My TOEFL Experience

Hi,

I have given my TOEFL exam on May 21'st 2016, I know its not so recent but just felt like sharing my experience. Its been 1 year since i gave my exam, I scored 91/120, Of course not a great score, but good enough to get admission into the college that i opted. I planned to give the exam in a span 45 days . I was working when i decided to give the exam, weekdays office n weekends coaching. To be frank that coaching haven't helped me much, don't wanna go into much details. I'm not so great at my English skills. But somehow I managed to put all my efforts by utilising whatever free time I got. By the time i decided to come to US for masters there is only three 3.5 months gap for the beginning of Fall semester. So I thought will try my best to get the score that university required. So I prepared for 1.5 months sincerely managing my office and other stuff.
I practised and memorised Notefull tutorials and materials which helped me to get some confidence and I have gone though Official guide for TOEFL from ETS. My Preparation went as below

Reading: Until then i never took reading newspapers as a serious task but from then on I started reading English news papers whichever are available in office for at-least 30min a day. At beginning I felt it like a burden but then later on I myself realised that i started learning new words and trying out new terminology while I was interacting with others, that basically helped me lot. I used to practice at-least one TOEFL passage per day. I also used to go through news articles, blogs online what not, basically whatever i felt is useful to improve my reading ability and understanding skills. I used to learn at-least 10 to 15 new words and their synonyms everyday. Best part is whatever I practice and learn on that day i used to repeat them before my friends and colleagues and try to use them in my conversations with them which sometimes end up into funny blasts.

Writing: In the beginning I blindly used to follow few templates for every topic that was given, but later on i realised that those templates will only apply for particular kind of topics. Here what I have learned with practice is that whatever the topic may be, the way you present your idea clearly and precisely, less number of grammatical mistakes you make, more terminology you use will finally counts up. Unless you are blog writer or a all time essay writing winner at school, you have to keep practising at-least one writing topic everyday until the end of your exam, which will gain you confidence day by day.

Speaking:My best advise for speaking is, untill you finish your TOEFL exam take an owe that whatever it may be and whoever it may be you will not speak in any other language except english. Believe me this way you will definitely improve your speaking ability and gain confidence. Whatever free time you get while taking shower or getting ready or walking just speak something to yourself as if your are talking to someone, of course you will make mistakes then again repeat the same sentence correcting it back. Try using new terminology that you learn each day. I used to kill my friend "kanu" everyday experimenting my spoken English on him

Listening: I felt this is the toughest part in the process. At the beginning i couldn't able understand few words in their accent, for which I used to miss the entire conversation or topic. Then i started listing to CNN student news, BBC news channel, Ted talks, US accent videos, sitcoms and so on. If i feel like i haven't understand the topic well i used to repeat the video once again and listen to it a bit more clearly. I felt that somehow helped me to improve my listening skills. So basically if you want to improve your listening skills you have to start listening to English news channels, switch to English songs, watch English movies instead of your native language.

Practice practice practice is the secret to your destination

Somehow I haven't retaken the exam. I applied with the same score n got admission and came to US and have finished two full semesters now. Now i'm in my summer break. Finally got some time to share my thoughts. Hope this helps at least anyone of you. All the best