MY TOEFL EXPERIENCE

Hi there,

I'm gonna write about the toefl exam I had two days ago.

Preamble:

First, I should say that I wasn't that sure about takin' it.
Last summer i took the ielts and i got 6.5 and thought is not too high it's still enough for several business school. By the way my idea is to apply for lse and they require either the ielts 7 or the toefl 107, and as I'm in Erasmus in Hungary now and you can imagine I'm not that busy with my exams over here, I exploited the chance that Miskolc (the place where I'm staying) it's a toefl center and - more - the test center is 50m far from me. So I booked it and I got into my preparation. I used some tips from YT videos and some writing templates here and there in the net. I used a book, the Longman, but I think every book it's the same, you just need them to get to know how the exam is structured. Btw i can't say I prepared seriously.

The day of the test:

The exam was at 12, the reporting time was at 11.30 and I was asked to be there at least 30min before the reporting time. I was there at 11.35. I didn't feel it necessary to be there so early also because as I said my dorm is just 50m far from the Library, in the college, so...
Once there, I was pretty surprised that there were only me and another guy taking the exam. Actually I felt a little relieved cuz I had been reading so many complaints about the too many noises in the exam room when people are having the speaking at the same time so I was like, yeah, relieved.

The Exam:

Reading: I guess i've had the three most difficult reading of the history, I mean, seriously. They were all much more long, difficult, boring and struggling that the one I practised with. I guess this reading was also more difficult than the one in the ielts, where i scored 7.5.
Listening: The listening was ok, it was not that difficult but i started missing my concentration; sometimes i felt really hard to keep concentrated on the lecture, but still I think it was ok. I wasn't sure about 3 or 4 questions but I've had 6 files so I hope I scored the less in the uncounted ones :D
Speaking: That was definitely my biggest problem during the preparation, it was very hard for me to speak in front of the computer, recording my voice and so on, but by the use of some templates from youtube i think i managed quite well. I think i messed a little up the 2 and the 6 questions, but for the others, again, I was pretty satisfied.
Writing: I didn't practise at all for this section cause I'm too lazy, but also here I haven't had too many difficulties. Maybe just in the first task, when you are required to summerize the content of a brief article and a lecture, cuz i've had again a fairly complicated one. It was said to write from 150 to 225 wds and I've written like 260s.
Anyway I don't think it will be a great problem cause in other posts I've read the same and it doesn't seem to impact negatively the score.

So, I guess that's all for me. In conclusion I found it a little easier then the ielts but, again, the reading was more complicated and that was, among with the listening, the section I had been counting on, so i I hope i didn't mess it up!

My hope is to get a 100+. When i finished the ielts I felt I did it so bad but finally I got 6.5. Now I think it was...."ok"...so let's cross the fingers. I'll post my results asa i have them.

byebye folks,
giovanni from italy (hungary at the moment)