TOEFL Test-Taking Strategies

Top TOEFL Reading Tips

Tip #1: Read...a lot

Tip #2: Manage Your Time

Tip #3: Skim and Scan the Passage

Tip #4: Vocabulary Counts

Tip #5: Use Your Understanding of Essay Organization

?

iBT Reading Strategies

As you can remember,?there are nine different kinds of?questions in each iBT reading section.?

They are:

Factual and?Negative factual information questions,?

Vocabulary questions,

Rhetorical purpose questions,?

Inference questions,

Sentence simplification questions,?

Insert text questions,

and?finally Fill in a table questions.

?

1 Factual questions and negative factual questions ask?about explicit facts and?details that are given in the passage.?

They often contain questions about what,?who, when, where, why, and so on.?

The best strategy to answer?these questions is to scan the passage.?

That means reading quickly to find certain information.?

To answer factual questions?and negative factual questions,?you must scan the passage or paragraph to locate?and identify information that the question asks about.?

Then you need to compare the information that you read,?with the answer choices.

?

2 Vocabulary questions.?

Here are some strategies that you can?follow when you answer vocabulary questions.?

Number one, look at the highlighted word or?phrase and the four answer choices.?

Number two, read the sentence in which the word appears.?

Number three, if context clues do not help you?guess the meaning of the word, use word analysis.?

Number four, if you still are?not sure which answer is correct,?read the sentence to yourself with?each of the four answer choices in place.?

Inference questions.?

The answers to these questions are not?directly provided in the passage,?which means you have to read?between the lines to answer them.?

You should be able to defend your choice by pointing to?explicitly stated information in?

the passage that leads to?the inference you have selected.

?

Rhetorical purpose questions.

These questions asked why or how, in other words, they ask you why an author makes a point? Or why or how the author supports and strengthens the point in a certain way? Either way, they're about how the passage is developed. In order to answer these questions correctly, you need to use reasons and logic, and imagine that you are the author and have written the passage. Why would you use this example, or word, or statistics?

?

Sentence restatement or sentence simplification.

The best strategy is to use are paraphrasing, summarizing, and understanding essential information. From the reading part of this module, you remember the difference between paraphrasing and summarizing.

?

Insert text questions.

These questions test your understanding of correct sequencing of paragraph organization and especially of paragraph cohesion. You can think of cohesion as the glue that holds the sentences of a paragraph together. When you answer these questions, pay special attention to signal words. These are words that help you with information about where the sentence should be placed. These can be demonstratives like this or these. They can be transition words like however, moreover, etc. Or they can be synonyms or words that share the same meaning.

?

Fill in a table/chart questions.

Here are some strategies that can help you answer these questions.

Start looking at the two or three categories of information given in the chart or table. Be sure to understand the concepts and the differences between them. If you do not, then go back to the passage.

Two, locate the answer choices one by one in the passage. Remember the choices might be scattered all over the passage, not just in one paragraph. Also, remember that the information in the answer choices will not appear the same word for word as the information in the passage.

Three, using your note paper, take simple notes about each choice. Just write down the letter for the choice and then the abbreviation for the categories. If you're not able to categorize the choice, write a question mark, and go back to it later.

Four, now use your notes, click on the choices that you are sure of, and put them in the right category. If all the blank spaces in the chart are not full, go back and look at the choices you marked with a question mark. Reread the paragraph and see if you can classify those choices. If not, guess.

?

iBT Listening Tips

1. English Sounds

2. English Stress and Intonation

3. Paraphrasing and Inferencing

4. Understand How to Approach Conversations???

Verbal pauses

Repetition

Interruptions

“Talking over”

Misspeaking

5.?Time Management Tips

6. Note-Taking

7.?General Tips

?

iBT Listening Strategies

let's?look at the question types again.?

One, gist content and gist purpose questions.?

Two, details.?

Three, function questions.?

Four, attitude questions.?

Five, organization questions.?

Six, connecting content questions?

and finally, inference questions.

?

Gist content and Gist purpose questions.?

These questions usually appear?first in a conversation or a lecture.?They measure your understanding of?overall content of the lecture or conversation.?Be careful in conversations.?The purpose of a conversation is not?always related to the main topic.?Be careful to take notes.?When you're taking notes,?as soon as you become aware of?the main topic of the conversation or lecture,?you should write it down and underline or circle it.

?

Detail questions.

For these questions,?you obviously need to take very good notes.?

But remember, you will not be asked about?minor points like a year when some events happened.?Your notes should contain major details.?Also, do not choose an answer only because it?has words or phrases from the conversation or lecture.?Finally, if you are unsure of the correct response,?decide which one of the choices is most?consistent with the main idea?of the conversation or lecture.

?

Function questions.?

Function questions usually appear as replay questions.?These are questions when you see an icon of?headphones that tell you when?you'll hear the replayed section.?Here the focus is on language functions.?For example, is the speaker apologizing,?changing the subject, complaining, clarifying,?asking for more information, making a suggestion,?expressing doubt, interrupting or something else.?Remember, the important point here is the function?may not match what the speaker directly states.?You need to understand beyond the surface level.

?

Attitude questions.?

The answer to these questions is never?given directly in the conversation or lecture.?Looking for these answers in your notes may not help you.?You must infer the answer from the speaker's tone of?voice and vocabulary choice.

?

Organization questions.?

Questions that ask about?overall organization are more likely?to be found after lectures, then after conversations.?Refer to your notes to answer these questions.?It may not have been clear from the start that?the professor organized the information, for example,?chronologically, or from least to?most complex or in some other way.

?

Connecting content questions.?

As you may remember,?these are questions that ask you to fill in a chart,?or table or put events in order.?As you listen to the lectures,?you need to pay attention to?this signal words or sequence words,?clearly identified terms and their definitions,?as well as steps in the process.?Also, make sure as you take notes,?use numbers to keep track of order of?events or steps in this sequence.?You can circle these numbers to make them easier to find.

?

Inference questions.?

Just like the inference questions in the reading section.?In the listening, inference questions have answers that?are not mentioned in the lecture or conversation.?In most cases, answering?this question correctly means putting?together details from the lecture or?conversation to reach a conclusion.?In other cases, the professor may?imply something without directly stating it.?In most cases, the answer you choose will use?vocabulary not found in the lecture or conversation.

?

?

Look at effective note taking strategies.

?

You need to try to write your notes mostly in English.?

Let's start looking at the first note taking strategy writing content?words only.?

That means you want to write down only announced verbs and adjectives.?

However, function words are like prepositions, articles or?auxiliary verbs and they usually have no useful information.?

?

The second strategy that can help you save even more time is writing?consonants only and not the vowels,?if you remember vowels in English consists of a, e, i, o, u and sometimes y??

And the rest are consonants.

Vowels are still common, that you could write award without event vowels and?

still understand the meaning.?

?

Next strategy that can help you save time when you take notes is using symbols like?the chart that you can see here.?

Symbols are important because not only do they save time but?also increase the amount of information you can write down.?But if you're absolutely new to using symbols then do not use all of them?at once.?The key is to keep it simple.?Start with just two or?three maybe with arrows first because they are easier to understand.?As you start to feel more comfortable,?use more of these symbols in your notes remember it's hard to change a habit.?You have been taking notes your own way for years.?It will take some time to get used to all of this information.?So take it slow.

?

Now look at short handwriting, definitely try shorthand writing?If you want to save time when you take notes in this example here the person has?written content words, consonants more than vowels and some symbols.?

?

Next strategy is using the two-column layout.?

?

For lectures it is very helpful if you can figure out the style of organization.

Is it a theory and evidence kind of lecture in which the professor introduces?a theory and provides various pieces of evidence to support it??Or is it the cause and effect kind of lecture.?In this type of lecture, the focus is on the cause of something such as an event,?discovery or scientific phenomenon and it's different effects.?Or the lecture might be steps of the process.?In this theory, the professor introduces a process and?the chronological steps involved in it,?usually using transitions such as 1st, 2nd, 3rd and so on.?Or the lecture can be a comparison of two things.

?

For lecturers, once you're done, taking notes, ask yourself these questions to?make sure you completely understand the information in the lecture.?

Why does the professor say this??What does the professor want the students to know by the end??Why is this information important??And how does the professor elaborate on, explain or illustrate the main idea?

?

iBT Speaking Tips & Strategies

Tip #1: Take Notes

Tip #2: Prepare a Template

Tip #3: Do Not Memorize Sample Answers!!

Tip #4: Be Clear????

Tip #5: Get Creative

Tip #6: Practice Accents and Pronunciation

Tip # 7:? Show off your Grammar?

Tip #8: Focus on Yourself

Tip #9: Practice with TOEFL Speaking Tests and Samples

Tip #10: General Tips

iBT Speaking Strategies

The preparation time or the pre-speaking time that you have is very limited,?15 seconds is not a long time so you need to use this time wisely.?

?

First step can be analyzing the prompt,?then you need to decide on your answer third.? You Need to choose 2 to 3 reasons and you need to have some notes?to help you speak throughout the 45 seconds that you have.

?

Another strategy that can help you save time in preparation?is expecting the language that you can use when you speak to answer the question.?

?

If you have an opinion question, you can answer the questions?using these verbs or adverbs, you can say, I think I feel or?I believe that and then completed with a sentence,?a small town is a better place to raise children than a big city.?

?

Or you can start by stating your opinion with an adverb personally, I believe that,?and then you can write a complete sentence just like the previous sentence or you?can say in my opinion and then complete that with another complete sentence.

?

If the question asks you about your preference,?you can use verbs like enjoy and prefer, if you choose to use?enjoy remember the verb that follows need to be used with ing.?

?

If the speaking question asks you to agree or disagree with something,?you have several options, two of them are mentioned here.?

One, you can use agree with and then a non,?example, I agree with those people or?you can use the verb agree plus that, plus a clause.?

If you remember a clause has a verb and subject, for?example, here you can say I agree or?I disagree with the idea that college degrees are important.

?

If what you're trying to say is about something general or a general idea,?you can introduce that with this phrase in general and then completed with?a sentence, in general, I think that some celebrities are overpaid.?

?

If you want to present contrasting ideas, then you can use the transition?word after presenting the opposite opinion.?

?

This might sound so obvious, but you need to have good reasons and?examples to improve your speaking score and this task.?

?

One big mistake that some candidates make is they simply speak with fluency and?good vocabulary, but the reasons are not strong enough to support their choice.?

?

By dividing your listening column into two sub columns,?you can specifically note what?

the female speaker and?the male speaker are saying to each other.

?

The third task in?the speaking section is?that lecture instead of the conversation.?

?

First, you are going to?read and then you're going to listen to?professor explaining something related to what you read.?

?

The last task in the speaking section is?listening to a lecture and summarizing the main points.?

?

The best strategy is having great notes and also?having a template with these features: topics,?citation, lists, and examples.?

?

Besides developing your answers,?you need to also think about the way you deliver?your response and fluency is an important part of it.?

?

You don't want to speak too fast or too slow.?

?

Besides practicing,?developing ideas and fluency or delivery of response,?you need to also improve your language use.?

?

Also, make sure you have?enough academic words in your responses.?

?

Finally, it's a good idea to learn?some idioms you can use in your answers.

?

Try to use some compound sentences as well.?

?

Now you can show off your grammar by?using some complex sentences.?

?

iBT Writing Tips

Tip #1: It’s Key to Keyboard

Tip #2: Expand Your Vocabulary Step-by-Step

Tip #3: Practice Organizing Your Writing

Tip #4: Practice Spelling

Tip #5: Manage Your Time Effectively

Tip #6: Remember Summarizing and Paraphrasing

Tip #7: Use a Variety of Sentence Structures

Tip #8: Monitor Your Progress

Tip #9: General Tips

iBT Writing Strategies

The first part is going to be about the integrated task.?

?

Try to focus only on writing the thesis and the main ideas.

?

Your notes maybe more detailed.?

Remember to include the thesis, the main ideas as well as the reasons and?examples mentioned by the professor to support the main ideas.

?

After reading and listening, now you're ready to type your responses.?

You sometime in pre-writing to plan your outline by comparing your notes?on the lecture with what is written in the passage, which is now back on this screen.

?

When you start typing, you want to make sure that you're able to summarize?the information from both the reading and the listening passage.?

You also want to make sure that you're paraphrasing the information and?you are not merely copying anything.?

Also, you need to be able to cite that information.?

?

Some writing strategies?regarding the independent task.

?

You might be tempted to start typing?your answer right away when you see the prompt.?

But it's a good idea to spend?about two to five minutes for the pre-writing phase.?

This will help you read the prompt,?think about the prompt,?brainstorm and take notes,?and also make an informal outline.

?

If you don't skip the prewriting,?you'll be able to save time.?

In the writing phase,?you will have 20-22 minutes to?write a standard four or five paragraph essay,?which includes introduction,?body paragraphs, and conclusion.?

We looked at some templates in?course number two, Module four.

?

Even though 30 minutes isn't?a long time to write an essay,?you still want to save a few minutes towards the end of?your writing time in order to correct the content,?grammar and mechanics like punctuation.

?

Editing content areas can help you have a better score.?

?

As you remember, language accuracy is part of?your score and you need to edit?your essay for grammatical errors.?

Look and make sure that you don't have?any sentence fragments or run-on sentences.?

?

Finally, make sure that you're able to?edit your essay for mechanical errors.?

These include spelling errors,?punctuation errors,?capitalization errors, and paragraph problems.?

Remember, you don't have auto text correction.?

You might have made mistakes,?and spending a couple of minutes towards the end of?your writing time can help you fix these problems.