├── images ├── inst1.png ├── inst2.png └── inst3.png └── README.md /images/inst1.png: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Mushtari-Sadia/TOEFL-prep/HEAD/images/inst1.png -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /images/inst2.png: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Mushtari-Sadia/TOEFL-prep/HEAD/images/inst2.png -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /images/inst3.png: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Mushtari-Sadia/TOEFL-prep/HEAD/images/inst3.png -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /README.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # TOEFL-prep 2 | 3 | - [Mushtari Sadia](https://github.com/Mushtari-Sadia/TOEFL-prep#mushtari-sadia) (Old TOEFL) 4 | - [Mashiat Mustaq](https://github.com/Mushtari-Sadia/TOEFL-prep#mashiat-mustaq) (Old TOEFL) 5 | - [Ataf Fazledin Ahamed](#ataf-fazledin-ahamed) (New TOEFL) 6 | 7 | ## Mushtari Sadia 8 | 9 | ### **My TOEFL scores** 10 | 11 | - Total: 115/120 12 | 13 | Reading: 29/30 14 | Listening: 30/30 15 | Speaking: 30/30 16 | Writing: 26/30 17 | 18 | - Total preparation time: 4-5 days 19 | - Test date: June 10, 2023 20 | 21 | ### **My Test Experience** 22 | I gave my exam at the AAA centre, Banani. Overall environment was pretty good. A typical problem in toefl exams is that it becomes quite disturbing when others are in their speaking section, so be prepared for that. In my case, I finished the listening section quite fast so I was able to start my speaking section before everyone else around me (so I think I was the one who disturbed everyone xD). When everyone else started speaking, I was in the writing section and couldn't focus for 1-2 minutes. 23 | 24 | Another thing that happened to me was, I was somehow getting less and less time for questions compared to the mock tests I gave at home. I guess this is a general thing that happens during tests. I even missed one question in the reading section because I was out of time. In the writing portion, I didn't have time to write conclusions (for both questions). I think this strongly affected my writing scores. So while you're practising at home, practice in a way that you have enough time to spare, because in the actual exam your pace becomes much slower. Also, in toefl exams there is a specific structure for scores. It won't matter how well you wrote if you didn’t write conclusions or didn’t use enough transitional words, etc. So make yourself familiar with the structures and something called "TOEFL scoring rubrics." 25 | 26 | ### **My Preparation Steps** 27 | **Starting point** 28 | 29 | This video is a must watch. It describes the entire test. A lot of strategies were described in this video, all of which came in handy for me. 30 | 31 | - https://youtu.be/7XA49rWNiqw 32 | 33 | **The Mock Test App** 34 | 35 | - https://buetedu-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/maliha_wre_buet_ac_bd/Eh0i9rRIa3JPpCZQXjb0kVcB0YAiPvPFQILTI0448PKe0Q?e=hZMYCj 36 | 37 | - Instructions: 38 | 39 | - Download the entire folder and open it on your computer 40 | Open the exe with 3.0 in it. That’s the test app. 41 | 42 | ![inst](images/inst1.png) 43 | - Open the exe without 3.0 or XP in it. Then click on the license.xml button. Your test app is activated. 44 | 45 | ![inst](images/inst2.png) 46 | 47 | ![inst](images/inst3.png) 48 | 49 | 50 | There are 24 free mock tests here. Give as many as you can, I gave 5. The test app scores the reading and listening portion but doesn’t score the speaking and writing portion. For judging your own speaking, you can follow the strategies described in the video link I gave above. If it’s not enough, youtube has a LOT of videos. For judging your writing, chatGPT can be a handy tool. Ask the question this way: 51 | “Assess this essay according to toefl integrated/independent writing rubrics. Suggest improvements or corrections wherever necessary “ 52 | 53 | **Another tip:** The test app fails to save the written essay sometimes. So what I did was, after writing one essay, exited the test, went to view answers -> writing -> switched between the independent/integrated a few times to load it -> copied it (ctrl+c) -> pasted in a text file outside -> then went back to the test and started the second question of writing. 54 | 55 | 56 | That’s it for my preparation. There are more resources below which I collected but never looked at (except for the first two links). 57 | 58 | ### **Tips** 59 | 60 | #### Speaking 61 | 62 | Most people struggle with this section the most, including myself, so I'm adding some tips that helped me. First- if you're struggling with speaking, practice it more. Even though I gave only 5 full mock tests, I spent almost a whole day practising the speaking section of about 13 tests. 63 | 64 | Second- a common issue of the independent speaking tasks (where you're asked to talk about a random topic and you only get to think about it for 15 seconds) is that "I couldn't come up with anything". Note that the problem usualy isn't that you couldn't come up with anything, the problem is whatever came to your mind, you thought- "I'll sound lame if I say this". 65 | 66 | This is why you must know the TOEFL scoring rubrics. In the speaking section, you are not scored on the content you're saying. You're scored on your ability of getting words out of your mouth, and successfully getting your point across. You just have to talk and be understood. That's it. So say any stupid thing that comes to your mind, you don't need to sound smart. 67 | 68 | ### **Resources** 69 | - **Writing Resources**: 70 | 71 | [TOEFL Writing Questions (2023 edition) – Sample Essays and Questions | Test Resources (toeflresources.com)](https://www.toeflresources.com/sample-toefl-essays/) 72 | 73 | - **Speaking Resources:** 74 | 75 | [Sample TOEFL Speaking Questions and Answers (2023 Update) | Test Resources (toeflresources.com)](https://www.toeflresources.com/speaking-section/toefl-speaking-samples/) 76 | 77 | - **More videos:** 78 | 79 | https://www.youtube.com/c/NoteFullTOEFLMastery/videos 80 | 81 | - **folder:** 82 | 83 | https://buetedu-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/maliha_wre_buet_ac_bd/EovHVuVyA-JBjcIBYnwe_CAB9oWL2yYiOxt0JykXtndjmQ?e=iBulsx 84 | 85 | ## Mashiat Mustaq 86 | ### My TOEFL Score : 116/120 87 | *R : 30/30, L : 30/30, S : 28/30, W: 28/30* 88 | 89 | 90 | I primarily followed the above suggestions for my TOEFL preparation. Started prepping from two weeks earlier, first watched the youtube video provided in the above section Starting Point, then watched the writing tutorials of Notefull. I used to give a mock test from the app (link provided in the above too) everyday, and at the end sometimes even two in a day. So overall I might have practised the contents of around ten mock tests. From my previous experience of giving GRE, I have always found that giving a mock test at a stretch, without taking any break helps you to prepare for the tiresome and mentally exhausting official test of almost 3.5-4 hours in the center. So, my suggestion is to at least give 2-3 mock tests without any break to familiarize yourself with the environment. 91 | 92 | *For writing section, I do not have any extra insight. I mainly followed the above guidelines.* 93 | 94 | ## *Reading :* 95 | Never read the full passage at the start, it will only waste your time. 96 | In selecting sentences that summarizes your passage, only three will have correct information, the rest will either be wrong or contain information not mentioned in the passage. Try to eliminate those first, eventually, you’ll be left with three correct ones. It worked in my case. 97 | 98 | ## *Listening:* 99 | I was struggling between taking notes and hearing every line of the conversation. Most of the time, I missed hearing some lines while trying to complete my note of the previous lines. My notes were short, but writing the full words consumed my time mostly. Later, I started writing words in half. Like writing “stu” instead of “student”, or “M/S” instead of “The Mediterranean Sea”. 100 | 101 | ## *Speaking:* 102 | I put extra efforts in this to prepare myself. In the final test while the initial instruction was going on, I wrote all my templates in my rough sheet and kept it one side so I can look at the templates and my notes together while speaking. Besides, since I wasn’t confident about this part, during the preparation time of 15/30 seconds, I tried to speak once in my mind the way I was planning to speak (well, most of the time I couldn’t complete it in my mind as the time was very short) . It helped as once the timer started, I didn’t have to think much on how I should compose my sentences since I already did that in my mind once. 103 | I was warned about the noise in the final test during speaking. What happened in my case was that everyone started their speaking at the same time. And there was one person in my room who almost yelled while giving her speaking test. The voices of others were moderate but that one person was enough to make me lose my concentration multiple times while giving my test. If you are unlucky, you might have someone like that too so be prepared for the worst. 104 | 105 | 106 | ## Ataf Fazledin Ahamed 107 | ### My TOEFL Score: 110/120 108 | *R: 30/30, L: 28/30, S: 28/30, W: 24/30* 109 | 110 | ### Resources 111 | - TOEFL Mock Test App: 112 | Download the ZIPs from the link below. Extract and install all of these TOEFL test apps. 113 | - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1l1aZt5WgIaYZ4lpW1LtVQJWcSgFepfbz?usp=sharing 114 | 115 | - Then, watch these two videos, it gives an overall idea about the whole TOEFL exam. 116 | - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XA49rWNiqw 117 | - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjGQt7rf7VM 118 | 119 | ### Preparation 120 | After you get an understanding of the whole TOEFL exam format, I'd suggest you to go to TestGlider and give a whole mock test. It'll take 1.5-2 hr. The goal isn't to score a perfect number but to get a firsthand idea about the exam. Now that you've given the TestGlider (TG) exam, I hope you've become familiar with the exam format. Let's start practicing then - 121 | 122 | - **READING**: 123 | For the reading part, I kept giving the mock test from the TOEFL app. I started with the official one - it has 4 mock tests. I only practiced the reading section. Then reviewed my answer, took a look at where I made mistakes. After the official TOEFL app, I started giving mock tests on the TOEFL v2 app. Its reading section is quite harder than the official one. It has 5 mock tests, but each of them train you to focus more and more. After giving the tests, I reviewed my answer and noticed where I was making mistakes. At last, I gave a mock test on the TOEFL v1 app on the reading section only. On average, I used to get 83%-93% on these reading sections. 124 | 125 | - **SPEAKING**: 126 | After the reading section, I reserved a whole day just for the speaking section. I went to TG and kept giving all of the speaking 'practice' examples. You may give the TestGlider mock tests too. Following a common template for speaking helps. You can refer to the shared Google doc to find such examples. 127 | 128 | - **LISTENING**: 129 | After I was confident of my SPEAKING abilities, I practiced the LISTENING section from TestGlider also. It appeared to me that the LISTENING section doesn't require as much practice as SPEAKING does. Also, it's fairly easy to score on LISTENING than on SPEAKING. 130 | 131 | - **WRITING**: 132 | Personally, I never had any problems writing independently. So, I took up writing practice for the last stage. I practiced from the TestGlider. Following a template and taking note will help you in writing. So, I did that too. Basically, I followed the tips said in those YouTube videos. 133 | 134 | Overall, I gave 4+5+5+3 reading mocks. All TG speaking, listening practice. And at last, during the last day - I gave two complete mock tests from TG once I was confident of my preparation. Also, I had confidence in my writing, still got the lowest among all sections. Even though I had finished early and revised it, I guess the fault was in my approach. Maybe my writing didn't cover all points. 135 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------