Instructor: S.

Torabian

TOEFL GUIDE

TOEFL stands for Test of English as a Foreign Language. The TOEFL test measures the English language ability of people who need to work or study in academic environments. Your TOEFL score indicates how well you can use English to understand and communicate ideas about academic subjects. Many colleges, universities, businesses, and government organizations in English speaking countries use TOEFL scores to assess peoples suitability for jobs, and for university and college admissions. The Next Generation iBT test is an internet-based English language proficiency test for nonnative speakers of English. iBT stands for internet-based TOEFL. The Next Generation iBT TOEFL exam can be taken via the Internet at TOEFL test centers. The test is divided into four sections: Listening, Reading, Speaking, and Writing.

The Next Generation iBT exam includes integrated skills elements as well as independent tasks in the Speaking and Writing sections. This means that, in the integrated skills sections, you will need to use more than one skill at a time, for example, you may be asked to listen to a lecture and then write a summary or read a report and then give a short talk about it. The Reading section tests your ability to understand written English. In this section you will be given three academic style passages and will have to answer questions to test your understanding of each one. Some of the questions will be multiple-choice, others will require you to match and move words and phrases and to complete fill-in-the-blank exercises.

You will be given 39 questions in total and approximately 60 minutes in which to answer them. The listening section tests your ability to understand spoken English as you might hear it in academic or professional environments. You will hear two conversations and four lectures and will be asked questions about the main ideas and supporting details of each one, as well as the speakers purpose and attitude. You will be given 34 questions and approximately 50 minutes in which to answer them. The speaking section tests your ability to speak in an academic environment. You will be asked six questions. You will need to use your own knowledge and experience to answer the first two questions. For the remaining four questions you will need to listen to short lectures or read short passages and use the information from the passages to help you answer. You will be given
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Instructor: S. Torabian

a short amount of time to prepare before you speak into a microphone to record your answers on the computer. You will be given approximately 20 minutes to complete the speaking section. The writing section tests your ability to produce accurate, organized, and meaningful written English. There are two parts to this section: one independent task and one integrated task. For the first part you will need to use your own knowledge and experience to write about a given topic. The second part requires you to read and understand some written and spoken information, then use the information to produce a piece of writing. For example, you may be asked to listen to a lecture and read a newspaper article and then write a report. You will be given 55 minutes to complete the writing section. You should aim to write between 150 and 225 words for each task.

The highest possible score for the iBT TOEFL test is 120. For each of the listening, reading, speaking, and written sections you will be given a score of between 1 and 30 and these are added together to determine the overall score.

There is no specific passing score for any of the TOEFL formats. Different universities and colleges will have their own TOEFL score requirements.

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