Hello ,
This is my first post here on GMATCLUB. I was more regular on the beat the gmat site, but i found this site quite enriching.Thumbs up to BB.
First of all a little background, i have been preparing for Gmat now on and off, even gave the Gmat twice with rather average performances i would say.
I will be giving a third shoot surely as i am aiming for fall 2014 session at top -30 B schools.
After giving rather dissappointing GMAT exam ,i thought i should give the toefl soon and get it out of the way.Hence booked the Toefl exam on 16 Nov morning slot exactly 4 days after my second gmat exam. Studied almost 2 days to be honest along with working full time on those days and last week recieved my score of 106
.Trust me i am average guy with ok english skills.So if i can do it that fast you can too.
Listening 28(Happy)
Reading 29(Happy)
Writing 25 (expected)
Speaking 24(Ok as messed up my last question a bit)
Some of the content taken here is from earlier post which proved very useful to me
)
First day.
Listening: I practised around 18-20 listening questions( Did 10 conversations and 10 lectures) from
https://www.english-test.net/toefl/listening/ and was quite comfortable then with the listening section, as it gave me pretty good insights on what to jot down and what not to, and what kinds of questions to anticipate. Important thing which i like to add here is take lot of lots to be in good position to answer.
Reading - Did very little practice as i had done a lot of RC's for GMAT.Did sample question provided by ETS. Do it once!!!so I attempted 4 reading tests from
https://www.examenglish.com/TOEFL/toefl_reading.htm, One thing I would like to mention here is that don't ever read entire passage in one go, as Toefl questions are pretty straight forward and are asked in sequence with paragraph. e.g. 1st question will be on 1st para, 2nd on 2nd para and so on...
Second day
I went through all the videos of speaking and writing section <use this link>
toefl-instructional-videos-speaking-writing-very-useful-100611.html , this gave me idea about type of questions and about how to prepare for the answer in 15-20 seconds. After every speaking question video, I tried 4 questions of the same type from this site <
https://www.eng1on1.com/ibt.php?test=1 >.One thing i did differently was to record my answers using my phone,helped listen to my answer,trust me listen to your own voice builds up your speaking confidence and you can identify little issues with tone or clarity which i polished a bit.
Writing:I didn't prepare much for this section. I took 1 offcial test of each type and attempted them with proper time limit. Just maintain proper structure and you will score decent and type as fast as possible.Give last 2-3 mins to revise and check for errors.
Exam Day:
Woke up early, had a heavy breakfast and reached the centre at 9:00am and completed the formalities.The test started smoothly as listening and reading sections were easy and i did them with confidence.Took 10 mins break and revised the structure of the all the 6 speaking questions in my mind.The speaking sections goes very fast so stay calm and be clear while speaking.Writing section went well too, though nothing prepared for it.
Score-106
Toefl conquered....now will concentrate on my third gmat attempt.
Hope it helps you!