College 101
What Is the TOEFL? Article Type: Connect
Welcome, international Shmooper! May we also add,
- Bienvenidos!
- Bienvenue!
- 欢迎你来!
- Willkommen!
- اهلا وسهلا!
- добро пожаловать!
Seriously, take a plane. It's worth it. (Source)
Before you book your flight, schools want to know that you have the appropriate language skills needed to succeed in a college environment. They could test you on French, otherwise known as the language of love, but they don’t. Even if you can fluently wax poetic en françias, schools are more interested in verifying that you know the world's most widely spoken language: English. That’s what the TOEFL is for. No offense to the language of love; the TOEFL is just being practical.
Format and Breakdown
The joyous experience of taking the TOEFL lasts roughly four hours total and consists of four sections: Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking. So far, there are no sections on body language, interpretive dancing, or awkward pauses. We'll cover these four sections in detail in our TOEFL Test Prep. For now, here are the basics:
The Reading section comes first. You have 60 to 80 minutes to read three or four passages and answer 12 to 14 multiple-choice comprehension questions about each passage. That's a little less than two minutes for each question, so use the time wisely. It's probably not a good idea to spend it doodling a picture of a giraffe.
The Listening section takes 60 to 90 minutes and involves (surprise!) listening to people speak English in different situations. You listen to four to six recordings of professors speaking in a classroom setting and two to three recordings of students dealing with common university situations, like buying textbooks or talking with a registrar. Then you answer about five multiple-choice questions about each recording. There's no popcorn available for this section. Save that for the next Avengers.
The Speaking section is the shortest one, taking only 20 minutes. In this section, you speak into a microphone to record responses to six different questions. Two of the questions, the independent exercises, are broad and open-ended. The other four questions are integrated exercises that require you to read a short passage or listen to a recording before speaking a response. It's a lot like being interviewed by Maury Povich, except no one is getting the results of a paternity test.
The Writing section appears last on the TOEFL. It takes 50 minutes and asks for two different essay responses. In the first prompt, the integrated writing task, you read a passage, listen to a lecture on the same topic, and write a summary of both. The second prompt, the independent writing task, asks for an opinion essay in response to a written question. The question probably won't be "Which are better, crinkle fries or curly fries?" but we can dream.
Scoring
Mama Shmoop always tells us, "It's not whether you win or lose; it's how you play the game." She's very wise. She must be talking about the TOEFL, because there is no winning on this test. There is no official passing score because every school decides its own passing score individually. Schools are also free to set different passing scores based on the specific program a student is applying to. What can we say? We like our freedom here.
In total, the TOEFL is worth up to 120 points, with each of the four sections worth up to 30 of those points. Like many other tests, the multiple-choice questions on the Reading and Listening sections of the TOEFL are graded via computer, but the responses to the Speaking and Writing sections are graded by humans. Someday the whole test might be graded by a hyper-intelligent octopus, but not yet.
Logistics
Attending school in another country is never easy, but signing up for the TOEFL is. Visit the TOEFL website to register online or look for available test centers and dates. You can take the TOEFL almost anywhere, except for maybe in a place that doesn't have Internet access.
After taking the test, scores are automatically sent to up to four schools of your choice for free, but sending more than four score reports costs an additional $19 for each one. Who said education was cheap?