hello hello hello everybody my name is Steve Ford and welcome to your English
lesson today we're going to be talking about tips for studying for the TOEFL
and I have a great question to start us off from Armen so let's go hello I want
to apply to take in a TOEFL exam but I'm very afraid I don't have a great solace
in the confidence to pass the exam please help me how to get high scores
first off Armen I want to say thank you because it goes without saying that to
admit that you are afraid takes a lot of courage and I have a few tips here that
hopefully will make you feel a little bit more relaxed my first tip is you
need to know the score that you need to gain entrance to get into a university
here so some universities and I will post a link for this some universities
they require that you get a high score now what is the total score the maximum
score that you can get is a hundred and twenty and there are four sections so
each section is worth 30 points maximum and Harvard and Yale two Ivy League
schools those are two examples of a high score requirement where you need at
least a hundred to get in for the MBA program and I remember this because I
was preparing a guy who was trying to get into the Harvard Business School
program that score that he needed was a hundred and ten and he needed 26 on the
speaking we'll talk about that in a bit so you can see that in these two cases
the score requirement is quite high especially because you need to get 26 on
the speaking and that's my next point not only do some universities require
that you get a high score some universities also depending on the
program depending on if you need this maybe not to get into university but to
practice your profession here in North America they also need you to get a 26
on the speaking now before you stress out about this there is a long list of
other universities in North America that have different range requirements there
are some universities that only need between 70 and 80 which is not so high
there are some universities that have a requirement of 80 to 90 which is a
little higher and then from 90 to 100 which goes higher second tip how
advanced does my English need to be this is a question that I get a lot how
advanced as your English need to be from my experience most people think that it
needs to be more advanced more advanced than what the TOEFL requires so you
don't need to be a native speaker you don't need to be completely fluent
flawless no mistakes if you take a look at the TOEFL rubric for the speaking for
the writing even if you get a top score some mistakes are allowed so you can
forget about that you don't need to worry about that however you do need to
be able to understand what is being said in the lectures and there's lectures
there's listening in the listening section there's listening in the writing
there's listening in the speaking so you need to be familiar with a wide range of
topics different kinds of vocabulary in different kinds of situations that's
important but you don't need to speak exactly like a university professor
that's just not realistic okay my next point is also very important the TOEFL
is like fast food that's what I tell all my students it's like fast food so it's
there it's ready very quickly and we know the TOEFL is quick you only have 45
seconds for speaking in some parts and 60 seconds for speaking 30 minutes for
writing that doesn't give you much time 20 minutes for writing too so I call it
the fast food test so it's more of a methodical way of looking at your
English and you don't have to worry about the originality of your idea
yes that's more like French cuisine where you can see there's a lot of
thinking behind that no you don't need to show that you're a deep thinker and
sometimes my students tell me they get a question on the TOEFL and they don't
have any personal experience well maybe you're just going to have to say
something that isn't exactly true you're making it up you're becoming a
storyteller the last thing I want to say is that you can speak English right now
maybe you can go to a bar and you can talk about your weekend like I went to
the bar and I was hanging or hanging out with my friends we got together and we
were just chilling but when you go to talk about something more specific in
terms of context so let's say you get a lecture on biology Oh biology yes it's
the pet peeve of all my students it's the thing they love to hate unless
you're a doctor or someone in that field then it becomes more difficult for you
to find the words you want to use so that's why you need to practice you need
to become familiar with the material get some material you can buy a book cd-rom
nowadays they have online practice tests and you can that way become familiar
with it for the English that is used in general you can get that from American
TV series American movies there's so much available nowadays my last message
for you and this is a very important message not just for the TOEFL but for
your life I've seen many quotes online for courage what is courage courage for
me is moving forward when you're afraid think about that so courage isn't some
brave lion walking through the forest I'm afraid of no one I'm the biggest in
the forest no courage is when you're afraid you admit you're afraid
just like Armand did but you keep going and I want you to keep going
don't give up and I'm sure that you can do it well
everybody I hope that you enjoyed this video a little bit of inspiration and a
lot of tips based on my years of teaching experience if you have a
question you can always contact me at the links below this video and I hope to
see you in our next offal lesson bye for now