https://i.imgur.com/shFtYvo.jpg Test of English as a Foreign Language TOEFL stands for Test of English as a Foreign Language - in other words, it is English Language Proficiency test that all US Business Schools require International applicants to take. The new Internet Based Test or TOEFL iBT is scored from 0 to 120 but schools do not look at it from a scoring standpoint but rather Pass/Fail. Many schools will set a certain minimum that applicants must get. If you are a native speaker or have been educated at a Western College that used English as the main language of instruction, there is a good chance that TOEFL requirement will be waived. US Residents and graduates of US colleges do not need to take TOEFL. TOEFL iBT at glance The TOEFL iBT test measures your ability to use and understand English at the university level. And it evaluates how well you combine your listening, reading, speaking and writing skills to perform academic tasks. Who needs the TOEFL test? Students planning to study at a higher education institution English-language learning program admissions and exit Scholarship and certification candidates English-language learners who want to track their progress Students and workers applying for visas https://i.imgur.com/AdjXcZF.png The Official Guide to the TOEFL® Test, 5th Edition https://i.imgur.com/LROL8MG.jpg This is only a preview. The full review of this brand new guide can be read here The Official Guide to the TOEFL® iBT, 5th Edition - REVIEW Here the review of the previous 4th edition The Official Guide to the TOEFL® iBT, 4th Edition - REVIEW Official TOEFL iBT® Tests Volume 1 (2nd edition) & 2 https://image.ibb.co/n7JUgF/screenshot_16.jpg https://image.ibb.co/mOFyaa/screenshot_15.jpg As soon as you have exhausted the OG and you do wanna more practice, authentic material, tough passages and unbelievably 10 (ten) tests straight from the authors of the TOEFL, well, with these two books you are satisfied. They are also in ebook edition on the official ETS Toefl store for the fairly cheap sum of $25 bucks a piece. Moreover, the books come along two DVDs software that simulate exactly the real test into the test center. Of course, they are not face value.You do not have a trace of a strategy, even though the OG does have as well; the OG barely scratches the surface under this light. In these two books you have only and solely the tests and the official answer but not the official explanations. This quote is definitively a plus of these practice Official Guides.In particular, in the appendix A there are the Speaking and Writing Score Rubrics which show you with clear examples how you can deliver high-level response in both sections (probably the most challenging of the four, see my strategy guidance below).These are the best books to get if you want access to a lot of practice tests. Practice tests are one of the best ways to prepare for the TOEFL, so you’ll want to be sure to take several of them during your preparation. Cambridge Preparation for the TOEFL Test https://image.ibb.co/efaWva/screenshot_17.jpg This is, without doubt, my favorite book for the test suddenly after the OGs.Not only the book provides you with seven full-length tests on the included CD, but also they’re even more similar to the real TOEFL software than is the software on the Official Guide CD. Moreover, it provides the students with one of the best tools for English skill-building: paraphrasing, note taking, vocabulary, pronunciation. The negative side is probably that the material is slightly harder than you really need to achieve the best score during the exam. Of course, this is not a huge downside. Indeed, it might be only a good thing in the mid-long distance TOEFL race, improving and make more robust your fundamentals. The Complete Guide to the TOEFL Test https://image.ibb.co/hUzPFa/screenshot_18.jpg The same considerations made for the Cambridge book could be done for this as well: loads of material, easy-to-read explanations of strategy, step-by-step training exercises, and audio included (online, for free.)The book have been released quite a while ago but it aged very weel. One one hand because is really well written, on the other hand because the format of the test didn't change so much since then. 5 lb. Book of TOEFL Practice Problems https://i.imgur.com/sNXcYQx.jpg A new book from Manhattan Company, full of quailty practice contents. See my review here Venerable mention are the following books : Cracking the TOEFL iBT with Audio CD, 2016-17 Edition Kaplan TOEFL iBT Premier 2016-2017 with 4 Practice Tests: Book + CD + Online + Mobile Essential Words for the TOEFL, 6th Edition The Only Grammar Book You'll Ever Need: A One-Stop Source for Every Writing Assignment TOEFL iBT Strategy for the highest score Before to get in to an in-depth strategy review for the test, it is mandatory to figure out some premise: 1) You should not get confused by the millions of strategy guidelines to overcome the speaking section rather how to write the best independent task. Yes, it is important to have a clear-cut strategy and being well prepared for the test day but you do not need a high level blueprint such as for the GMAT or GRE. 2) The consequence of point one leads us probably to what is the pivotal premise we are talking about: to score well on the TOEFL what is king , is your level of English skills as whole, in general. If you have a poor vocabulary or do not really understand what are you asking for when you read the prompt for your essay, then the most sophisticated staretgy will not save you to score poorly.People that are able to read, grasp the meaning of reading such as The New Yorker or The Smithsonian rather than The Economist have not so may difficulties to score good on the test. However, there is a glitch: as I mentioned earlier, people score good but I didnt say they score well . This is because: The Toefl is a test to measure your skills in an Academic environment, for academic English proficiency. Built by ETS for US Business School entrances. As it turns out, most of the people are not used to such stage level. Even native speaker have deadlocks during the test simply because the test measures your skills in a short amount of time, in a framework that is NOT your natural or daily reading or speaking routine. I.E., the first indipendent speaking task asks you to give an opinion on a familiar topic. Prepare in 15 seconds and responce in 45 seconds. Frankly speaking: this is ridiculous, simply because almost nobody wake up in the morning and talk in that way. But the problem is that you must deliver such kind of response. The majority of the BS want at the very least 25 in the speaking section. Not only that, considering that we communicate via words and speeches,it is important scoring well in the speaking section, that to give you just an example.In conclusion, overcoming the TOEFL test is not only a question of strategy or the richness of your vocabulary but is an amalgam of several factors. Your English level skills and strategy must be appropriate for the purpose. Do not get disorient from video or blog's articles that suggest you: prepare for the TOEFL in seven days, high top level score. Bang. NO. This is misleading, most of the students need to study hard AND smart . Here we do have some stats about: The average score for all test-takers is 80 points (R 20, S 19,7, L 20.2, W 30.3) The average score for students applying to a high school is 71 points (16.9/16.9/19/18.7) The average score for students applying to a two year college is 73 points (18.0/17.6/18.7/18.7) The average score for students applying for undergraduate studies is 78 points (19.1/19/20/19.9) The average score for students applying to graduate school is 84 points (21.4/20.8/20.7/21) The average score for people applying for a professional license is 82 points (20.3/20.4/20.8/20.4) As you conclude, the TOEFL standards for an high score are quite stringent. Reading Section Before to start practice a lot for the test you must be aware what you are face off during. It is really important to stick out the following https://image.ibb.co/fPLJtv/screenshot_21.jpg https://preview.ibb.co/bHoSmF/screenshot_23.jpg Probably the most important advice I might give you for this section of the test is to stay focus on at your best. The arguments are arcane, abstruce, convoluted, twisted in to the form. Do not get lost, do not rush throughtout the passage. One one hand an handfull strategy is to read the first and the last sentence of each paragraph for having a general sense of it but you risk to lose the grasp as whole and to have hard time tackling important questions such as: summarize the passage via key points at the end of the questions lot. You should find the best approach that works for you. For me, for instance, works to read the entire passage but not to skim it. Of course, this strategy is good for those people that have a good reading and understanding of English in general and in particular of scince or humanity passage. ( I admit that I am a voracious reader). Deepening : look at my post Best resources to tackle each section of the TOEFL iBT for a thoroughly strategy. Listening Section In the second section of the test, we certainly split our strategy in two branches for delivering the best answers and gaing the best score; generally the conversation took in place in a library, classroom, inside the professor's office or similar scenarios: 1) In a more general way, your skills are sphaped by your habit to listening music, see movies, or every kind of instructional video or not in English. For instance: I really do love horology and all is what related to watches; The Urban Gentry is one of the most popular watch-channel on youtube, but aside this, the guy speaks with an high-level of English with a little british accent due to his origin. Well, this is an example how to improve both your vocabulary and your comprehension. Of course, if your main interest is cooking rather than every kind of possible argument: history, art, nature this is a way to go. 2) Specifically, improving your Listening score is also a matter to know how is the test, what are the types of questions you will answer, the way to take notes and so forth. https://i.imgur.com/MxE1w8Q.jpg?1 Deepening : look at my post Best resources to tackle each section of the TOEFL iBT for a thoroughly strategy. Speaking Section Every student has his/her weakness or strengths: someone is more comfortable with the writing section and struggle with listening or reading is facile like drink a glass of water but speaking is a nightmare worst than Freddy Kruger. Nonetheless, in my personal opinion the speaking section is the most challenging among the four. You can write a good essay memorizing a template, you could fail a question during the reading section but understand the whole lot, you might grasp the gist of a conversation but speaking is a completely different thing. We do not communicate on a daily basis writing a romance, we do not listen 100% what the world says us regularly,we do not read what for us is a waste of time. However, whether we wanna be at the center of our society, in the middle of a more or less vast community we must speak: coherently, cogently, if any we need to speak specifically about the argument we face out. As a matter of fact, your speaking performance and consequently your score is the result of your confidence, fluency, of your preparation to deliver exactly what the prompt are asking for, in the allotted time frame. Almost all the TOEFL websites dedicated for your preparation or the best youtube channels, that explain you how to tackle the speaking part ot the others, address in a very efficient way to cope with the 6 questions using template to deliver your answer. This is a good strategy as long as you are confident in your speaking. However, this approach has a flaw. Look at the following template Quite straighforward and useful. This is a possible prompt and answer to the very first task: the indipendent task in which you must talk about a personal experience. You could address a pure experience or a three reasons one or an opinion or an advice. Source: toeflresources The underlined words are made to create compound sentences and the bold part because of trasnsitional phrases. Until now all is fine, which is great. Where is the flaw have we pointed out before ?? Well, if you will have during the exam a slightly shift in the prompt or for some reason you get stuck during your speaking, following the template in a hardcore-way, without being flexible, you could end up getting lost and jeopardizing your speaking performance. It is not mandatory to follow this template; as long as you are fluent, you are consistent delivering your response, you will not have so many pause in your speach such as: muh ah or repeating so often the same words, you are understandable and a good pronunciation, the you will be great as well for the higest score. Considering this prompt Response to this prompt As you can see, this answer was graded as an high-level response. And it does not follow the template above. You do have possible templates for every of the 6 questions during your speaking section. Use them but do not stress to much on these. Use them as a guidance or one of your tools in your arsenal to crack the section and achieve the best score. What we are mentioning til now is also corroborate by the Official TOEFL iBT® Tests Volume 2 that is the latter realesed by ETS and should be the most update version and the closest material to the real test. Look at this prompt extracted by the OG The response in mp3 can be downloaded here . This is how the grader descibes the response given and scored as high-level response. . No template. No a schematic approach. Only a good answer in terms of cogency, fluency and pronunciation. That's all. Deepening : look at my post Best resources to tackle each section of the TOEFL iBT for a thoroughly strategy and see the ETS speaking rubric as attach at the bottom. Writing Section During the writing section of the TOEFL, you must cope with two kinds of essays: an independent essay - which takes three types of form: Agree/Disagree Type; Three Choices Type; Preference Type. an integrated essay - In this section you will first read a short article about an academic topic and after that you will listen to a lecture on the same topic. You mission is to describe how the lecture opposes the reading. You may only listen to the lecture once, but you can look at the article while you are writing your essay. https://i.imgur.com/sXxRArx.jpg For the indipendent essay you should know that the essay ETS ask you to write is barely a draft of an essay in an academic environment. Nothing of Shakespeariang reminiscence. Moroever, we can talk about TEOFL essay, GMAT AWA or even GRE argument Essay: they are the same, no matter what. If you wanna take a look an in-depth analysis how to structure your essay see GRECLUB Guide to AWA - The clear-cut . Now we will get into an official indipendent essay from OG graded the most: 5 points. The well organized essay, as response As you can see: first of all you do have a hook : an interesting sentence that describes the topic of the essay without stating your main point. Then the first paragraph in which you state what the prompt says and counteract it with specific reasons and a possible example. A second paragraph with the same structure. A conclusion with a restatement of what you have just explained. https://i.imgur.com/Q5xebmp.jpg For the integrated essay the way to attack it is different.Considering this passage from OG Here is the audio of the lecture by a professor download Your goal in a nutshell is this. Always is the same during the test https://i.imgur.com/m80c7BG.jpg You have to spot point one in your reading and counteract this point based on what the professor says in the audio: he/she talks about the same topic actually weakening what the reading states. The same for point two and so forth. This is the way you must go, your strategy to tackle the integrated essay. This is a possible answer graded the highest score by ETS. It is quite clear how the student attacks the lecture point by point.First, the lecture says this but the professor says that. Back and fourth, in a sort of checks and balances. During the task it is extremely important to jot down some notes to have track of the points made in the reading part and the counterpoints of the lecture.The good news is that you always have the passage on the left of your screen. A possible template. Deepening : look at my post Best resources to tackle each section of the TOEFL iBT for a thoroughly strategy and see the ETS speaking rubric as attach at the bottom. Tips https://i.imgur.com/y1PMCaY.jpg Further Resouces TOEFL iBT® Quick Prep - Quick Prep is a free practice tool with real TOEFL iBT questions from past tests. Each Quick Prep volume includes questions from all four sections of the test. The TOEFL® Video Library - Learn how the TOEFL® test can take you anywhere — and about the tools from ETS you can use to prepare — with these helpful videos. TOEFL® Practice Online Everything You Need to Prepare for the TOEFL TOEFL Instructional videos - Very useful UPDATE 08/03/2017 TOEFL Listening and Speaking Section: New Accents EFSET - New english test for learner Disclaimer : the material shared in this guide is owned by ETS®, in primis and secundis the books from which the same material is extracted are owned by me.It is shared only for educational purpose.

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Best TOEFL iBT Books, Test and Strategy Review 2019

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Holmes123

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20 Aug 2018, 05:24

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24 Sep 2018, 00:44

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Thank you for information. It really helps!

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nishagg893

TWO TYPES OF TOEFL BOOKS

Books for Test Preparation

These books are excellent at teaching different strategies to solve different types of questions. They will explain in-depth of how to solve the questions effectively to guarantee a good TOEFL score. However, their TOEFL practice tests are either too difficult or too easy compared to the actual test.

Books for Practice Tests

These books provide excellent TOEFL practice tests that accurately portray the actual difficulty of the test. The practice books that I will be recommending contains only the authentic practice tests that were previously used as actual tests. However, these books contain little to no explanation on how to solve different types of questions.

I recommend buying at least one strategy book and one practice test book. If you have more money to spend, I recommend buying more practice test books rather than buying more test preparation books so you can solve more authentic practice questions and boost your score. If you buy at least one test preparation book and one practice test book, you will learn strategies from the strategy book and practice your strategies on authentic practice questions.

BEST TOEFL BOOKS

This are the recommended TOEFL books to help in your test preparation. As I stated earlier, you should buy at least one test preparation book and one TOEFL practice test books to get a good score.

Hello. I agree, that there are two types of books, that help in preparing for the exam - TOEFL. You are absolutely right.

hoangnganvy1993

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TOEFL stands for Test of English as a Foreign Language - in other words, it is English Language Proficiency test that all US Business Schools require International applicants to take. The new Internet Based Test or TOEFL iBT is scored from 0 to 120 but schools do not look at it from a scoring standpoint but rather Pass/Fail. Many schools will set a certain minimum that applicants must get. If you are a native speaker or have been educated at a Western College that used English as the main language of instruction, there is a good chance that TOEFL requirement will be waived. US Residents and graduates of US colleges do not need to take TOEFL.

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Ideally after.

Indeed, it does not matter. They are two different exams.

Regards

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if anyone has kindly sent me too. I need that

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Hello guys

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Thank you for knowledge.

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I am so scare to go and pass this test, though many encourage me and say it is easy. I will try probably next month. Good article by the way

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thanks for the information, it helps all

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Aw, this was an extremely good topic. Spending some time and actual effort to produce a very good forum…

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Hi
I'm preparing now to TOEFL
What can you reccomend me except the books?

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Thanks for all the resources

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Thanks for sharing!

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No doubt if you are preparing offline then you should have a Quality material because of on that time your resource is limited so I am suggesting two books for Toffel that will help you in offline study Official Toffel iBT test Volume1 2nd edition, publisher ETS year 2015 and Offical Toffel iBT test Volume2, publisher ETS year 2016 these are the best books for the study of Toffel.

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Thank you for posting it! I searched for a free tests to practice!

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I don't quite get where I will get the Mocks from (?) From what I've seen, there is one mock on the ETS website.
The OG book has 4 mocks included, however, as they are on a CD-Rom I'm not really a fan of those.

Is there a way to purchase the mocks digitally? carcass