Well all started around March, I had just 3 exams left for my bachelor degree so I was the right time to think about the future. From that moment on I realized that Italy wouldn't be in my future, too corruption, no job opportunities and meritocracy!
So I tried to figure out the best choice for me and for my girlfriend. The condition sine qua non should be a country in which I can improve my english so Sweden/Norway seems a good place..After a while I understood that Toefl was one of the requirements in order to enter in a Msc.
good!In Italy english is not at all widespread, in fact it was more or less 3 years I didn't touch an english book and the score required is 92, pretty high(78 is the italian average score).
So I started to gather some information, some books and I booked one month in London with Kaplan school, it was essential in order to improve my speaking skills.
anyway, it was a good experience, I studied hard in particular I needed to learn a lot of new words and so forth, but I don't recommend that school to anybody.
My exam was on the 16th of september, after 2 months and half of preparation(obviously not only toefl, on July I took my bachelor degree).
What did I use?
First day at kaplan they gave me 3 books:
-Kaplan Toefl Practice Drills
-Kaplan Toefl strategies book
-Kaplan Course Book
- 4 mock tests
- 8 cds
I used the cds+ practice drills and they were fairly useful.
-A lot of tips from this forum's section and I had to thanks a lot whoever contributed/contribues with some advice, stories and so forth.
- If someone wants a particular book in pdf, I have these:
-400 must have words
-Barron toefl essay book
-Cambridge preparation for the toefl test
-
Official Guide-english-test(lectures and conversation, useful!)
-kaplan ,longman, cambridge softwares(need alchool)
-a lot of speaking sample questions
ON THE TEST DAY:
-on that morning I woke up late, I didn't find a parking lot , I took a fine, I arrived a bit late for the exam, I didn't have breakfast .. Pretty bad day!!
-more or less the test resembled the kaplan mock tests, so no surprise.
- I had an extra listening section
- BUY EAR PLUGS!
finally they gave me 99, I know is not so good in this forum but for my standard and for Italy is pretty high. This was only a requirement to fulfill, next years I'm going to improve my english, I hope!