The TOEIC test or the "Test of English for International Communication" will be
updated in June of 2018. The last time this test was updated was
back in 2007. A lot of you are familiar with that test. So we've got a few
changes coming up and we want to do a quick overview of what you need to
expect. First off the test is basically the same as far as vocabulary and
grammar structures and, you know, the basic business situations that are used
during the test. So all your preparation materials for the old test, the test from
2007, can be used for this new test. So it's not a huge difference in test just
a few little format changes. You will need to replace your practice test,
however, and we'll talk about that at the end of the slideshow. First of all,
there are not going to be any changes in the number of questions, still 200.
No changes in the combined score, you know, which is 10 to 990. Supposedly there are no
changes in the difficulty. I've pointed out a few places where I think the
changes have made it a bit more difficult but ETS, the testing
organization, says that the difficulty is the same. And also the
overall length, which is two grueling hours, that's the same. Now, if we start
off with the Listening Part 1 and the changes that you're going to see. I'm
sure you're familiar with this part. We've got the photograph and then the
four statements that best describe the photograph. The 2007 test had 10 photos
and they have reduced it to six. The test
before 2007, I believe had 20 photos. So this is definitely the easiest part of
the test and the reduction in photos will will hurt the lower levels.
Listening Part 2. This could be a difficult part of the test for some test
takers because the student just listens to the question and then (the question or
statement) and then he must decide on the best response. So he listens to three
responses and, you know, there's no support. There's nothing written for him.
You've just got your answer sheet in front of you and you just go through the
questions. So it's very easy to lose your place here; difficult to stay
concentrated. They have reduced the number of these questions from thirty
down to twenty-five so I think that's a good thing for most test takers in
general because this was long, you know, and you get a neck ache keeping your
head down focused on your answer sheet. So this is a good thing.
Part Number Three. Now this is where the students listen to a conversation and
then answer three questions concerning that conversation. It's more difficult
now they've increased the number of conversations. So we've got 13 total now
and they've also increased the number of people involved in the conversation, the
number of participants, so it could be as many as three. They're still using
accents from the US, Great Britain, Canada and Australia but you've got to keep up.
The test takers will have a little bit more difficulty because there are
shorter sentences, more exchanges, because there's more people involved in the
conversation. Another new addition is that the TOEIC is trying to be more
curvrent with the way we speak instead of so, you
know, scholarly and they're including "gonna" and "wanna" so
some of the test takers who prepare for the test with TV series will like this!
There will be questions with implied meaning in the conversation so that more
advanced students will really like that because they can kind of, you know, read
between the lines, listen between the lines and pick up on these implied
meanings. And then the last change is for the three questions per conversation.
There can be a small graphic so you've got a table of data that you've got to
compare with what you're hearing during during the conversation so that's
definitely increasing the difficulty. Listening Part Four. Now these are short
talks compared to the conversations in part three and these talks, you know, they
can be an radio advertisement or an announcement at a training session
it varies. And we're also including the three questions per talk with that
little graphic and there will also be implied meaning of the talk so, you know,
we're increasing the difficulty in the listening, I believe. Now we're going
to move onto the reading section, Reading Part Five. These are the famous
fill-in-the-blank grammar questions and in the older version in 2007 they had 40
grammar questions and it ranged from linking words, pronouns, word families so
for some students who are stronger in listening skills than grammar, they hated
this section. So those "grammar haters" will be happy to see the number of
questions reduced to 30. Reading Part Six. Now this is where, you
know, it's still fill in the blank with grammar and vocabulary but it's in a
context so it's in a text. They've increased the number of texts by 4 so
there are 16 texts with 3 or 4 questions for each text. I think, you know, when we
have to choose grammar or vocabulary, it's always easier in a in a context, in
a paragraph or short text than these, you know, one-line questions. So I'm happy to
see that they've increased the number of questions in context. So here's our final
reading part, Reading Part 7 and this part is pure reading comprehension so a
lot of students who can read quickly can do well in this this part of
the test. I sometimes even advise my students to start with section with part
7, you know, because the answers are there. It's just reading comprehension. It's not
guessing at grammar or vocabulary. So they have increased the number of
questions by 5 so that's a good thing: reducing the pure grammar and increasing
the reading comprehension. Now there could be as many as 3 different
documents that the test takers have to read before answering three questions.
It's still pretty heavy-duty and difficult but if if you like reading
comprehension, you'll be happy to know that you've got five more questions. As I
said earlier, it will be important for you as teachers, as preparation teachers,
to pick up some new practice tests and they're really hard to find.
I was looking mainly on Amazon and then of course on the ETS website, you know
the one who produces the TOEIC test. I did
find three different books. Here's the first one. I was not, it's called the
TOEIC primer, and I was not able to to flip through it. It says it has updated
tests. I noticed the publication date was 2017
but on the cover it has 2018 and 2019 so I'm really
hoping that these are really updated tests and, you know, I hope it's the good
book for you guys. Here's the next book I found this is referenced as
'official' from the ETS website. The publication company is Hachette which is
French so this book is in French but it's just, you know, it's just sample
tests, practice tests so, you know, if you read French or not it really doesn't
matter. And this book has two of the older version practice tests and then
two of the newer version so I'm positive that this will be a good book to pick up.
It's got the answers so, you know, this is a good book if you don't mind that the
language is French. And then the last book I found is Barron's TOEIC
Preparation. I've used Barron's before and they, in their preparation books, they
were a little bit dry but these are practice tests and it will be in in
English and they have promised that these tests are updated. I was not able
to to flip through this book on Amazon. All three of these books run around, you
know, thirty dollars, 30 euros but you need to jump on that and get those
ordered. So if you feel like you need more information, you can go to my
website www.BusinessEnglishAllure.com and you can read the full bog blog post with
all the details. and I've also got links to all the official
documents that ETS provides. they've got the official guide, test-takers guide and
there's also a mini sample test which is a really short version. Unfortunately,
there's no audio just the tape scripts but you might, you know, just give it a
try and see if you notice a big difference in "gonna" and "wanna"
and implied meanings. There's also in this blog post, there are some
dates coming up for workshops to explain the new updates and you can find
those dates on my website, as well. So I'm looking forward to seeing you sign up
for my newsletter and we'll see you on the website!