TOEFL is an exam required by most US and Canadian university to prove proficiency

(especially international students coming from countries where English is not native language)
in English. It measures your listening, reading, speaking and writing skills to perform academic
tasks in English. Many Universities in Europe and other countries also accept TOEFL (IELTS
is
popular
outside
USA).
There are two formats for the TOEFL test. The format you take depends on the location of your
test center. Most test takers take the TOEFL iBT test. Test centers that do not have Internet
access offer the Paper-based Test (PBT).
Time
Limit

Section

Description

Listening
Comprehension

Measures the ability to understand spoken 30-40

English
minutes

No.
of
Questions
50

Structure and Written Measures the ability to recognize language

Expression
appropriate for standard written English
25 minutes 40
Reading
Comprehension

Measures the ability to understand nontechnical reading material

55 minutes 50

Listening Comprehension
1. Practice note taking whenever you are listening to something in English only write
down key words or phrases, use abbreviations for long words and always write in English.
Record only the major points you will not have time to write down the minor, unimportant
details in the exam.
2. Improve your vocabulary the more words you know, the easier it will be for you to
understand the listening section.
3. Listen for signal words that indicate major steps, changes or ideas such as seldom, at the
moment, in 1975, so far, usually, often, up to now, at the moment. Make sure to also listen for
repetition, synonyms and pronouns.
4. Determine the purpose of a conversation or speech what do you think the speakers are
trying to do? Are they angry? Trying to resolve a conflict? Sad? Expressing an idea? Practice
this technique every time you hear English including English movies or TV shows, even people
you hear speaking English on the street! This will help you focus on the key points and improve
your ability to filter out information that is not necessary for the TOEFL listening exam
questions.
5. Recognize key points who or what is the conversation about? What is the main point of
the lecture? Why are they talking about this? Remember, the TOEFL listening exam is testing
your comprehension, not your ability to memorize and repeat what you have just heard!
6. Find connections between ideas how do these points connect to the key ideas of the
passage? If they do NOT connect to the key ideas, they are probably not the major ideas of the
passage and you should not focus on them.
7. Pay attention when someone in the exercise asks a question often it is a clue that
information is about to be given. However, this is not always true so be careful for responses
that sound a lot like the answer to a question. Listen very carefully as these responses are often
there to test your ability to understand the context of what you heard.
8. Categorize the type of exercise you are listening to when taking
practice TOEFLlistening tests. Ask yourself is it a lecture (mostly one-sided and on
academic topics) or a conversation (language is more informal, two or more people)? This will
help you understand the flow of the conversation more clearly.

What is the subject of the conversation?

What is the main idea of the conversation?
What is the purpose of the conversation?
Why does the student go to the office?
Why does the student visit the professor?
What is the conversation about?
Structure and Written Expression
Part A: Sentence Completion
Pada bagian ini terdapat 15 pertanyaan, masing-masing terdiri dari 1 buah kalimat dengan kata
dan/atau frasa yang dihilangkan. Kita diminta untuk memilih salah satu pilihan (a), (b), (c),
atau (d) yang jika dimasukkan kalimat di atasnya menjadi benar secara gramatikal. Jadi dengan
kata lain kita harus memilih MANA YANG BENAR.
Pada bagian ini, ada sebuah kalimat yang bagian dari kalimat tersebut hilang. Dari 'paradigma
struktural' yang saya uraikan di atas, maka cara yang paling tepat untuk mengerjakan bagian
ini adalah dengan mengetahui komponen mana yang dihilangkan pada kalimat, apakah
komponen Subject, Verb, Complement, Object, Conjunction, Appositive, atau gabungan dari
sebagian komponen-komponen tersebut. Jika ini pun tidak bisa dilakukan, maka kenalilah
terlebih dahulu mana komponen yang ada, baru nanti terlihat komponen mana yang
dihilangkan. Dengan mengetahui komponen apa yang dihilangkan, maka paling tidak kita akan
mencari ke bagian pilihan yang memang kita perlukan dan mengeliminasi pilihan-pilihan yang
salah.
Langkah 1: baca secara sangat sekilas kalimat tersebut
Langkah 2: tentukan secara cepat komponen apa yang dihilangkan
Langkah 3: eliminasilah pilihan-pilihan jawaban yang tidak mungkin dipilih (salah)
Langkah 4: jawablah pertanyaan tersebut
Part B: Error Identification
Pada bagian ini, terdapat 25 pertanyaan. Di masing-masing kalimat terdapat kata atau
kelompok kata yang digarisbawahi ditandai dengan (a), (b), (c), dan (d). Kita diminta untuk
mengidentifikasi bagian yang ditandai tersebut mana yang TIDAK tepat secara gramatikal.
Dengan kata lain kita diminta untuk memilih MANA YANG SALAH.
Reading Comprehension
1. Improve Your Reading Speed
If you want to have more time to answer the questions, you will need read each passage in just
3 or 4 minutesand youre probably going to want to read each passage more than once.
Time yourself when you study for the test and note how long it takes you to go through a given
passage. You will likely notice that you slow down when your level of comprehension drops
down, and thats normal! When you understand less, you need to slow down and read more
carefully.
Everyone reads at a different pace. Your task is to make your reading pace slightly faster for
the very specific test-taking situation, so you can switch gears and go into full-speed mode if
you need to.

Apart from studying TOEFL-style academic passages, be sure to read other English language
material as well. Read English literature, newspapers and magazinesreading a variety of
English writing styles will help improve your reading speed.
2. Work on Your Comprehension Speed
The reading section will ask you to deduce meaning and infer information from words you
do not understand.
This is what the reading section is actually testing. Not your ability to memorize a thesaurus
before the test, but your skill at dealing with vocabulary words that you do not know. Not
knowing a word is not only normal, but it is expected from speakers of English as a foreign
language.
When you stumble across a word you do not understand, your first reaction might be to check
Google Translate or consult a dictionary. When these tools are not available, you may panic
and get hung up on trying to understand the word, wasting time that is extremely valuable for
you during the TOEFL.
Force yourself to skip that unknown word and continue reading. Often, you will find that the
meaning of the whole text is easy to understand, even if you did not understand a few words.
3. Learn Specific Vocabulary
Make a list of unfamiliar words and translate them using an English-to-English dictionary. You
must avoid the temptation to use a dictionary which translates words from English to your
native language. The English-to-English dictionary will be very helpful to you. Not only will
you read a clear English explanation for the word you do not understand, you will also
familiarize yourself with synonyms (similar words) and antonyms (opposite words).
4. Keep Moving
There are multiple passages on the test, and you are guaranteed to feel more comfortable with
one or another. Some will seem harder and some will seem easier. Skim the passage, note key
words in sentences, leave unfamiliar terms behind and keep in mind that TOEFL passages may
contain words that even native speakers dont typically know.
You may see a question like: The word X on line Y is closest in meaning to with four
choices of words following. Rest assuredmost of the choices will sound similar or have very
similar meanings, so you will need to read the text carefully to identify the correct answer.
5. Use the Line Numbering
The TOEFL quirk of numbering every fifth line in the passage is meant to help you navigate
to the words or sentences referred to in the questions. Practice locating specific lines by the
numbers provided

Listening
1. a
2. d
3. b
18. d
19. d
20. b

Answer Key
Structure
1. c
2. a
3. d
4. a
5. a
6. a
7. a
8. c
19. b
20. c
21. d
22. a
23. c
24. d
25. a

Reading
1. a
2. a
3. b
4. d
5.d