TOEFL – Test of English as A Foreign Language
TOEFL Test was introduced in the year 1964. Since then, it has been revised from time to time. The TOEFL is organised by Educational Testing Service (ETS) an American non-profit organisation based in Princeton, New Jersey, with many for-profit subsidiaries in other countries. The TOEFL is an internationally recognised test for assessing English language proficiency. There are six kinds of TOEFL tests:
- TOEFL iBT (Internet-Based Test): It has the highest percentage of candidates. This test is conducted online to evaluate four skills -reading, listening, speaking and writing. It is accepted by more than 11,000 universities in around 180 countries.
- TOEFL pBT (Paper-Based Test): The TOEFL paper-based test is conducted in places where the TOEFL iBT is not available. The pBT is taken by only 3% of candidates for their English language requirements.
- TOEFL iBT Home Edition: This test can be taken from home. It has the same format and it is invigilated online by a human proctor.
- TOEFL Essentials: It is a recent addition, TOEFL Essentials is a shorter, adaptive test that measures English communication skills.
- TOEFL ITP (Institutional Testing Program): The TOEFL ITP is a paper-based test used by institutions to assess English language proficiency in academic settings. It evaluates listening comprehension, structure and reading comprehension. It is meant for placement and progress evaluation within education centres.
- TOEFL Junior: This is Prepared for younger students (11 - 15) TOEFL Junior evaluates middle school-level English proficiency. It is organised in two versions: the Standard test which is paper-based, and the Comprehensive test, which is computer-based.
You can take the TOEFL test once in twelve days. You could attempt this test as many times as you want in a year. TOEFL test score is valid for 2 years. Your scores will be available in your ETS account 4-8 days after the test.
All the trainers at Asta Achievers are experts in teaching TOEFL and have a minimum of 5 years of experience in teaching for other English exams such as IELTS, PTE and OET too.
TOEFL TEST PATTERN 2024
READING SECTION
The Reading section evaluates the candidate’s ability to comprehend reading passages like those in college textbooks. The candidate needs to answer 20 questions from 2 passages. It should take about 35 minutes to complete this section. The Reading section is scored based on the number of correct reading comprehension responses. The TOEFL reading questions can be broken down into the following question types:
- Reading Factual Information: Factual Information questions may ask a candidate to recognise facts that include major ideas, supporting details or definitions. The opposite of factual information which is negative on the other hand are similar but 3 of the 4 answers are correct in place of only 1 and the candidates are asked to decide the incorrect one.
- Inference and Rhetorical: Inference questions are easy to recognise as they usually include the words- infer, imply or suggest. Rhetorical questions are also similar as they aren’t explicitly stated which makes it unclear why an author has presented such information.
- Reading Vocabulary: This question type is unique, in which one needs to find meanings of some highlighted words from the passages and choose the correct answer out of four given choices.
- Sentence Simplification: In this kind of questions, the candidates are asked to identify a sentence that has the same meaning as a sentence from the given passage.
- Insert Text Question: In this type of question, you will be given a new sentence to place in the passage at one of four possible places. This question carries 1 point.
TOEFL Reading Scoring Pattern
TOEFL Reading score is measured on a scale of 0-30. TOEFL Reading scoring pattern is as follows:
- The candidate will get point for each question answered correctly, that will be converted to a score out of 30.
- A score above 22 will be considered a good score.
LISTENING SECTION
TOEFL LISTENING PATTERN
There are 28 to 39 questions in this section. It judges a test taker’s ability to understand conversations and lectures in English. The Listening Section is divided into two different categories- Lectures and Conversations.
- It includes 3-4 lectures, and each lecture lasts 3-5 minutes having 6 questions each.
- It contains 2-3 conversations of 3 minutes duration, having 5 questions.
- You will have 41-57 minutes to answer all the questions.
- Some particular words taken from the audio clip will be shown on screen.
TOEFL Listening Question Types
TOEFL pattern for listening question types are as follows:
- Gist- Content and Gist- Purpose: Gist purpose questions ask the test taker to explain the main purpose of a discussion or lecture. These types of questions can be identified by their use of phrases like “mainly about,” “mainly discussing,” “why does the student,” or “what is the main purpose,” which differentiate them from gist-content questions.
- Function: Function questions require you to find the specific meaning of a statement within a given context, as the meaning may differ according to the situation.
- Attitude questions require you to comprehend the speaker’s feelings or attitude towards a topic.
- Organisation: Organisation questions test your understanding of how a lecture is structured and may contain phrases like “Why does the professor mention…” or “Why does the professor discuss….”?
- Connecting content: Connecting content questions evaluate your ability to understand the relationships among ideas presented in the lecture, which may require you to fill in a chart or a table.
- Inference: Inference questions challenge you to find the meaning of something that is not explicitly stated in the conversation or lecture.
TOEFL Listening Scoring Pattern
TOEFL Listening score is measured on a scale of 0-30. This pattern is mentioned below:
- For this section, raw points are added up and then changed to a score out of 30.
- A score over 21, is generally considered a good score in this section.
SPEAKING SECTION
In TOEFL Speaking, four questions will be given in the speaking section of the TOEFL Exam. Total duration allotted for this section is 16 minutes.
- For the initial two independent tasks, test takers get 45 to 60 seconds to complete each audio clip and reading passage.
- The main objective of this section is to evaluate the candidate’s ability to effectively communicate their opinions with suitable reasons.
TOEFL Speaking Question Types
- Independent Speaking Tasks: These tasks are based on familiar topics. For Task 1, you must choose one of many choices, and for Task 2, you must choose one of the 2 options. You will get 60 seconds to prepare and speak.
- Integrated Speaking Tasks: This task evaluates your reading, listening and speaking skills. For Tasks 3 and 5, you should listen to an audio clip and answer question. For tasks 4 and 6, you have to read a passage and listen to an audio clip and then answer the question. You will be given 60 seconds to prepare and speak on it.
TOEFL Speaking Scoring Pattern
TOEFL Speaking score is measured on a scale of 0-30. Speaking scoring pattern is as follows:
- This task is evaluated on a different scale in which each task is given a score out of 4.
- These scores are then added up and changed to a score out of 30.
- A good score is usually above 22.
WRITING SECTION
TOEFL Writing Pattern
Evaluating a candidate’s ability to communicate ideas and represent them in a well-organised manner is the main objective behind the Writing Section.
- The candidates are required to write 2 essays.
- Candidates will get 50 minutes to complete the essays.
- The integrated writing task will provide test-takers with a 3-minute duration to read an academic text that is about 300 words long.
- Following the reading passage, test-takers will listen to a 2-minute audio clip of a lecture.
- Task 2 is an independent writing task that does not require any reading passage or audio clip.
- In this section, test- takers have to express their personal opinion on a particular issue.
- Test-takers will have 30 minutes to complete Task 2, and they must write under 300 words.
TOEFL Writing Scoring Pattern
TOEFL Writing score is measured on a scale of 0-30. It is mentioned below:
- Each essay is scored out of 5 in the writing section.
- The scores for both essays are then added up and changed to a score out of 30.
- A score over 22 is normally considered a good score.
Division of Marks
TOEFL Exam Marks Pattern
All the sections are ranged between 0-30 marks and are combined in the end for a total score of 120. ETS shares information with candidates related to exams and results. The candidates need to understand about the pattern of calculation of each section. Candidates also get a printed TOEFL Score Report after 11 days of test.
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