Widely accepted in 130 countries around the world, as a benchmark for English Language proficiency, the TOEFL exam is administered by ETS (www.ets.org). The exam evaluates your skill in combining the four tenets of language: listening, reading, speaking and writing to perform academic tasks.
This exam, is administered online in English. All the four sections, Reading, `Listening, Speaking & Writing, are tested without any human intervention. The Speaking section responses are captured with the help of the headphones and Microphone set which is provided to students. Therefore, a basic computer literacy is assumed by the test takers.
Roll through the basic information.
In this online exam, the intermediate and advanced English language skills of the students are tested. TOEFL is offered more than 50 times a year, mostly over the weekend (Friday, Saturday & Sunday). It is important to remember that you cannot re-attempt the test in a 12 day period. As such you can attempt the test any number of time.
TThe test is administered section wise, with the Reading section as the first one, followed by Listening section. Then comes a mandatory 10 minutes break. Test takers are allowed to move out of the testing area during this time. Once the exam restarts, the Speaking section comes up and is lastly wrapped up by the Writing section. With total scores of 120, every section is scored out of 30 points each. There is no negative marking in any section.
Component | Time Limit | Questions | Tasks |
---|---|---|---|
Reading | 60-80 minutes | 36-56 questions | Read 3 or 4 passages from academic texts and answer questions. |
Listening | 60-90 minutes | 34-51 questions | Listen to lectures, classroom discussions and conversations, and then answer questions. |
Break | 10 minutes | -- | -- |
Speaking | 20 minutes | 6 tasks | Express an opinion on a familiar topic; speak based on reading and listening tasks. |
Writing | 50 minutes | 2 tasks | Write essay responses based on reading and listening tasks; support an opinion in writing. |
The test might also contain extra questions in the Reading or Listening section. Do keep in mind that they do not any way contribute to your final score. However, since there is no way of distinguishing these questions, you are advised to attempt all questions to the best of your abilities. Standard English language (QWERTY) computer keyboard is used for the test.
Also, the Listening and Speaking sections of the TOEFL iBT test include other native-speaker English accents in addition to accents from North America, viz,. the United Kingdom, New Zealand or Australia. It is therefore prudent to expose yourself to all kinds of native English accents, when you are preparing for the test.