It's no secret that the TOEFL reading section is tough, especially when it
comes to time management. It's so hard in fact that on August 1st, 2019 the TOEFL changed the
amount of questions that they give on the TOEFL reading to make it more manageable,
but it's still tough to answer all of the questions in the time that you're given. So,
today I want to show you my exact step-by-step process I use and that my students use to help
make sure that you answer all the questions in the time that you're given. So, my name is
Josh MacPherson I am the head instructor at TST Prep where our mission is simple, to help
you get the TOEFL score you need as quickly and easily as possible. And today I'm going to share
with you my little secret for making sure you answer all the questions in the TOEFL reading.
So, it's a start, I just want to give you a little background. I started teaching TOEFL about five
or six years ago now and it was really tough because my students were still struggling with
time management. They knew the question strategy, they knew all the tips and tricks, but they still
couldn't answer all the questions in time, and it was a struggle. So, I really wanted to find a
great way to make sure that they answer all of the questions. So, before I get into that actual
step-by-step strategy, let me just show you the new structure of the TOEFL Reading. So, the TOEFL
Reading section is now three passages, always been three passages, always spend 2,100 words which is
basically 700 words per passage, the amount of questions and time has changed. So, in the past
you had 60 minutes, now you have 54 minutes. And in the past you had around 40 questions, but now you
have only 30 questions, ten questions per passage. Now, also, by the way, let me just mention this, that
you can download the PDF version of this guide as well, if you want it in a kind of digital paper
version so to speak, so you can actually look at this guide. So, what I'm gonna do is is that now,
that you know just the slight little background about the TOEFL Reading, now you know that there's
three passages and they're pretty long and that you have to answer 30 questions. Let's look at the
actual process. And what it is is that we're gonna follow four rules when you do a TOEFL Reading. And
the first rule is that you're gonna take notes and circle. Now, the best way for me to explain this is
to just show you an example. Now, if you notice here, when I say take notes, I hope you're not too scared.
These are my notes, so they're not very long, you don't take notes about the reading passage, you
don't write anything about the passage actually, you take notes about the questions and this is
what you write down. You write down the question numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, for example, if you're
doing one passage, and then while you're taking the test, the eliminated option. So, in other words,
when you are looking at the test, you're looking at question 1 and you're not sure what the answer
is, but you know it's not A, cross it out, you know it's not C, you cross it out. I write that on my
piece of paper, that way I know that I've already eliminated. It it's hard for me to focus on all
of these different, you know, texts and different choices. So, by having it on that paper I can say,
"Oh, yeah, I eliminated A, I eliminated C, I get a look at the other choices, that's one thing you can
do. And another thing you can do is write down the questions that are confusing. So, if you see here I
circled number two. Why did I circle number two? I circled number two because I'm not sure if that's
the correct answer or not. So, I'm not sure if it's the correct answer. I'm gonna circle it on my scrap
paper, and when I go back at the end, I can go back to this question and I can know which question I'm
not sure about. All right, I'm getting a little ahead of myself. So, let me just stop there and
just say for now all you have to do is write down the numbers of each question. If you want, you can
write down the choices that you eliminate, and if there's a question that you're a little confused
about, you're not sure if you got it correct, go ahead and circle it, all right. Now, the reason
why this works is because this is how the test looks. Okay, so when you actually take the test,
you get one question per page so to speak, so you only see one question at a time, so you don't know
like it's hard to remember which question you read well, which question you were confused by.
That's why you circle on the scrap piece of paper. So, after you get a question, after you answer a
question, you could push the next button, you can go back and so on, but just for now, just so you
know this is what the test looks like basically. There's only one question on each page, and so you
want to keep track of the questions that you're not sure how you answer it, and if you're not sure,
if you need to go back, okay. All right, so next thing. Rule number two is to watch the clock. Of
course, watching the clock is important, but let's be a little more specific here. And what I mean by
watch the clock is that you should have a certain time management system. Some people teach students
about question types and how long to take. So, for example, a vocabulary question takes 60 seconds,
but a detail question takes 90 seconds. Now, when you're taking the test, you don't want to remember
all these question types and all the time that you have to do for each question type, that
would be pretty hard and it would be confusing. So, you don't want to remember for each question
type, instead think about five-minute intervals. This is going to be an easier way to help you
kind of manage your time as you go. Basically, since there are 54 minutes to answer 30 questions, you have
to finish 10 questions every 18 minutes pretty much. So, that's the big one, that you need
to think of, at 18 minutes I should be done with one passage, right, at 36 minutes I should be done
with the second passage. And here's a breakdown of five-minute intervals so you can get an idea
of it. If you notice that at minute number 50 I say question 29, and that's because you want to leave
yourself some time at the end to go back, if you can. If you want, if you can leave a few minutes,
you definitely want to do that. Okay, so that's the second rule is to watch the clock and watch it in
5-minute intervals, and at the worst-case watch it in 18-minute intervals because again, you have 18
minutes to complete each passage. All right, hope that's clear. So, if so far you're going to take
notes and circle and the next thing you do is watch the clock at five-minute intervals or 18 minute
intervals. Okay, the next thing you're going to do is you're not gonna skip any question. Do not skip
a question. Again, the questions go in order, that they go from one, two, three, four, five, and also they
go in order of the text. Question number one is in paragraph one, question number two is in paragraph
one or two, question number three is after that. So, the questions go in order that it shows up in the
passage. So, our brains like stories. We remember things better when it's in a kind of story. So,
when you let's say skip question number two and then go back at the end, it's gonna be hard for you
to remember the story, it's hard for you to remember what was going on in the passage, you're
gonna have to read a lot more. So, instead what you want to do is you want to make sure that
you answer every single question, and this goes back to rule number one, take notes and circle. Answer
the question, circle it, don't skip it, circle it. This is how you're going to keep track of
the questions that you're not sure about and you want to go back. Okay, so you want to guesstimate, is
the word that I like to use. So, guesstimate is basically like estimate and guess, guesstimate.
So, you're not sure if it's B or D, it's taking you a long time, you have to move on to the
next question. All right, I'm gonna just guesstimate, guess an estimate, and I'm just gonna guess it's B
and then I will circle this question number in my notes so then I know I should go back later.
So, don't skip a question. Answer the question and move on. A lot of people skip a question because
they're running out of time. Instead, answer the question, circle it on your scrap paper, the number,
and then move on. All right, so that's the second, that's the third rule. Now, rule number four, last
rule is review your answers. Try to leave yourself enough time at the end to go back again. You have
circled some answers, you've circled some numbers, and you want to go back to check those answers
again. So, leave two minutes at the end, to go back. The more time you can leave the better, but yeah,
try to leave at least two minutes at the end to go back. This is also a good idea to keep in mind
to make sure that you answer everything in time. All right, and when you go back, you can
actually jump to different questions. This is what the review button looks like on the TOEFL.
It'll tell you which questions you've answered and which questions you haven't answered. So, you
can always look at that review button but again, I wouldn't look at it until after you answered
everything. Don't jump around too much on the TOEFL, go in the order that they present everything in,
it'll be a lot easier to answer everything. All right, so yeah, so again, you go back and you
look at the numbers that you circled, right. So, you have in your notes, you can circle some numbers, go
back to those numbers. All right, so that's pretty much it. Most important points to consider. Use
your scrap paper to take notes, it's okay, you get a piece of paper and a pencil, use it to, again we're
not really taking notes, we're just writing down numbers and the choices that we want to eliminate
and questions that we're not sure about. Circle questions you need to review, right, I've said it
a couple times, I guess you know by now. Answer at least ten questions every eighteen minutes.
So, ten questions is one passage, try to answer each one in 18 minutes, guesstimate and review
later. If you're not sure, just take a guess and move on. And the last one, leave a few minutes at
the end to review so you can check those ones that you circled. And that's about it guys. Oh,
yeah, one more thing. You can also download the PDF version of this. You'll see it's somewhere
in the description that you can find a link to this PDF and you can download that as well to
help you manage your time, but I hope you guys got a lot out of this. Again, you could always
visit our site tstprep.com for more. So, thanks for watching guys and see you next video.