On Preparing for the TOEFL – 5 Steps to Success on the TOEFL Exam
I once had a Biology teacher in high school who was a little crazy. Every time before we entered into a test he would say “Gentleman, you are now about to engage in academic combat.” Like my high school biology tests, the TOEFL test is also a type of academic warfare, with you competing against some of the most battle-hardened and well-trained adversaries the world has to offer. Here are 5 steps for your TOEFL Exam preparations to help make sure you are one of the ones standing after the dust clears from the battlefield!
Step 1 – Know your enemy!
In this case your true opponent is the TOEFL test itself. If this is the first time you will take the test, make sure you know what you are up against so you can structure you battle plans accordingly. Key Facts about the exam:
4.5 hour computer-based English Proficiency test (This is a marathon race, not a sprint, so endurance training is critical!)
4 sections (Reading, Listening, Speaking, and Writing)
Reading – 3 long reading passages about academic subjects with about 14 multiple choice questions for each passage - Vocabulary and Time Management are key!
Listening – 6 listening tasks covering both conversations and parts of academic lectures - Note Taking and Listening Training are key!
Speaking – 6 different speaking tasks where you must give recorded verbal responses ranging from 45 seconds to 1 minute - Response Structure and Practice are key!
Writing – 2 essays, one summary piece (20 minutes, 150-225 words) and one opinion piece (30 minutes, at least 300 words) - Essay Structure and Time Management are key!
Step 2 – Check your defenses!
Now that you know what you are up against, it is important to confirm your current battle readiness! As with all things in life, if you don’t know where you are right now, it is very difficult to get to where you want to go! Go to the ETS (the test maker) website (http://toeflpractice.ets.org/) and purchase a full-length graded test.
Don’t be cheap and skip this step, it is extremely important! You can get your full score (including for the spoken responses and essays which are graded by a computer) usually within a day. Make sure you block off enough time to sit down and take the full test straight through. For the speaking and writing sections, try your best if these are difficult areas for your, but make sure you write and say something or you will not be scored for these sections (which means you get a 0 score)! The results of this mock test will give you a realistic (and honest!) assessment of where you are with your TOEFL Exam readiness today. It will also clearly show you the weaker areas that you will need to focus on in your TOEFL preparations!
Step 3 – Prepare your Battle Plan!
As you are clearly a highly intelligent and ambitious person about so set down the MBA road to your future riches and business success, you are an extremely busy person in your current job. This means your time is always very limited and you must come up with the most time efficient (yet feasible) study plan possible.
First, take a hard look at your score on the mock TOEFL test from step 2. If you got a 60 or below (say 15 points per section), your basic level of English is low and you will need to put in some fundamental English training in order to get your total TOEFL point score to around 80. If you got at least an 80, you should plan to spend 1-3 months of intensive study to raise your score to around 100 points. Keep in mind that speaking and writing are the areas that you can improve most quickly in with proper guidance and training. If you are scoring in the 90s or even say 100, getting from these scores to 110 (basically a high enough score for nearly all US MBA programs) is a very difficult and time-consuming task. Depending on your starting point and experience living/working/studying in an English speaking environment, raising your point score to this level may take an additional 1-3 months.
Second, seriously consider taking a quality TOEFL Exam training course. These can be expensive, but you should view these as part of the investment in your MBA. The courses (whether on-line or in traditional live-teaching classrooms) will provide you with a number of benefits as compared with studying completely on your one.
#1) The courses provide you with a clear study structure and recommended study materials. They are normally 1-3 months and have a clear class schedule laid out. If you like the social aspect of studying, live classes may be better for you. If you prefer to study on your own, on-line classes are an excellent and convenient solution for you. The course should also provide you with a detailed study plan to follow and record your daily study time amounts to make sure you are on track with your exam preparations.
#2) The courses will provide you with test-taking strategy and time management tips for each section. Especially for the writing and speaking sections, essay and spoken response templates are critical and any good course will provide you with these.
#3) The course makers know the typical problem areas where students struggle and design their courses to address these points.
#4) The course should provide you with a period of detailed feedback on your spoken responses and essays. You will see an immediate increase in your scores in these sections once you have gone through the strategies for each essay and speaking task type and memorized the response templates. Then you will plateau or not see further large improvements in your score for a longer period of time. This is where the tailored feedback to your essays is critical and arguably some of the most value added service provided by the course. With good feedback, and a lot of practice, you will start to see your points in the speaking and writing sections go up again.
There is nothing wrong with studying completely on your own! There will be, however, a longer and steeper learning curve that you must go through in order to familiarize yourself with the various sections of the test and how to prepare for each of them. Taking a course is by far the most efficient way to approach your TOEFL study preparations.
Step 4 – Train for the fight!
Now that you have assessed your TOEFL strengths and weaknesses, enrolled in a course and are familiar with the question types and strategies for each of the sections, the real work begins. Remember the 80/20 rule. This is usually used to talk about how much time people use certain functions on their computers or mobile devices. They spend 80% of the time using 20% of the features. In your TOEFL study preparations, the 80/20 rule has a very different application! Related to TOEFL it means that 20% of your test score success will be linked to knowing the test, creating a study plan, and learning the question types and individual strategies. Now, for the bad news. 80% of your TOEFL test score success will come from…PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!
Once you know what you are dealing with on the test, and how to deal with each section of the test, you need to put all your effort into working practice problems. In step one above, you will notice I put the Key Success factors in italics after each of the four sections. Once you have finished your course, you should be working as many mock test questions as possible before your test day. There is absolutely no substitute for hard work and working problems in achieving your target TOEFL score. For all sections of the test, expanding your vocabulary base is also essential. Make sure you keep a vocabulary journal as your work through your practice problems, marking down any new vocabulary, looking up these words and reviewing them as frequently as possible. Feedback for your spoken responses and essays is also critical. Getting a tutor (preferably one who has experience in teaching TOEFL) to help you review your responses is a very good idea here.
Step 5 – Fight! (And then fight again if necessary!)
Now you have systematically prepared for battle, it is time to take the fight to the field! Make sure you sign up early for your TOEFL test location spot. Especially in some large cities, the test centers can be fully booked months in advance, so sign up and pay for your test at the beginning of your TOEFL study journey! Then go and take the test. If you have prepared well, you should be ready to face anything that ETS throws at you! Remember to have a healthy meal and a good night’s sleep the night before the test (don’t stay up all night studying vocabulary and fall asleep during the test!). While you are taking the test, remember to keep moving (especially in the reading section), don’t get stuck on one problem and not have enough time to work on the other remaining problems. Always keep an eye on the clock as you work (and make sure you are watching the clock during your practice problems as well to prepare yourself for the real test conditions) and manage your time accordingly! After you finish the test, take some time to relax.
When you receive your scores, if you achieved your target score, great, congratulations and well done! If you did not, don’t panic or get discouraged! Life would be very great if we were able to succeed in every task on the first try, but sadly this is very rarely the case. The TOEFL test is no exception to this rule. Most people take the test at least 1-3 times in order to achieve their desired score. There are many factors that can affect your test score that are out of your control. You may feel sick on test day and are not as alert as you normally are. You may get a question or essay topic that you are not familiar with and don’t have the right vocabulary to respond to. You might get too nervous and mess up the start to one of your spoken responses. All these things, while very painful, are also very normal. If you don’t get the score you need, look at the weak areas as identified by your score results and take an additional month to work practice problems, focusing specifically on those areas. You will get to your target score, it just may take several attempts to do so! The key thing is to not give up and keep fighting!
Good luck with your TOEFL studies!
