TOEFL iBT Strategies Week 1

Listening “It’s so hard! They talk too fast, and use too many new words. I’ll never improve!”

Listening Overview Two types: Campus conversations and Academic lectures Long and short format sections Short Format: 6 excerpts Long Format: 9 excerpts (some of the excerpts will not be graded) Quality of notes You must answer questions AFTER you’ve listened. You must be able to apply your notes back to your test. Relax and don’t be intimidated by the listening passages. You can do this! General tips

Campus Conversations Setting up your notes You will listen to two students discussing a problem, or a “service encounter” – interacting with some kind of campus facility. These conversations have an informal, conversational tone, with relatively few new vocabulary items. Location: prof. office Problem: st wants grade change, was ill, has doctor’s note Solution: make-up project Do next? Write proposal for make-up proj.

Academic Lectures Familiarize yourself with more difficult vocabulary items beforehand. Like the previous section, focus on the organization of the lecture to identify key information. Recognize organizational patterns of the lecture, and highlight them in your notes. You will listen to a lecture and answer questions, similar to the reading section. They can be from a broad range of topics, do NOT let the vocabulary (i.e. Sciences) overwhelm you.

Listening recap Campus Conversations Short discussions between a student and a campus facility Informal, conversational tone Few new vocabulary items Location, Problem, Solution, Do Next? Academic Lectures An excerpt from a university level lecture. Formal tone Unfamiliar, technical vocabulary items Don’t be overwhelmed by vocabulary; focus on organization.

Reading “”I don’t need to practice reading, I can do that at home.”

Vocabulary from Context Identify the word form. If it’s a noun, look for adjectives describing the noun. If it’s an adjective, look at the noun it’s describing. Use the sentence structure to look for cues – if it’s part of a list of like items, or if you can see a contrast in the sentence. Look for word roots, suffixes, and prefixes that you recognize, ex. “un”, “pre”, “pro”, etc. When desperate, try substituting each word choice into the text to see if it makes sense.

Sentence Insertion Task Ss must look at a paragraph from the reading and add another sentence to it. There are four places where the sentence could go. Strategy Look for a referent in the sentence to be matched in. Usually a “these”, “this”, “Another example..” which gives ss a clue where it might go. If they have lots of time on their hands, they could match the sentence into the paragraph and read it through each time. Sentences can be match in and out before committing to an answer.

Understanding Detail Questions Task: Students must identify correct details from the reading. large amounts of new vocabulary in these questions. for the sake of the test, it’s not necessary to understand every word. Strategy Details are located in the body paragraphs, and take the form of examples, descriptions, definitions or explanations. Take notes, don’t underline! If two or more things are discussed, have them divide the notes so key details will be associated with the correct term.