Test Preparation

TOEFL

The TOEFL, or Test of English as a Foreign Language, is taken by students who hail from countries where English is not the first language, either spoken or written, for admission to schools, colleges & universities in countries where the first language is English. Today, TOEFL is the most widely accepted English language test in the world which judges the reading, listening, speaking & writing ability of a student in the English language for an academic setting.

Apart from schools, colleges & universities, institues such as government agencies, licencing bodies, businesses & even scholarship programs may require TOEFL (pronounced ‘toe-full’) test to be taken to judge the english language proficiency of the candidate. The score of the test is valid for 2 years & after that it’s not officially reported as the language proficiency of the candidate may have been changed significantly in 2 years. Academic institutes usually consider only the most recent TOEFL score while other institutes may accept older TOEFL scores of upto 2 years.

TOEFL is offered worldwide by the ETS (Educational Testing Service) and is the registered trademark of the organization. ETS offers many tests apart from TOEFL such as GRE, TOEIC, subject tests for the students of schools in USA and many more. TOEFL was first developed & offered by Center for Applied Linguistics led by Dr Charles A Ferguson in the year 1964 and since then, millions of students worldwide have taken the test & other millions take the test every year.

The TOEFL Committee of Examiners is composed of 16-member board out of which it has 12 specialists in linguistics, language testing, teaching or research. Its main responsibility is to advise on TOEFL test content & help ensure that the test is a valid measure of English language proficiency reflecting current trends and methodologies across the world. TOEFL is currently being offered in paper based format only. The internet based test was discontinued in September 2006.

Some important points about TOEFL:

• The first step in the registration process is to obtain a copy of the TOEFL Information Bulletin, which can be obtained by downloading it or ordering it from the TOEFL website.
• From the bulletin, it is possible to determine when & where the iBT version of the TOEFL test will be offered.
• Procedures for completing the registration form & submitting it are listed in the TOEFL Information Bulletin which are to be followed religiously.
• Paper based tests are administered on fixed dates 6 times each year which is 3 hours long & all test sections can be taken on the same day. Students can take the test as many times as they wish. However, colleges & universities usually consider only the most recent score.
• The final score of a paper based test ranges between 310 and 677 and is based on three subscores: Listening (31–68), Structure (31–68), and Reading (31–67). Unlike the CBT, the score of the Writing section (referred to as the Test of Written English, TWE) is not part of the final score; instead, it is reported separately on a scale of 0–6.
• The score test takers receive on the Listening, Structure and Reading parts of the TOEFL test is not the percentage of correct answers. The score is converted to take into account the fact that some tests are more difficult than others. The converted scores correct these differences. Therefore, the converted score is a more accurate reflection of the ability than the correct answer score is.