Chapter 1:
Welcome! This introduction will help you get the most out of the five pounds of questions that you just bought.
The TOEFL (the Test of English as a Foreign Language) tests the English-language skills of people who would like to study at a university or college that teaches in English.
The TOEFL measures your ability to read and understand passages written in general academic English. It also measures your ability to understand spoken lectures on academic topics, as well as conversations about common situations that might occur on university campuses.
Finally, the TOEFL measures your ability to produce functional English in response to general questions and to specific short readings, lectures, and conversations. You’ll speak some responses and write others.
Like any standardized test, the TOEFL can feel a little artificial. But remember, you’re planning to attend an English-speaking college or university. The better you get at TOEFL English, the better you’ll be at college English.
Your preparation for the TOEFL isn’t just preparation for the TOEFL. It can help you succeed in your future academic program.
The TOEFL consists of four separate sections. Each section focuses on a different set of English skills: reading, listening, speaking, or writing. The whole test takes between three and four hours.
You will have 60 to 80 minutes to read three or four academic passages. You will answer between 12 and 14 questions per passage. The topics are drawn from science and the humanities. Most of the questions will be multiple-choice.
You will have 60 to 90 minutes to respond to questions about some lectures and some conversations. You will listen to four to six different lectures and answer six questions about each lecture. You will also listen to two or three conversations and answer five questions about each conversation. Most of the questions will be multiple choice.
Break. There is a 10-minute break between Sections 2 and 3.
You will have 20 minutes to complete six different speaking tasks. You will listen to or read some information and then have between 15 and 30 seconds to prepare your response. You will then speak aloud for between 45 and 60 seconds.
You will have 50 minutes to write two essays. You will be given topics for each essay.
Go to www.ets.org/toefl for more details and logistics. At the TOEFL’s official site, you can sign up for the test, get the latest information directly from the test-makers, and find even more practice questions. The book The Official Guide to the TOEFL Test is another great source of both information and practice.
Before you take the real exam, you will want to exercise your skills on a lot of good TOEFL-style questions. That’s why this book exists.
This book, together with its online-only chapters, contains over 1,500 questions that mirror the content and format of the TOEFL. The proportions of various question types, topics, and difficulties roughly reflect the proportions of the exam. That said, we’ve added an extra dose of Reading passages and Listening lectures, because academic material is good for you.
The printed book contains 1,048 questions. We couldn’t fit any more and stay even close to five pounds! You’ll find hundreds of additional questions in the online-only chapters. Be sure to take advantage of these additional problems. They’re part of the book.
Chapter 2 contains a short diagnostic test, with 28 questions across six different prompts. With this test, you can figure out how to prioritize your studies.
Chapters 3 through 6 contain 516 Reading questions across 38 academic passages. The first three chapters are organized by topic (Humanities, Social Science, and Natural Science), so that you can concentrate on the topics you need to practice most. The final chapter offers mixed practice. Each chapter is followed by an answer key and a full set of explanations (this is the case throughout the book).
Chapters 7 through 12 contain 360 Listening questions across 60 academic lectures. These six chapters are again organized by topic. Spend more time on the topics that are more challenging for you. For Listening questions, you’ll access the audio tracks online.
Chapters 13 and 14 contain 80 Listening questions across 16 campus conversations. These chapters are mixed by conversation type. Again, you’ll access the audio tracks online.
Chapters 15 through 20 contain 48 Speaking questions. These six chapters correspond to the six different types of speaking tasks. You will need to record yourself speaking your answers to these questions. Some tasks also have audio tracks for you to listen to.
Chapters 21 and 22 contain 16 Writing questions. These two chapters correspond to the two types of writing tasks. You will need to type an essay in response to these questions. Some tasks also have audio tracks.
The Appendices provide optional skill-building support. The appendices include advice about how to learn vocabulary, how to practice reading at a university level, and how to write complex sentences. The appendices also provide guidance about maximizing your score on test day.
Finally, the online-only chapters (23 through 36) contain 456 more practice questions of every type. Chapters 23 and 24 contain 218 Reading questions across 16 passages of mixed topics. Chapters 25 and 26 contain 102 Listening questions across 17 lectures of mixed topics, while Chapters 27 and 28 contain 75 Listening questions across 15 conversations of various types. Chapters 29 through 34 contain 46 Speaking questions, representing all six types. Chapters 35 and 36 contain 15 Writing questions, representing both types.
Now that you’ve opened the book, put pen to paper. Do some questions! Get started with the Diagnostic chapter.
Use your results to help you decide which sections of the test you want to address first. Start with a weaker area—but don’t start with your weakest area. Give yourself an opportunity to improve something. This will help motivate you to keep going. And, as your overall skills improve, you will make more progress on your weakest area.
Study consistently—every day, if you can. Often, people think that if they don’t have time to study for two or three hours, they shouldn’t bother to study today. That’s not true! Even 20 or 30 minutes can make a big difference—if you do it every day.
Here are a few ideas.
Do some questions untimed and do others timed. By doing some questions without timing yourself, you give your brain a chance to wrestle with the issues in a less stressed way. That can be good for learning. But you should also do some questions under time pressure. After all, the real test will put you on the clock. Ultimately, you should practice as you play: mimic real test conditions most of the time, especially as you get closer to test day.
Here are some timing
guidelines:
Reading:
20 minutes per passage (and accompanying questions). Spend a couple of minutes scanning the passage to get the main ideas, then dive into the questions. Fortunately, the questions follow the general order of the passage, so you don’t have to jump around.
Listening: 10 minutes per lecture or conversation (and accompanying questions). After you listen to the audio, you will have approximately 6 to 7 minutes left to answer the questions.
Speaking: Train yourself to use all
but 5 to 10 seconds of the given time for that task. For instance, if you are
given 60 seconds to respond, aim to respond in 50 to 55 seconds. This will help
you to make sure you give a complete response in the given time.
Writing: Spend about two minutes
brainstorming and organizing your essay. Then start writing. Leave yourself
about three minutes at the end to re-read your essay and fix any errors or typos.
(It’s okay if you still have some errors! That is expected.)
Do some questions individually and do others in sets. At first, stop after each question and check your answer. See what you can learn from that question before you try another. As you progress, though, shift more and more of your work to sets of questions. You don’t have to do a huge number of questions at once. But doing a full passage, or doing one of each of the six Speaking tasks in a row, is a more realistic workout.
Do some sets of questions and/or passages by topic or type and do other sets that are mixed. The traditional way to develop a skill is to drill it: Do the same kind of question/passage, or nearly the same kind, repeatedly. This approach works up to a point. On the real test, you will have to jump around among topics. So practice “mixed” sets, in which you do passages, lectures, or conversations that are not so closely related to each other. Doing mixed sets forces you to become better at switching gears and distinguishing cases—just like the real test will force you to do.
You will probably want to do some of these questions more than once. So don’t write in this book. Instead, do your work in a separate notebook. Then you can come back later and redo passages and questions under time pressure. That way, you can be sure that you can tackle similar material on the real exam. You have lots of questions available to you, but you don’t always want to do new material. Going back over the same ground again—really forcing yourself to redo the work—may be the most valuable part of your preparation.
Seriously! Now go get a different book: The Official Guide to the TOEFL Test or one of the volumes of Official TOEFL iBT Tests. These books are from ETS, the makers of the TOEFL.
Why on earth would we recommend that you use a different book from this one? The reason is that every third-party TOEFL preparation book—every book written by people like us who are not the test-makers—must fall a little short. Only the Official Guide (or materials that you get from www.ets.org/toefl) can provide actual questions retired from the TOEFL.
At a couple of points along the way, especially toward the end of your preparation, do a timed practice test using real TOEFL questions. Make sure that you apply test-room conditions as best you can—turn off your cell phone, close the door, make sure your spell-check and grammar-check are turned off when you write your essay, etc. Then score your results.
Such practice tests give you the most authentic measure of what you might get on the real exam that day. No practice test is perfect, even one with retired TOEFL questions in it, but you want to be able to trust your practice test score as much as possible. That score is not destiny—far from it! A practice test is not a crystal ball. But you need to know your current level as accurately as you can, so that you can figure out what you need to practice in order to get even better.
A great one-two punch for the TOEFL is this five-pound book for your workouts, plus The Official Guide to the TOEFL Test for practice exams.
1. Do less new—redo old. The week before the test, your goal is to review what you already know. Avoid doing too many new questions. In fact, it’s totally fine just to redo questions you’ve already seen. You need to rehearse what you know and feel good about it. You don’t want to try to learn too much, tire yourself out, and crash on test day.
2. Sleep enough. There is no substitute for sleep. Your brain absolutely needs it. Prioritize the TOEFL over other commitments the week before the test. Stick to a consistent sleep schedule—go to bed at the same time every night and get up at the same time every morning. If you are nervous the night before and don’t get enough sleep, you will still be okay if you got enough sleep for the week before.
3. Take a shot and move on. During the test, avoid getting bogged down on any one question. Take your best guess or make your best attempt. Then forget about that question and proceed to the next one. You won’t feel great about every single answer—that’s okay. You can still get a good score even if you mess up a few questions.
4. During the break, get up and drink a little sugar (a certain kind of sugar). The exam is a physical marathon as much as it is a psychic ordeal. By getting up and walking around, you re-energize your body, which is what your brain rides around in. On long tests that tax you physically and mentally, use your break to get back some of your mental energy.
Did you know your brain runs on glucose, a simple sugar? Quick delivery of glucose to your brain has been shown to counteract decision fatigue—the stupefied mental state you get into after you’ve made a whole bunch of decisions. Decision fatigue can easily strike when you’re taking a long test.
Drink a little pure fruit juice or fresh coconut water. Do not chug a giant soda or some weird energy drink. Also stay away from caffeine. (You need to recover mental energy, not physical energy. Also, you don’t want to have to go to the bathroom in 15 minutes!)
Get rid of that decision fatigue, and you’ll start the next section in a much stronger and readier state of mind.
* * *
That’s it—you’re ready! Head for the Diagnostic Test. Good luck!