Preparing for the TOEFL Exam and TOEFL Study Plan

The TOEFL test measures the ability of potential students to read, listen, speak and write American English. Not only these, but requires more skills of the candidates like grammar, vocabulary, note taking, spelling and punctuation and skimming. These are called secondary or support skills, which are equally important as the primary skills that are the reading, listening, speaking and writing.

Study Plans:

To get a great score on the TOEFL exam, one should have a solid preparation plan. It should be systematic and well thought out. Get your hands on the syllabus, material and sample papers first and then start your planning. There are some books that offer a standard syllabus that you can use to plan your study. For example, Barron’s has an 80 hour/16 week preparation program, whereas Delta’s Guidebook offers a 75 hour/15 week program for the preparation. One can choose either or prepare a study plan of one’s own.

TOEFL STUDY PLANS

TOEFL Comprehensive Preparation

Apart from having a systemized study plan, one should devote a great amount of time for individual study. Even if you are attending a class room course, it should not stop you from studying at home. The exam is not an easy one, but that doesn’t mean you have to panic. Being calm and relaxed helps you score higher. Buy or borrow a lot of practice material, do a lot of sample tests, analyze yourself and see which sections you are weak in, so you can concentrate more in those.

TOEFL Primary skills

For getting a good score in this exam, you have show the ability of amalgamating academic and language skills to show the perfect English that is expected in foreign universities. These skills are broadly classified into primary, secondary and support skills.

The primary skills are the roughly those required to do well in the four sections of the exam, namely the reading, listening, speaking and writing. Good language and communication skills fall under this category. One must prove that one is capable of communicating properly in an academic setting. These skills are tested in independent and integrated type of questions.

TOEFL Secondary skills

Secondary skills, such as grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and spelling, are not tested as separate sections in the exam, but are tested indirectly throughout the exam, in the sections. The grammar and spelling are tested in the writing section, note taking and mind mapping in the reading, listening and speaking sections and the pronunciation in the speaking section and vocabulary in the writing and speaking sections.

Speaking Section: There will be six tasks in this section, which require the candidates to not only understand the question and answer appropriately, but also pronounce words clearly, use correct grammar and express logical opinions using a good vocabulary.

TOEFL Writing Section: In this section, grammar is the no.1 area that is checked. One has to have a good knowledge of verbs, phrases, idioms and transition verbs and proper sentence structure in order to get a good score in this section. Punctuation and spelling play a great role too.

Reading and Listening Sections: Note taking is highly necessary in these two sections. In addition, vocabulary and grammar help too.