How to Prepare for TOEFL in 30 Days

hello my name is jay and this is mark mark one of the questions we always get at e2 language is how do i prepare for toefl in 30 days okay so i've got less than a month to prepare for my toefl test what's the first thing i should do the first thing you should do when preparing for toefl or any test really is seek assistance one month is not a lot of time and you know you might be tempted to try and study by yourself but you don't want to be one week or two weeks out and then suddenly decide you know what i need help understanding the test as well as you can could make a big difference it could make the difference between getting the score you want or not cool very good point i totally agree now we're going to go through a lot of detail in this video about how best to prepare for toefl and if you want that in a pdf form in a downloadable form in the description below you can click that link for the get started checklist let's start with tip number one though learn the tasks so there's a lot going on in the toefl test where do i start the first thing to understand is that there are four sections you've got reading listening writing and speaking and there's a lot of different question types that you will want to be familiar with just starting with reading you've got nine different types of questions you've got vocab questions sentence simplification reference factual information negative factual information inference rhetorical purpose insert text pro summary and fill in a table wow okay that's a lot yeah now of course in the test you don't need to sit there thinking about what they're called but you will be you will want to be familiar with how to handle those questions i agree uh what about listening though listening you've also got a number of different types of questions you're going to have just for content just for purpose detail function attitude inference organization and connecting content so again same thing you want to come into a school you want to find someone who's going to help you understand what those questions are testing you for and keep in mind the main thing is that these are skills that are not just important you know to pass the test most people are taking toefl because they want to go to university these are relevant university skills that you're going to need absolutely i think these questions would really help you at college or university for sure now what about the speaking part of the test yes now this is where things can get a bit tricky and in the test they get pretty fast so you'll definitely want some help with this usually you know if you start learning or if you start studying for the toefl test you might want to start with uh speaking you first of all got independent uh speaking tasks in the test you've got personal choice then you've got integrated questions now this is going to require listening and reading and speaking so there is the integrated summarizing of an announcement or an opinion there is then a summarizing of an academic reading and lecture and then you just summarize a lecture so in some cases you've got listening reading speaking in some cases just listening and speaking good one now i understand that there's also independent writing and integrated writing as well is that true that is correct independent essay is simple they give you a prompt or a question and you respond then in the integrated writing they will give you reading and listening and you will have to write about that you'll be describing what things look like what things they talked about things like that cool yeah i think it's really important that you understand what this test looks like before test day especially for those integrated tasks because you know you have to listen take notes then do a reading then write or vice versa for speaking as well so knowing how it looks is really important but it's also equally important or more important to know what to do and this is where the methods come in so number two is learn the methods so for each of those tasks which we just talked about which there are many each of them obviously has a solution each solution has a method that is kind of like a step-by-step approach that you will take to find the right answer now some methods are harder to learn than others for example reading vocabulary is pretty simple it's a multiple choice style question it's actually pretty simple in terms of its function reading fill in a table requires you to learn a bit more of a complex method then you've got independent speaking and writing versus integrated speaking and writing as well so there's a bit to learn there and in addition there's also note taking note taking is important right this is huge and it's it's really interesting when i have talked with students who have finished the test they're all very happy because when i've been teaching i really push them you must get your note taken down you need to practice it work on it sometimes my students at the beginning will say it's really hard for me to listen and take notes at the same time or i can't understand both and i just really push them and say don't worry you're gonna get better at it but you do need to practice so i know there's probably some people out there thinking oh i'm fine i don't need to take notes i'll remember you really won't um and yeah it's a it's a stressful situation as well and you know you all you have are your notes for those integrated tasks that's right it almost becomes like your memory in those integrated tasks yeah cool now one of the things we do at e2 language is we give you methods lessons video based methods lessons which are also followed up in the live classes with our expert teachers so if you don't want to deconstruct the test for yourself and work out the methods which i don't recommend you do use our methods our methods work cool let's look at tip number three now which is practice so the point here is that you want to apply these methods that you're going to learn to some practice questions you really on the test date you don't want to be thinking about strategy you don't want to be thinking about what you're doing you want to have a really good feel for the questions you want to have a feel for how it works so that when you have the test you just do it very quickly practice questions are something we have an abundance of on e2 cool let's look at tip number four find your strengths and weaknesses okay so you've now done an overview you understand the question types what they look like etc you've understood the methods that is how to go through the step-by-step approach to them and you've done a bit of practice now what you need to do is a bit like going to the doctor and finding out what's going on where are you strong and where are you weak this is really critical so you want to look at your overall scores for listening reading writing and speaking uh you also want to find your weaknesses within the sub skills so not just the listening reading writing speaking but also how's your grammar how's your oral fluency how's your pronunciation the clarity of your speech how's your spelling your vocab how is your structure that is your sentence level structure your paragraph level structure your entire essay level structure good and how about reading so reading really consists of vocab and grammar and also a function this is why the toefl questions are good because they test whether or not you can read for gist or detail or someone's opinion or inference or something like that and listening is very similar it's basically consists of vocab and grammar and again whether you can listen for just detailed inference opinion attitude those sorts of things and these are all things you'll have to do in university true that's right cool now if you want to take a diagnostic test and find out what your strengths and weaknesses are our mock test is just for that that's on e2language.com let's now look at tip number five focus on your weak areas so the first thing is of course practice you're going to want to practice your reading practice your listening if you decide that you need a little bit extra work on that then you'll want to take some time with that the main thing i usually say though is slow down as you're going through it you don't want to just burn through practice tests or you know find a book full of five tests go through it all quickly you really want to be focused on it if it's reading or listening you want to read and listen a bit more outside of the test this is really important you're going to build your reading speed you're going to build your vocabulary and there's a lot of times where vocabulary is going to be important especially in reading while you're practicing the test you don't just want to get through it and then get your score and then leave you want to find out why the answer is what it is so why is the right one right and why is the wrong one wrong that's really important i totally agree i think slowing down really paying close attention this is why you need good quality practice materials by the way because bad quality practice materials will probably confuse you more if it is good quality you'll be able to very clearly see if you have the time and you can concentrate why the answer is c and not d and a and b that's extremely helpful one of the things our teachers do in our live classes on e2language.com is good answer explanations that can be very satisfying for reading and listening and then when you take the test you've already done the practice you understand how the questions are designed what they're looking for and the questions are just easy so you're not just taking the test you're just reading and answering the questions in this way that you've been trained to do okay so speaking and writing are different to reading and listening reading and listening you can practice by yourself or in a class but with speaking writing it's all about feedback right yeah because you can write all day long but if somebody isn't providing you feedback on your writing you simply won't improve so with speaking get feedback and concentrate on the remarks that your teacher gives you with regards to pronunciation and that includes the consonants the consonant clusters the vowels the word stress the sentence stress the connected speech how well you're pausing are you hesitating too much there's a lot that goes on with speaking and then with writing you also want to get feedback and concentrate on those remarks how's your grammar how's your verb tenses your prepositions your articles your plural nouns what about your vocab how are your single words or your vocabulary range you have a wide range of synonyms you can draw on what about your phrases and your collocations what about the structure of your sentences your paragraphs can you write a good introductory paragraph good body paragraphs a good conclusion for your essay there's a lot going on there's a lot to focus on isn't there yeah and your teacher needs to give you then feedback and this is the important thing again don't just look at your score look at the feedback understand what these mistakes are fix them and then internalize it so you don't just want to say oh okay i know you want to then practice or rewrite or ask more questions don't just focus on is it right or wrong or get upset when you're making mistakes take the time to fix those mistakes and you know it's amazing what you can get done in 30 days great totally agree yeah so again in the 30 days we have live classes we have the practice questions we have the methods lessons but we also have the feedback you can submit the writing through to our teachers who will then give you a very comprehensive report card on your speaking and your writing cool the next tip is keep a positive attitude but mark i've only got 30 days i'm freaking out all right so remember you know you might take that first day you might take a mock test or a practice test and you might get this score back you might not be super happy with it but just remember you know even in a few days you could see that score increase you could see your writing quality improve if you're taking that feedback understanding it and then making the corrections as necessary that's i think the really important thing i've seen students make you know small improvements every few days and then you know within a couple of weeks they're feeling a lot better about where they are great now if you need help with your toefl test and you have about a month to prepare for it you may want to download the get started checklist from the description below it's going to help you to sort of chart out your trajectory towards success my name is jay and i'm mark see you later you

Channel: E2 TOEFL

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Id: -IsrBLYqPsE

Length: 13min 44sec (824 seconds)

Published: Thu May 06 2021