TOEFL or Test of English as Foreign Language is an English proficiency test which any student aspiring to study in the Unites States, Canada or Australia, needs to take and score well, to become accepted by the schools. The test primarily evaluates a person’s proficiency in the english language. The toefl test patter has been recently changed and is now termed as Toefl iBT. This is a internet based test which tests a student’s ability to speak, listen, read and write in english. The test runs for about four hours and costs about $165/-. The price varies from country to country.
The first section is the speaking section. Here a student should speak on various topics and the section has six subdivisions. The first would be to describe something that the student likes. The next would be to choose a topic and discuss about it. The thirst section would be to read about something and give an opinion about the conversation which was played. The fourth part would be to listen to an academic lecture and read about it and explain how the lecture casts doubts on or otherwise relates to the reading. The next section in the speaking segment would be pure listening to a conversation and based on that describe the problem and the possible solutions discussed and choose a solution you prefer. The final section would be a academic lecture which the student needs to summarize. The responses spoken by the student will be recorded and rated on a scale of 0-30.
The next section is the listening section where 4 lectures and 2 campus conversations are played based on which 6 and 5 questions each are asked respectively, which needs to be answered. This section too is scored on a scale of 0-30.
The next section is reading comprehension where 3 passages of 600-700 words each are presented based on which 12-15 question per passage needs to be answered. There are exactly 39 questions asked in this section and again this section is scored on a scale of 0-30.
The final section is the writing section which is divided into 2 questions. The first is an academic lecture which involves both reading and listening and the student would be required to write how the lecture casts doubt on the reading. The second question would be agree or disagree, personal opinion essay on which the student would be expected to write. This is also scored on a 0-30 scale.
There are countries where the paper based toefl test is also administered but most of the countries have shifted to the internet based toefl test.
Registration for the test can be done through online registration, phone or by acquiring the bulletin and sending the exam form manually.