Hello! Hello! Hello Everybody and welcome to TOEFL Test Prep 19
Today I am going to be covering independent speaking questions
since they are one of the most difficult parts of the speaking section
We are going to look at: typical mistakes students make and how you can polish such mistakes
Let's take a look at our first sample question
So let's listen to a student sample
Paraphrasing
You need to know that the TOEFL raters love to see if the students can paraphrase what was originally said
and this shows you have a good command of English
If paraphrasing is difficult for you, I suggest you get used to using online Thesauruses
and merriam-webster.com is only a click away
So "I prefer" and "daily basis" could be substituted with: "I favor" and "every day"
The first one is singular vs. plural: "I prefer to do my HOMEWORKS on (a) daily basis".
Homework is an irregular non-count noun and NEVER takes an "s"
Other examples are information and advice
We also have: universit(ies) exam
university in this case should be used as an adjective, so no "s"
and exam should be exams: university exams
The article is missing "on (a) daily basis".
If there are constant mistakes with articles and prepositions in the speaking and writing
you will get a lower score
This is the case here with: (a) (p)art-time job, I was (an) organized (p)erson
in "the" studying, he failed in "the" exam
Articles are tricky for students all over the world and when they're under pressure
they tend to make more mistakes than normal
My experience with people who speak: Russian, Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Chinese, Farsi, Polish
I can remember off the top of my head that particularly those speaking Russian, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Chinese
are the students who needed to be more on guard or needed to be on guard in terms of using articles
I can't highlight enough the importance of word choice in both the TOEFL Speaking and Writing sections
Here is where our student could have really shone he could have boosted his score significantly
"This organize my life" could be: I can schedule my life better or I can budget my time this way
or I can manage my weekly schedule more effectively
"situation could delay a person's progress"
someone may fall behind, lag behind, not be able to keep up because of a situation
Another mistake:"he failed in "the"exam because he delay finishing his homework"
He could have said: " he failed in(delete) an exam because he put off finishing his homework
We also have the repetition of "organized": "I was (an) organized (p)erson"
and "he delay finishing his homework and was not organized"
He could have said "he was not a good planner"
I'd like to point out that phrasal verbs suggestions are crucial in the speaking section
Try to make phrasal verbs part of your daily routine!
I remember last year when I had (a) (p)art-time job, I could succeed and finish all my universit(ies) exam(s).
When you use "could" to talk about past ability, make sure you don't use it for a single occasion
For example: Last year when I had a part-time job, I could pass all of my exams
This is a specific occasion, not a GENERAL ABILITY in the past and should be "I was able to pass all of my exams"
If you were talking about something as a general ability for your past like
"when I was young I always did my homework and could pass my exams easily" it's OK.
it's over a long duration of time
The feedback I've received from many of my students as of late is that TOEFL raters are becoming more demanding in regard to a student's pronunciation
Here are a few examples
The "P" ends up sounding like a "b". It makes it hard to be understood
especially if a student were speaking more quickly than in our example
Overall the student was essentially intelligible though a bit choppy at times
Advanced conversation classes would definitely benefit this student's fluency and pronunciation
The first example seems like a valid reason speaker had for making sure he was up-to-date with his homework
since he had a part-time job and how his management skills, his time management skills helped him pass all of his university exams
The second example does not connect to his first point
forcing the rater to guess what the connection is! what is it?
The second point talks about how unexpected circumstances of his friend forced him to put off doing his homework
This has no relation to his first point which was about the student's personal preference
which was what the question was about. "Which do you prefer and why?"
Well everyone! I've just shown you several ways to evaluate your own speaking for the TOEFL speaking section
I look forward to our next video, next time
bye for now