hey guys welcome to lingua marina welcome to my channel today we're going to talk about my favorite english test out there and the test is called toefl i've taken it two times the first time i took it was back in what 2015 when i was applying for my masters in mba in the us and i scored 117 out of 120 and the second time i took it was last year and i took it from home in order to experience the whole um tofu from home experience and i scored 115 out of 120 and both times so the first time i prepared for 10 days because toefl was my second exam i needed to take the first one was gmat and i just realized gmat is like so so hard and i didn't have a lot of time so i mostly spend my time preparing for gmat and then in 10 days i had toefl so i just had 10 days to prepare for the toefl exam and the second time around when i took my toefl test from home because i didn't have a goal of being accepted to harvard without score i didn't really prepare at all i just read about the home test experience and i went there and again i scored 115 of course the first preparation helped me but anyways the thing is with toefl you don't need to spend months preparing for the exam you need to spend i would say two weeks if you are above intermediate but one thing i wanted to note is that toefl really measures your ability to speak and use english and if you are a beginner you won't be able to score 100 plus that's the thing right it's very important that you already have the level of english that you need on your toefl test so if you're intermediate you won't be able to score 100 plus you need to be a very strong upper intermediate advanced person to score 100 plus at the same time the majority of universities would require 80 plus so it's somewhere between intermediate upper intermediate and you're good there but before we dive into the video this is something really important i'm gonna talk about the tips that i've used i'm gonna recommend some resources but if you're a beginner hoping to score 100 plus on toefl in two weeks it is not gonna work nothing's gonna work your english needs to be on a good level and all of the toefl preparation is just getting acquainted with the tasks getting some templates like templates they help me 100 just having a template for speaking in your head having a template for writing for note-taking in your head that helps a lot because you're so stressed during the exam we're going to talk about that but again there is no magic bill here we're just going to go through tips that you can follow if your english is good enough if it's not good enough yet then you know switch off this video take general english class and then come back once you're ready to take toefl but toefl preparation cannot take six months that's like too much one month two months maximum uh if you require more time that might indicate that your english level is not good enough but again i'm not a professional teacher this is just my opinion as a student as a person who's taken toefl and is a person who's been learning english since oh my god 1994 since i was four okay let's do it quick addition i think you need a list of phrasal verbs phrasal verbs the ones that you cannot translate so you have to learn them and in toefl not only would you hear them in every single section but the test makers expect you to use them in the writing section so you really need to be good with phrasal verbs you need to know what they are how to use them when to use them and not mix them up so we created a free pdf with phrasal verbs that are useful for toefl and not just for toefl because we're not learning english just to take toefl we learn english to improve our lives the pdf is down below is completely free please download it please take notes of all the phrasal verbs that are new for you print it out highlight the phrasal verbs with a highlighter the ones that you don't know and learn them and start using them the pdf is free the link is down below feel free to download it and start practicing right away tip number one is to just get familiar with the test now let's look at the table we have a reading section that lasts from 54 to 72 minutes and sometimes you get lucky sometimes you just get extra tasks in each section and they don't count towards your final score they're just for the test takers to test some tasks but the thing is you will never know and i ended up having a longer reading section on my first test and i realized i'm getting a third text i was like no please cause reading for me is the most exhausting part you need to be so focused on the text and see all the details in the text and oh my god the questions are looking for the smaller details so i wasn't really happy when they were testing uh their tests on me on my actual exam you have 30 to 40 questions and you read text there passages and responded questions and again it's the most tiring part you need to be really focused like my tip here would be to read everything do all the tasks and have at least five minutes to go back and just do the whole thing once again because it happened to me twice when i went back and i corrected some answers and both of my reading parts in both tests were 30 out of 30 just because i was able to correct some things last minute listening 41 to 55 minutes 28 to 39 questions you answer questions about brief lectures or classroom discussions with listening it's very important to take the right notes and we're going to talk about that a little later in this video then you have a 10 minute break that i would use to just go pee really quickly and then come back to the class and start listening what other people are talking about in their speaking sections because you're all getting the same questions and that was really helpful for me because i knew what they were talking about and i already started preparing during my break made some notes i had some templates in my head i wrote them down on my piece of paper that they gave me so i had something to look at during the actual speaking part speaking 17 minutes four tasks talk about a familiar topic and discuss material you've read and listened to very very important to heavier templates because you get so overwhelmed with all the information and having some phrases that you can actually start saying while you're still thinking about the the actual topic that really helps we're gonna talk about that writing 50 minutes two tasks read a passage listen to a recording type your response that's the section where i never ended up scoring 30 out of 30. so i was able to score 30 out of 30 on my listening in the first test and the second test i made some mistakes i know where i was just so tired after the reading section i couldn't really focus on the listening with the speaking section i was almost perfect in both tests but in the second test again because i wasn't preparing i kind of forgot some of my templates i didn't use them so i scored less with writing i was never able to score 30 out of 30. my friend who's a professional english teacher who's a native speaker was never able to score 30 out of 30 just because with writing they are looking for a diversified vocabulary they have some templates that they want you to use they look for a lot of introductory phrases and words and it's just so hard to accommodate all of their needs in the writing section so i'm just okay with scoring like 27 28 on that section i would highly recommend taking a free toefl prep test there is a website called toefl bank for example you can go there and just take a couple of tests just to get the feeling of the atmosphere during the test because again it is really really in terms of pressure the pressure is really hard like and i'm a person who uses english every single day and the reading part was so exhausting so i really want you to go ahead and try and take the test from home practice test and uh just get the vibe of the exam then you have to measure your progress if you're just starting your preparation what i would do i would take a free practice test they would measure your reading and listening because they can check that automatically and you just write down your scores you prepare for a week and you take another practice test and you see how much you're progressing and i would start with the part that's the most difficult for you if you feel that reading has been the most difficult then start with it because at the beginning of the preparation process you just have a lot of you know energy and optimism and starting with the hardest part and that applies to i guess everything in life start with the hardest part because it's necessary and at the beginning you're more positive you have more energy and then test yourself every other week depending on how much time you're taking to prepare just to see whether you're progressing or not because if you're not progressing then maybe the methods that you've chosen to prepare for the test are not working then this applies to anyone if your test is in two years or in a year or in a week read for 30 minutes every day and please stop reading people's tweets please stop reading people's instagram posts start reading something that's related to toefl so bbc has all of those articles or you can go to a website breakingnewsenglish.com they take news and you're just able to read news in english and this is again the type of text that toefl uses in the exam the economist discover nature new york times the atlantic like all of those kind of professional slash cultural tv channels super useful in terms of listening vocabulary that they use like the hardest topic for me during toefl was biology they had those biology texts almost everywhere in reading and listening and writing i had to talk about turtles and the arctic and polar bears and i'm so bad at it like we had biology classes at school but i was not really excited about them so i'm i'm really good at vocabulary connected with business uh with youtube but whatever lifestyle but i'm so bad with the vocabulary connected to biology so before preparing for uh my first soulful test i read a lot of texts about geography like from national geographic or about biology i watch different videos on youtube about different mammals etc just go out there watch them because they would use that vocabulary in the test and also when you're reading try to answer some questions like what is the main idea in the text what was the conflict who are the main characters etc like try to analyze the text while you're reading it because this is what you're gonna do on the exam now let's talk about the templates first of all templates provide you with a structure and this is what toefl guys are looking for they're looking for a structured answer second they provide you with introductory phrases and all the linking words again this is something they're looking for all the time and third they just give you time to think about the actual topic because you know you're gonna start your phrase your answer with the sentence i don't know the author in the text talks about he gives two examples of example number one is the example number two this is the way the author describes so those templates that i've created are a part of a course that i've created together with another professional teacher she scored 119 out of 120 on toefl and we've just upgraded a course and added 15 new lectures we've added detailed analysis of different types of tasks for example for the listening part we added three classes where first you're going to revise the best strategies for completing the tasks and then find out the best way of taking notes and later on practice the skill you will also get access to a database with all the templates that you can use we're also included live streams that you can attend and ask questions if you have them and if you miss the live stream you can just watch the recording later this is this course that prepares you for toefl based on my experience based on that teacher's experience and because you're watching this video you're getting a special discount to attend this course the link will be below and the promo code will be below please take the course uh take my templates use them for your exam and i hope you score more than 100 on your test and this is basically the goal of our course is to help people who already have the level of english that they need to score 100 plus on their test the link will be below the next tip is to expose yourself to non-american accents i try to speak with an american accent i try to copy people who are around me here in california but toefl uses a variety of accents i remember there was a british accent in the test there was new zealand accent there was australian accent so your goal is to listen to those accents and to make yourself familiar because i don't want you to be surprised that you don't understand what's going on during the test when you hear british accent for example because it's different from the american accent and i remember when i first came to the uk i was around intermediate i first had struggled to understand british people and i just couldn't understand what they were talking about it took me like two or three weeks to get used to the way they talk and once i got used to the way they talked um my friend and i sat together to watch a tv show and the tv show was in american english and i couldn't understand a thing i was like why wouldn't they translate this tv show from american english to british english because they struggle so so much but it's all about practice it's all about getting used to a variety of accents so make sure you just go on youtube and look for different accents in the search and listen to those accents by the way in terms of like what kind of english you speak during the exam well toefl is an american exam like north american but you don't have to sound north american you just need to be consistent so if you decided that you're going to use british english then please use british english but then color is with a u then it's not a truck it's a lorry it's not gas it's petrol so stay consistent with being british on the exam but if you decide to be american then stay consistent with being american so choose one of the versions of the english and stay consistent with it during the test but you're not required to speak as an american you can do whatever you want but again stay consistent the next tip i don't know how you can master it in two weeks if your exam is in two weeks but it's really important taking notes so first of all there is this home test toefl home test experience and it's in terms of like note-taking it was the worst for me because when you're actually taking a test in the test center you are using a real piece of paper with a real pencil so you can write things down when you're at home you need to put your piece of paper into a folder like a transparent file and write with a marker on it and because with a marker your font tends to be bigger you just run out of space and you're not really used to writing on this slippery surface with a marker so that was like one of the disadvantages of taking the test from home they want you to use this transparent file because they want you to erase everything after the test and you can only have one transparent file so you can only use two of the sides without like erasing stuff during the exam without erasing stuff constantly you know that was really hard for me because i couldn't take all the notes i wanted to take just because i was running out of space so if you're taking your toefl test from home get yourself a really thin marker um to just have more space there and um note taking is about really taking notes of every single detail like first time when i scored 30 out of 30 on listening i took notes of everything every color that the name every student every date and that helped me so much because the questions that you see after the text they're like they're asking for such small things that the author mentioned and i was like how was i supposed to memorize all of that you need to take notes during listening and the more notes you take the more successful you are during your listening section so try to write everything that was my approach but you can only do that if you're a good note taker if you're not a good note taker that would only distract you so if you feel that you can't really take notes quickly then don't take a lot of notes just write down some dates but the best strategy that worked for me is basically writing down the whole text i used some contractions like i studied mathematics at the university and for any we had this sign and more less like all of the mathematical signs i use them all the time and uh if you practice note-taking at home you can come up with some signs for yourself that you can use if you're a mathematician then uh congrats you will know a lot of science that you can use in your note-taking if you study to be a journalist you probably have this skill as well maybe watch some videos on note-taking watch some videos on how you can contract while you're writing because again this skill it helps in listening it helps in speaking because speaking you would also listen to someone talking about a topic and then you will need to give your opinion in writing they don't have too much because you're typing in writing something that really helps if you're taking the exam in a test center just getting used to different keyboards because they use really old keyboards in those test centers with like those huge you know i'm just used to my laptop and it's like very thin uh but anyways you need to learn how to take notes in english and going back to the keyboard if you could learn how to type faster if you could learn how to touch type without looking at your keyboard that would also be really useful and this skill would stay with you for your whole life because sometimes i feel like when i'm talking about all of those exams i just feel that well it's just it just takes too much time to fare but then i realized like no taking skill is a great skill touch typing skill is a great skill it's going to stay with you throughout your life so learn that as well and if you have plenty of time before your toefl test start with those two skills because they would enhance your day-to-day life as well the last but not the least the advice is to practice speaking and i know not a lot of you guys have a buddy who would listen to you in english or you don't have a teacher who will listen to you in english so what i did when i was preparing because i didn't have a teacher i would just talk to myself i would just listen to you know some text i will watch a youtube video and i would pretend that i'm talking to that person i would pretend that i am telling about that video to my mom or to my friend in english and just you know having that structure in your head being able to paraphrase stuff because this is what they're also looking for on the toefl test when you're speaking they don't want you to use the exact phrases from the text they want you to paraphrase to show that you have some other vocabulary as well and just practicing that really really helped okay guys quick question please let me know down in comments below when is your test and how much do you need to score for your goal is it 80 plus is it 90 plus uh what is it because this would also help me to get a feel of what kind of audience is watching this channel and i will be able to prepare more useful videos for you meanwhile please enroll into the course take the course prepare for toefl follow the tips that i've given you and thank you so much watching this video please share it with your friends who are also taking toefl and subscribe to this channel i'll see you very soon in my next videos bye