TOEFL - Test of English as a Foreign Language
About TOEFL Exams
The full meaning of TOEFL stands for Test of English as Foreign Language. It is an exam required by most schools in the United States and Canada to prove your English proficiency (particularly for international students coming from countries where English is not their first language). The test measures your listening, speaking, reading and writing skills to solve academic tasks in English. Universities in Europe and other English speaking countries also accept TOEFL for their international students, but most schools in Europe tend to use IELTS for their test. The prominence of the TOEFL exam is growing and its score is accepted for Immigration to New Zealand and Australia.
More than eleven thousand colleges in one hundred countries accept the TOEFL exam.
The TOEFL test comes in two formats. The you should take depends on the location of your test center. Most students take the TOEFL IBT, IBT stands for Internet Based Test. Some test centers that do not have access to the Internet offer the Paper-based Test (PBT).
How the TOEFL exam is scored?
You can score a maximum of 30 in each section. The total maximum score in the toefl test is 120. Most universities require a TOEFL score from a range of 80-100. Scores will be posted online the second week after your exams. You can check your score online at ets.org. You can select about four schools to send your score for free this is included in TOEFL Test fees. You can send your scores to as many universities as you choose for a fee of 20 US dollars per report. The scores are mailed roughly between four to seven days after receiving your request and payments.
The final questions in the reading section in each set is worth 2 points and it can have up to 3 correct answers out of 6 choices.
- For 0 or 1 correct answer you will get 0 points.
- For 2 correct answers you will get 1 point
- For 3 correct answers you will get 2 points
The Major Sections of the TOEFL test
The Reading part is 60 to 100 minutes long and it assesses your ability to understand and analyze written texts on topics like academic discussions and science.
The Listening part is 60 to 90 minutes long and it ensures that you can understand information given to you orally for example; when you listen to a speech from a lecturer or speak to a professor at university. The listening section has 4 to 6 lectures and questions that would test your understanding of the context given, as well as your knowledge of the motivations and emotions of speakers.
The Speaking section lasts for about 20 minutes and it consists of six tasks that you should complete by talking into a microphone during the test period. This section is meant to evaluate and test how well you can express your taught and ideas in English.
The last section is the Writing section which lasts for about 50 minutes and it is all about demonstrating how you can use your English in writing. In this section you will apply your knowledge of grammar and vocabulary and write clear sentences and paragraphs.
Each section in the TOEFL test has a maximum score of 30. So the maximum TOEFL score available is 120.
The TOEFL test is a test that you will take in just one day. The exam is four and a half hours long with a short break in the middle of the exams which is between the Listening and Speaking sections.