TOEFL
Looking for free practice material for the TOEFL test? This is your guide!
The first think you need to do when preparing for a TOEFL test is to find out which test you need to take for your purposes. There are two kinds of test: The TOEFL iBT and the TOEFL ITP.
This is very important because they are vey different tests and you don´t want to prepare for the wrong one.
Each institution will have different requirements, so pay attention to which test you need to take.
These are the main differences between the two tests:
How can I prepare?
Now that you know exactly which test to take, it´s time to prepare for it. There is a lot of practice material available and, although you may prepare for the test alone, a teacher will definitely make your life much easier and your preparation much faster and more efficient. Even if you already read, listen and speak English fluently, the teacher will help you practise the speaking skill and also correct your writings.
Guidelines to free online studying
1. Familiarize yourself with the text -The questions in TOEFL are very specific and it is more efficient if you understand how they work before you start your practice. The official guide by ETS explains each question in detail, with samples of each question, and brings very useful tips.
2. Take a sample test – It is important to take the full test once so you can check you level. You will not only understand how the TOEFL test works, but also identify where your difficulties are. This way you can organize your studies. I suggest using the Free Challenge Test from Tesden.
3. Exercise – Practise a lot of sample questions. There are specific strategies on how to approach each question or task. Study them, learn them and practise them! Focus your studies on the parts of the tests that are more difficult to you. If everything seems too challenging, I suggest you start with the reading part, then the listening, the writing and finally the speaking.
Reading
The passages are excerpts from university-level textbooks. The goal is to assess how well you can read the kind of writing that is used in an academic environment.
– Official practice by ETS (4 tests): CLICK HERE
– Extra practice by Examenglish: CLICK HERE
Listening
I haven’t been able to find any free audio material available to practise listening in the official TOEFL website. The listening activities only presents the transcripts.They are good for practicing questions strategies, but you won’t really train your listening skills. In the official website there’s only one mock test that I would save for later practice.
However, there is plenty of lstening practice online that will give you a close idea to the actual exam. Here are my favourite ones. Click on the buttons below to be redirected to the activities.
Writing
I strongly recommend the guidance of a good teacher to practice the writing section. You will need someone to correct your writings and give you feedback on your work. Teacher Thais wrote about some useful hints, take a look!
Here are some links where you can find hints and topics to practice the writing section.
Speaking
Once again, I recommend the guidance of a good teacher to prepare for the speaking session. However there are some hints end simple answers available online.
ExamEnglishTOEFL Official practice ETSBritish Council
TOEFL mocks
This is the only official mock available on the internet for free. So I usually save it for when the student is arelady prepared.
TOEFL ON YOUTUBE
This is TOEFL official YouTube channel. It is worth watching the videos because they show how to do the questions of the exams with the instructions of a teacher.
CHECK YOUR SCORES
In this chart you can compare the grading system according to the CEFR.
TOEFL ITP
This test is considered easier than the TOEFL iBT because it doesn´t have the speaking and writing sections. However, as mentioned before, it is not a valid proficiency certification.
Here are the best links to train for it.
TOEFL ITB CONTENTlDOWNLOAD HANDBOOK
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