hi i'm rebecca and today we'll be
answering some questions that students
have asked about the toefl exam for
those of you who've just been told or
found out that you need to do the toefl
here are some very basic information so
that you have an idea of what the tofu
is all about okay
so ricardo has asked what is the toefl
well and what is ibt all right so let's
start from the beginning toefl is
actually an acronym an acronym means
that each letter of topo
t-o-e-f-l
stands for a word
in this case it stands for test of
english as a foreign language okay
now it's also called
the toefl ibt and that also stands for
something that stands for internet based
test because the toefl ibt is conducted
completely and entirely over the
internet you don't actually have to meet
an examiner at all it's just you and the
computer throughout the four hours or so
of this exam all right
so what is the toefl then the toefl is
an english proficiency exam
which is used to test your knowledge of
reading writing listening and
understanding english in an academic
context all right
so that's why a lot of the language used
in the toefl is in fact
academic or campus based language i'll
be talking about this in another moment
pumico from japan asks who takes the
toefl
well the toefl is obviously taken by
people who are non-native speakers of
english right
and why do they take that they take it
to get admission to university or
college
sometimes they take it for professional
reasons to get certification in their
profession in certain countries
and some students take it simply to
demonstrate their fluency in english for
a potential employer okay kumiko i hope
that answers your question
uh sven asked us what kind of english is
tested on the toefl
as i mentioned toefl is really testing
your academic english
informal
sorry
the formal and the informal english
so formal means academic lectures and
the informal part of it means
conversations on campus between student
and student between student and
professor or student and librarian
these are the types of listening and
reading and passages that you find there
okay prakash from india asked us how
long is the toefl well the toefl is a
pretty long exam
it actually takes about three and a half
to four hours
it varies for certain reasons i'll
explain that in a moment the toefl has
four sections reading writing listening
and speaking
okay
you start with the reading section
the minimum time of the reading section
is 60 minutes
that in that scenario you would have
three sections
it's possible that the reading section
could be a little bit longer it could
actually be about
five sections in which case each time
they add a section they give you another
20 minutes so it can be anything from
about 60 to 100 minutes for the reading
section
whether you have three sections or five
sections you're always tested on only
you're only sorry you're always scored
on only three sections but you don't
know which three sections
the reason sometimes you're given extra
sections is because ets the company that
makes the toefl exam wants to try out an
experiment with new
questions and you are
as it happens the ones on which on whom
they they try out these questions so you
may have to do a longer reading section
you may get the bare minimum which is
three sections and one hour long in any
case you don't know which sections are
are going to be scored so you're going
to try your best to do very well
throughout the exam okay
that's the 60 minutes reading section
that's followed by 60 minutes or 100
minutes again of a listening section
then you have a 10 minute break all
right
after the day after the break is the
speaking section
this lasts for about 20 minutes or so
you have six different tasks
and last of all you have your toefl
writing section toefl writing today
consists of two sections
in the first part it's in integrated
tasks you're given something to read
which is a few paragraphs long
then you have something to listen to
and last you have to write something
which integrates the information that
you read and that you heard you have to
sort of summarize it or contrast it and
so on
and last of all you have to write an
essay
this essay you have about half an hour
to write and it should be about 300 to
350 words which is about five paragraphs
long all right
now
most important of all almost all my
students ask me how can i get a high
score on the toefl ivt
well there's really four different ways
the first way is to have knowledge of
the test itself to understand the
structure of the test to know what to
expect in each section and so on
the second part is to have the skills
necessary to do well the primary skills
reading writing listening speaking
secondary skills such as grammar and
vocabulary
spelling and so on and also academic
skills are required to do well on the
toefl for example
note taking summarizing skimming
scanning things like this are going to
be necessary while you're doing the
toefl exam as they will be necessary
when you go to university
the third
point which will matters a lot to do
well in the toefl is your attitude of
course you want to minimize your fear
and your anxiety and you want to
optimize your positive feeling that you
can do well
last of all are the resources that you
have
access to for example you should refer
to good and current toefl ivt materials
and books whether they're online
videos such as these
books made by ets or barons or delta or
various other companies that produce
these books and also it would all be
very very helpful to attend actual
lessons there are lessons in your
countries there are many students who
travel around the world to attend toefl
programs in
english-speaking countries to bolster
their score to strengthen their score
and to improve their score so for
whatever reason you're doing the toefl i
wish you all the best
a very good website which i hope i
believe can help you a lot it's called
www.goodlucktoeful.com i'll just write
that for you
here you'll find a lot of the
information which i have mentioned here
as well as much much more lots of
resources lots of information and
there's also a toefl blog and other
questions that uh questions and answers
that will help you alright so whatever
happens good luck on your toefl bye for
now