Monday, August 28, 2006
Humilating experience of TOEFL :)
Last Saturday I made my next step towards admission - I took TOEFL iBT in Moscow. My scores will be available at September 15 or earlier... A present on my birthday :)
The test: if you have by chance passed IELTS (which is a standard requirement for educational institutes in the UK, Canada and Australia), the idea of iBT is alike. The same division into four sections (reading, listening, speaking and writing), with minor distinctions: there is no sentence correction in TOEFL, and, an aspect that is widely discussed between activists of these two examinations, speaking in TOEFL is not in front of a real person, but tete-a-tete with a computer (in IELTS an examinee has a short interview with an examiner).
More about speaking. I was all flustered up with the conditions. Designing new Internet-based exam, the ETS made a point that TOEFL will test the ability of an examinee to speak coherently in irritating circumstances close to those present in real life. Be serious about it! :) I expected that I would have to speak simultaneously with other examinees and the challenge would be in ignoring various noises and distractions. But really, it was much worse! All of examinees (there were about 10 of us) started at one time, and as I was very fast with my Reading and Listening, I started Speaking when other people had break. Which meant that as I was trembling all over trying to make as less mistakes as possible, to speak loud and with expression, 10 other people stood around with their headphones off, listening to my pathetic speach :))) Grrr! Horrible, horrible experience :)
Mind this when you plan your exam... maybe it is better to drag your Reading & Listening on till other people are finishing, so that during your Speaking everybody else is busy with his or her own business ;)
The test: if you have by chance passed IELTS (which is a standard requirement for educational institutes in the UK, Canada and Australia), the idea of iBT is alike. The same division into four sections (reading, listening, speaking and writing), with minor distinctions: there is no sentence correction in TOEFL, and, an aspect that is widely discussed between activists of these two examinations, speaking in TOEFL is not in front of a real person, but tete-a-tete with a computer (in IELTS an examinee has a short interview with an examiner).
More about speaking. I was all flustered up with the conditions. Designing new Internet-based exam, the ETS made a point that TOEFL will test the ability of an examinee to speak coherently in irritating circumstances close to those present in real life. Be serious about it! :) I expected that I would have to speak simultaneously with other examinees and the challenge would be in ignoring various noises and distractions. But really, it was much worse! All of examinees (there were about 10 of us) started at one time, and as I was very fast with my Reading and Listening, I started Speaking when other people had break. Which meant that as I was trembling all over trying to make as less mistakes as possible, to speak loud and with expression, 10 other people stood around with their headphones off, listening to my pathetic speach :))) Grrr! Horrible, horrible experience :)
Mind this when you plan your exam... maybe it is better to drag your Reading & Listening on till other people are finishing, so that during your Speaking everybody else is busy with his or her own business ;)
# posted by Nat4mba : 2:43 PM
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Looks like u did well in spite of all the deviations :)
All the best with ur GMAT. Hope u score more than ur expectations :D
All the best with ur GMAT. Hope u score more than ur expectations :D
iday
Thanks :) My GMATPreps constantly show 690, and I don't expect to get stellar results, but 700+ will really do :)
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Thanks :) My GMATPreps constantly show 690, and I don't expect to get stellar results, but 700+ will really do :)
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