Foreign students studying in Turkey. Image Source: IANS

Foreign students studying in Turkey.

TOEFL as one of the principal tools of measurement that evaluates the ability of a person to use and understand English as an academic language. TOEFL stands for Test of English as a Foreign Language. It pertains to the scheme of evaluation meant for testing the capability of non English speaking candidates. Candidates desirous of pursuing higher education in the English speaking nations are tested by means of TOEFL.

Brief information about TOEFL

  • Essentially an evaluating yardstick
  • Can also be looked upon as one of the standardized criteria for admission
  • An essential part of 'ETS'- operational worldwide
  • Officially, the score obtained by means of the mentioned evaluation; retains effective for a period of two years.
  • It is administered by an advisory board consisting of sixteen members
  • Committee guiding its evaluation process consists of linguistic experts, the ones dealing with linguistic research.
  • A committee of twelve linguistic experts not only helps formulate test content; but also ensures that the evaluating scheme is a proper blend of proficiently developed methodologies.

Origin of TOEFL

  • Came into being as one of the concerted efforts of as many as thirty nations & privately based organizations
  • It was a combined endeavor to put into effect so that lingual proficiency of non English speakers is duly assessed
  • Joint endeavor initiated in 1962, developed as an assessment technique during 1963 & 1964.

Importance of TOEFL in Overseas Education

  • As you embark upon your dream of pursuing higher studies from one of the overseas universities- essentially English speaking in nature- TOEFL becomes one of its inseparable constituents.
  • Whether you want to make it to the IT training school or pursue further studies in English language course, you have to cross the bounds of TOEFL
  • It throws light on your capability to use and comprehend English.
  • The purview of use & comprehensibility pertains to the areas of reading, hearing, speaking, listening and writing
  • Besides Australia, Great Britain and United States of America as many as 130 nations rely on this yardstick of evaluation.
  • The fact, that the measuring pattern guides the admission scheme of as many as eight thousand universities speaks volumes about its globalised importance

Online TOEFL Test

  • An internet centric test- also referred to as 'iBT' serves to assess the essential cognitive ability of foreign speakers. It is basically a free online grammar test.
  • In the absence of internet accessibility; one can opt for its paper based alternative
  • In fact, the various cognitive aspects are integrated to make for a complete assessment of your proficiency
  • Essentially, the candidate's power of integration in respect of the four fold skills of reading, speaking, listening and reading are brought into test

Registration preceding TOEFL

  • In order to be duly eligible for TOEFL a prior registration is required
  • You ought to register at least three to four months prior to the test
  • It is important that you separately earmark a handful of college/university or institutions whose test scores you want to bank upon

Scores of TOEFL

  • There isn't any common cut of marks
  • Scores vary from place to place as much as they vary from course to course
  • Nobody secures pass or failed status
  • Minimum requirement is determined by respective universities/colleges/institutions
  • Generally speaking, it is important that minimum of one question is attempted from each of the four sections.
  • Delivery, enunciation, relevant use of grammatical norms and synchronized styles of presentation are dwelt upon

Scales of TOEFL scores

  • Internet centric test is based on total score of 0 - 120
  • Computer centric test is based on total score of 0 - 300
  • Paper oriented test is based on the total score of 310 - 677

Scores specific to different courses/universities/categories

  • Arizona University necessitates the bare minimum score of 83
  • Auburn University necessitates minimum of 80 in the Test of English as Foreign Language
  • University of Western Reserve for its school of 'Graduate Studies' necessitates the bare minimum score of 79
  • In order to avail visa for United Kingdom category specific TOEFL score is necessitated
  • To cite a few instances, students are required to have minimum score of 87
  • But moderately skilled workers are required to reach the bare minimum limit of 57
  • Skilled workers belonging to the highly efficient categories are required to score 110
  • Do bear in mind that each institution making use of TOEFL has bare minimum requisites for each and every cognitive skill (skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking )

How to prepare for free online grammar test

  • In order to give your best try, it is important that you make the best use of test preparation classes. There are online guides to interact with. The purpose of such guides is to help you reach out to interactive examples.
  • Besides making use of preparation classes, it makes sense going for free online test preparation