The test evaluate skills in three areas:
Listening comprehension, structrure and written expression and reading comprehension
The Listening Comprehension section is designed to measure:
Your ability to understand spoken English
The Structure and Written Expression section is designed to measure:
Your ability to recognize language that is appropriate for standard written English.
The Reading Comprehension section is designed to:
measure your ability to understand short passages written in English.
Skimming and scanning are:
reading techniques in which the reader moves his eyes quickly through the text for slightly various purposes
TOEFL is an acronym for:
Test of English as a Foreign Language.
How many questions are in this section and how long is it?
50 questions divided into three parts and takes approximately 40 minutes to complete.
How many questions are in this section and how long is it?
40 questions and takes 25 minutes to complete
How many passages and questions are in this section and how long is it?
It contains five passages, each 300–350 words long, there are usually nine to eleven questions per passage and you have 55 minutes to answer all of the questions.
Skimming is used to:
find out about the topic, the main ideas and general organization.
Who uses the TOEFL test?
Non-native speakers, students who want to study further, to determine academic and make admissions decisions for international applicants, individuals who are applying for professional licensure or certification, to get a scholarship and to complite a graduation requirement.
The Listening Comprehension section is divided into three parts:
Short conversations, extended conversations and short talks.
This section is divided into two parts:
Structure and written expression
The passages in this section are taken from:
college-level, textbooks and books of general academic interest.
Scanning is used to:
look for a fact or a detail or a particular vocabulary word.
What type of questions are included in section A?
Gist questions, inference questions, advice of suggestion, prediction questions, vocabulary questions
Questions in the Structure part of this section are designed to:
test your ability to construct complete and grammatically correct sentences.
What type of questions are included in this section?
Main idea, factual information, organization and logic, referential relationships, vocabulary in context and inference
How to skim?
Read the title, subtitles to find out what is the text about, look at the illustrations to give you further information about the topic, read the first and the last sentence in a paragraph, don’t read every word or every sentence. Let your eyes skim and over the text and taking in keywords and look at pictures, table, etc. They will give you a hint about the text.
The total paper-based TOEFL test score is reported on a scale that ranges from:
310 to 677
What type of questions are included in sections B and C?
Gist questions and detail questions.
Questions in the Written Expression part of this section are designed to:
test your ability to detect errors in academic writing
What are the four main tips for this section?
DON'T read the entire passage, at least not at first, read the first sentence of every paragraph, the questions first approach and don't get stuck!
How to scan?
Glide your eyes or allow your fingers quickly move over the lines, look for the keywords and clues to help you find what you are looking for, as soon as a keyword is caught across your eyes, stop reading. When you found information requiring attention, then slow down to read the relevant part more thoroughly.