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If I could help you in some way with the following information I would be happy if you add a short commend in my guestbook! And if you find a mistake (grammar, wrong navigation or whatever): please email me so that I can correct it! THANKS! The Test of english as a foreign language (TOEFL) is a widely-used and accepted englishtest, that can be absolved in almost every country of the world (you can find all the testcentres in the undermentioned information brochure ). It is required or can be used for the application to study in almost all englishspeaking countries. Especially if you plan to study in the United States or Canada you wonīt be able to do so without the TOEFL (well, but of course you donīt have to take the TOEFL if English is your native language but in this case you wouldnīt have search for information on the TOEFL I suppose). But the test will be useful to prove your english knowledge in all other countries as well. You can find more on this topic and about the test itself on the official webside (see the link on the bottom of this page!) There you can also order or download an information bulletin for free. If you have any further question please donīt hesitate to contact me! I will help you wherever I can. But please have a lock at the information bulletin that I mentioned above first!! It will answer all your administrative questions! This is a personal experience report about the TOEFL and the preparation for the test and NOT an official TOEFL-website!!
By this time the TOEFL can only be absolved as computer-based test (that means you donīt have to write anything on paper but you can write at least the essay with pen and paper if you prefer this - see below). So you should be able to use a computer now how to work with a mouse but if you made it to this page I think this should be no problem for you. If you feel uncomfortable working with a mouse you should train this. Otherwise you will have some (time) disadvantages during the test!! You canīt fail the TOEFL! You will get points for the different sections of the test (reading, listening, structure/writing and an essay) as well as an overall number of points at the end. The different institutions which require the TOEFL have an individual number of minimum points for their applications - you should find out about this before you take the test. Basically I think that every person that feels more or less comfortable in speaking, listening and reading english (books, films, conversations etc.) should have no problem to get good points. There are serveral books and CD-Romīs (see below) for the direct testpreperation. I can hardly say how usefull they are because I didnīt use them for my own preparation which was like this: A few weeks before the test I began to read some english novels to get into the language again. I can also recommend reading english newspapers or magazines (i.e. you can get the TIME-Magazine at almost every place on the world - in some countries there are very cheap subscriptions for students!). I think this is very recommendable especially for the reading-part of the test. Two month before the test date I began to periodically watch english movies once or twice a week to practice for the listening part of the test. In my opinion this is the best preparation for this part of the test because there you have to understand short conversations about some general topics and afterwards you have to answer questions about the contents of this conversations. You can of course also watch CNN or something like this but I think itīs more fun watching movies and so it is easier to motivate yourself! The last thing you should do is to write some essays unter testconditions. You have 30 minutes for your essay. You will get a topic assigned and then you have to express your opinion, write pro- and contra-arguments or something like this. The topics are all very simple (by this I mean that there is no special knowledge needed) and deal with everyday problems or questions for example you have to express your opinion about a planned new cineam in your hometown or if you think that it is better for kids to grow up in a big city or not. All topics are printed in the informationbrochure mentioned above. I think you will not be able to learn them all and this is really not necessary anyway. But you should work on some of the topics to get a feeling of the time and to train how to formulate some easy pro- and contra-arguments in english.
The test is very accurately organised and strict (video-)surveyed. You should take enough time for the journey to your testcentre so that you have extra stress.Otherwise I canīt give you more hints at this time. If you donīt have bigger problems with exams you probably wonīt get them during the TOEFL. I just got a little bit nervous when I was on my way to the test because I thought: If you take this test now and if you pass it with enough points you really have to study abroad and there is no way back (because of the lot of money I already spent on the test ect.). But afterwards I didnīt want to go back anyway!
Well, thatīs it. Here you have some internetlinks and literature-recommendations where you can find additional help.
www.toefl.org (official homepage for the TOEFL - you can order the informationbrochure there)
Literature: (the links lead to the german Amazon homepage but you can find these books elsewhere, too) as mentioned in the text I didn`t use any special book (exept english novels) for my testpreparation but there are lots of book about the TOEFL. I got recommended especially the follwoing books (they all have very good customer reviews and seem to afford a very good test preparation):
otherwise I can just recommend to read english books and watch englisch movies! You can find a whole bunch here:
More books and preparation material:
IMPORTANT NOTE: All information are based on my own experiences (from 2001)- so dont take them as given facts! |
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