TOEFL Test
這篇文章是剛到英國沒多久寫的，距離考完托福不到兩個禮拜，算是趁著記憶猶新也是為了練習英文，就寫下這篇英文版的托福考試心得。
Before my flight to the United Kingdom, I took my second TOEFL test on 9/05. Although I’ve got over 100 in my last test, I tried to pursue a better score. Finally, I got a not bad result, 110 in total(R:29, L:30, S:23, W: 28). Here I want to share some tips and what I’ve learned during the test, and hope it can help others.
Resources
- For mock tests, you need a China VPN to use this resource
- For tips for the test, this blog helped me a lot
- For practicing speaking, I recommend this App, 托福口說by David
The test
Reading
The reading test usually has 3 articles and 10 questions each. It’s not very difficult to Taiwanese students. At first, you can find answers in a single paragraph so you don’t need to go through the whole article first. Just read the paragraph related to the question(the question will mark the related paragraph). In the last question, you need to select topic sentences for the article. Because you’ve read the whole article during previous questions, it’s not difficult to choose. It’s easy to go through the article quickly and find the three topic sentences.
Listening
The listening test has 2 conversations and 3 lectures, usually no longer than 6 minutes each. Each part will have 5 to 6 questions based on the content. I believe listen carefully is much more important than taking notes, because when you write notes, you’ll miss some part. I only take notes when I fully understand the meaning of the sentence, before I can understand, taking notes will make it more difficult to get the idea. The questions will not only ask about the content, but also the meaning behind the words, so thoroughly understanding is very important.
Speaking
I didn’t do well in this part, so I guess I can’t give good advices. But, anyway, there are 4 parts. The first one is to give examples to support an opinion. This is the only part that you need to convey your own idea. You can practice quickly coming up with examples to support any idea. It’s quite interesting and is also helpful in writing. The second and third one are reading an short article and listen to a short speech, then summarize the information you get. Please notice that don’t add any idea of YOURS, just speak what you READ and HEARD. Finally, the last part is to listen to one lecture and use your word to summarize. Also remember not to say any information that is beyond the lecture.
When speaking, using short sentences would be helpful, because you only have 30 or 45 seconds. Just show the main points. It also help prevent showing uncertainty. But at the end, practicing is the most important. Record your speaking and try to improve can help a lot.
Writing
The writing test has two parts. The first one is similar as the summarizing work in the speaking test. First read an article, usually supporting an idea, and then listen to a lecture that conflict with the idea. Then, use your word to summarize the information. Usually, I’ll take one example in the article, and then show the corresponding opposing opinion in the lecture. You have 20 minutes and I think around 300 words would be better.
The second part is like the first part of the speaking test. You should come up with examples to support your opinion. It’s better to have three examples. Please make sure these 3 examples are not too similar, otherwise it can’t persuade people. Three independent, thoroughly conveyed examples would be strong to support an opinion, and it’s enough for you to get good grades. You have 30 minutes and I usually wrote more than 400 words.
Conclusion
The TOEFL test is not like GRE, you don’t need to memorize a lot of vocabularies or practice with difficult logic. I recommend you do one mock test first, then you can find what the test want you to do. Just show them what they want to see, even though your English ability is in fact not very good, you can still get good grades with test skills!
