOEFL iBT completely displace CBT, and it’s the most common type of examination. Despite of this fact, many universities continue to publish the entry requirements in terms of PBT and some Russian students still are tested on a paper version of this exam. iBT version includes tasks in the following sections: Reading, Listening, Speaking, Writing. TOEFL iBT exam is allowed and even recommended to take notes in each of the sections. The test lasts no more than 4.5 hours.
Let’s speak about the each section in detail:
READING
In this part of the exam you have to read the text and answer the questions after is. Number of texts can be from 3 to 5 (each about 700 words).
LISTENING
In Listening there’re two types of tasks: lectures and lively conversational speech between two people (students, university staff, and teachers). After listening you need to answer the questions within the specified time. Listening is divided into several parts; each of them lasts for 10 minutes.
SPEAKING
This section includes 6 exam questions that need to be answered into the microphone.
WRITING
iBT requires to write two essays. One of them is an "integrated" type of assignment: you need to read the small text and listen to a lecture on the same topic. The information presented in lectures can contrast with or complement the information obtained from the text. During reading and listening you’re allowed to make notes. You have three minutes to read the text of 200-220 words, and 20 minutes to write a short essay on 150-225 words.
If you want to know about TOEFL iBT, this is where to start. In this lesson, we’ve answer some basic questions about the TOEFL:
If you want to receive a good score, you have to practice every day and train the each section of the TOEFL test.