TOEFL Study Tips

October 12, 2019 By Christina
How to Improve Your Reading (English)    How to Improve Your Writing Skills (English)    How to Improve Your Speech (English)   

Getting ready for the TOEFL exam can be pretty intimidating. No matter what study book you use it can be tricky to find a way to study that works for you. Here are some tips that might be helpful as you get yourself ready for the big day!

Tackling the Reading Section

The reading sections always contain a lot of detail and the wording can often be confusing. As you read, write down any vocabulary words or phrases that don’t make sense to you, so that you can look back at them. Doing this will not only improve your vocabulary but will also help you to get a better grasp on American figure of speech.

Writing Section

It can be difficult to figure out what are the important points that should be included in the writing portion of the exam. Here are two tips that are super helpful for conquering the writing section.

Tip #1: The writing section is usually broken up into paragraphs. As you read underline things you think are important or write them off to the side. Writing notes for a summary for each paragraph will help you when developing the summary of the full text.

Tip #2: When practicing the writing section, time your writing! Try to get to a point where you feel comfortable with getting your ideas together within the 20 minute time limit. While you get the chance to practice at home, read your written summary out loud to yourself. This is important because the things that we write often make a lot more sense in our heads than it does when being read by someone else. Read your response out loud to get a better idea of how clear your summary is. If possible, read it to someone who is a native english speaker and see if they can understand your summary without having read the text. This will help you improve the clarity of your summaries.

Listening section

The listening section can be difficult. Try practicing pausing the listening segment every few minutes and trying to write a verbal summary of what is going on. Practice doing this and increasing time until you feel comfortable with writing a  summary about the full audio listening activity.

Best of Luck Studying!