Hi All
I got 100 in my TOELF exam got the scores this week. A decent score I should say and I am happy. This was my first competitive exam in 10 years. So I was little nervous but that’s human. My target was scoring in 90’s but I got 100 so I got a Bonus 10 grades. I studies for 25 days for 7-8 hours.
Reading: 28
Listening: 28
Speaking: 19
Writing: 25
I want to share with you some of my experiences this might be useful to any one taking TOEFL.
Study Material:
I referred Barron and Kaplan Books. Plus I came to English-test.net forums to improve my writing and reading what other people were tackling the exam. I referred to ETS website for free material that also helped.
Reading:
Reading was the easiest, but was far lengthy than I practiced. I never took written notes. Always tried to understand and remember. It’s advantageous to know various topics so start reading different topics and be fast in understanding the gist.
Listening:Had easy topics but you need to concentrate a lot. I got bored by the end. I just did very little practice on this but managed well. Be an active listener. The tips in Kaplan Books helped here.
Speaking:
Personally this was my weakest as I stutter so my fluency was bad. And I could not do much about it. I could have easily score more here but the topics were easy. You need to relax and be individualistic when you answer. Your need not speak BIG words but your sentence should make sense, connect and should interesting points.
Try to be lively and concentrate on spoken grammar; a very important thing. Practice topics to speak as it builds up your fluency.
I also referred to this site for speaking assignments. Its a pretty good site.
global-english.lefora.com/jasonrenshaw/blog/
Writing:All you need to do is write words you are comfortable with.
Finish the essay in time very important. Don’t write too many ideas and make it complex. Practice keeping the essay simple first so there are fewer chances of errors and you finish on time in practice. Once you get some confidence you can always improve your vocabulary. Use interesting points, examples to make your essay interesting and readable.
Mental Makeup:
Relax and enjoy this exam you will do well. It’s not a tough exam to crack.
TOEFL listening discussions: A conversation between a professor and a student discussing a possibility