Toefl

tothuylinh

Tô Thùy Linh
(tothuylinh)

New Member
Summer is coming!!! No more school work, it's an excellent time for working on your English and preparing for your studying-abroad plan.

Toefl is important for many of you. I want to make this thread a useful and fun place for you to hang around while practicing Toefl.

I myself took the test quite a long time ago, so I'm no longer updated. I will share my experience with you, but I definitely need you to contribute and share with others too.

Join and have fun!
 
USEFUL BOOKS:

1. Official Toefl books:
These are books that you should always check out when preparing for tests.
These are 4 volumns of Toefl Practice Tests by ETS (Educational Testing Service)

2. Cliff's Toefl prepartion guide
This is a Toefl grammar's handbook for many people. It is cheap also. However, other than the Grammar Review part, all other parts are kind of useless. Don't even try the Listening part, it's bad and not close to the real test.

2. Toefl Barron
Good pratice tests. The Review part has only Grammar.

3. Toefl Success by Peterson
Good book with Review of each part (Listening, Grammar, and Reading). It comes with full-length pratice tests.

4. Longman Complete Course for the Toefl Test
I haven't tried out this one myself but have heard very nice comments for it.

5. Barron's How to prepare for the Toefl Essay by Lynn Lougheed.
There are not many books that help with the Writing Test. Here is one of them.


The problem is that, some books are not as good as they advertise. Your purpose to use these books is to practice for the toefl test, so if the material in the books is not close to the test you’re going to take, those books are useless. Also some books have mistakes which will confuse users. Good source for practicing is important. Does any of you know other good books or have any other suggestions about the books I mention here?
 
An even more important thing you should do before you "touch" those books and start studying for the test is that you have to check out the updated information about the format of the test. Otherwise you might end up practicing for a…….wrong test! This information can be found by requesting a new Bulletin or by going to www.toefl.org. Ask for a Bulletin at IIE.

IIE is in charge of holding the official Toefl Test (and also SAT, GRE, GMAT,...) in Vietnam. They do many other things and are very helpful too. The information about IIE can be checked out at www.iievn.org.
 
Chỉnh sửa lần cuối:
TOEFL ESSAY

TWE is a special part of the Toefl test. In 30 minutes, you have to write an essay addressing one given topic. Fortunately, the number of topics is limited. Unfortunately, there are quite a lot of them :biggrin: (If I remember correctly, and if they haven't added any more, there are 185 topics). Don't worry, they are in many ways similar. Just keep in mind that you need good arguments, and good organization. I will go in this deeper later. Now I just want to share with you a very nice website that provides Toefl essay samples. I believe you can learn a lot from them.

Check it out at: http://www.testmagic.com/test/index.asp

These are other people's essays. Anyway, we need our own essays as well. Why don't you put your essays here and we can all go through them? It definitely helps a lot to improve your writing skill. There is another thread for writing already, but this thread I want to dedicate it to Toefl writing only. They have their specific rules that you need to follow to compete in the test.
 
Chỉnh sửa lần cuối:
thanks sis Linh (though I haven't read wat u wrote... :D)
Congrats w/ ur new title - Moderator of the English Club ;)
Welcome to the big world :p
How're u doin in Macalester College? Do you like it?
Anyway, if u use Yahoo Messenger please add my ID: masterhand87
I need ur help and experience for next year application, thanks a lot
<sorry every1 for chattin and being irrelevant to the topic>
 
First thing before registering for TOEFL, have a look at the Bulletin. 70% words are in the Bulletin, plus all the essay topics are already listed in the Bulletin (around 20, I guess).
Second important piece of advice: if you are going to take the Computer-based test, be ready to manage your time. My biggest mistake was to finish the test within half the time and then I ended up with a terrible score. Don't rush through the test!! :)
 
::blinkblink:: I'm going to sound like an idiot, but what's "The Bulletin"?
 
Hoang Chi Mai đã viết:
::blinkblink:: I'm going to sound like an idiot, but what's "The Bulletin"?
Nhấn để mở rộng...

Mai, absolutely no :), no question is idiot :). Toefl Bulletin is the official information book that ETS publishes in order for us to understand the rules of the TOEFL test. You can check at IIE (see above post) to order 1 copy (it's FREE!) and find out the information you need! Feel free to ask more question if it is still not clear ;)

Good luck.
 
Chỉnh sửa lần cuối:
Thanks, Linh, that was really helpful. So THAT was what my instructor at IIE was raving on about the last time I was there. Must've been too engrossed by SAT leaflets at the time. I'll be sure to check it out!
 
Hoang Chi Mai đã viết:
Thanks, Linh, that was really helpful. So THAT was what my instructor at IIE was raving on about the last time I was there. Must've been too engrossed by SAT leaflets at the time. I'll be sure to check it out!
Nhấn để mở rộng...
oh, I think the bulletin which contain all the instructions for taking TOEFL is available at the place you register. Or you can go to Toefl.com (org) to search for it. I will double check and give you the link later.
 
yes. The long form has 20 additional questions in Listening section, I think. My friend, Thanh Huong (Anh 1 - 01-04) took that test. You can ask her.
 
Chỉnh sửa lần cuối:
Trần Hải Phương đã viết:
toefl has long forrm and short form?
Nhấn để mở rộng...

Phuong, the answer is YES. But once again, you should really look for a Bulletin for the most updated and precise information. It changes all the time. For example, in the past, Toefl essays include only 150 topics, but when I took it, there was 185 of them, now, there can be even more... Bulletin is the best source for this :).

Gluck!
 
Bulletin ..but i don't understand it ..about ways which i can prepare Toefl ..Please tell me .
Thanks .
 
cac bac oi, cac bac biet cho nao hoc TOEFL tot tot o HN ko a ( tru cho ong Manh ra)? Cho nao re re mot ty, chu hoc trung tam xin em ko co tien (hoan canh lam cac bac a hix)
 
To Guest 1: again, key word is "practice." You can buy Toefl practice test..

To 2nd Guest :p : place to study Toefl - your home! :D It is true. Trust me. In the summer, sitting in a comfortable chair in ur room, drinking iced tea, eating ice cream, listening to music and doing some practice tests on the computer while playing games at the same time, you will get a perfect score. ;)

:D if you still want to ride ur bike to some other places in Hanoi to have suntan or sunburn, you can go to Mr. Nghiêm in Kim Mã. (footnote: should call him before to register and you will talk to his wife hehe...)
 
Bạn phải đăng nhập hoặc đăng ký để phản hồi tại đây.
Back
Bên trên