I appeared for the TOEFL two days ago. I thought I’d share my experience with the test. I used only the Official TOEFL iBT Tests Volume 2 and Greg’s 2 seasons of TOEFL for preparation. I prepped for a month and a half, putting in a few hours every week. I was confident in my English ability because I’ve done all my education in English and speak mainly English at home (I’m from India).
Reading - I had three passages and all of them were fairly easy for me. If I felt like I was getting confused, I’d just ask myself, “What would Greg do?” and that made it clearer. Unofficial results gave me a 30.
Listening - 3 conversations, 4 lectures (I think I had an extra research section). The lectures started getting boring and I found myself zoning out but I still jotted down the important points. One question threw me off – it asked for a detail and I almost answered it through my inference (again thought, “What would Greg do?”) but a glance at my notes revealed that the correct option was something else, even if my first choice FELT right. Take notes diligently! and trust your notes more than your memory. Unofficial results gave me a 30 on this section too.
Speaking - I was most worried about this section. I kept all of Greg’s templates in mind and wrote them down on my rough sheets during the break. Then I just kept filling in the blanks as the information came in. For tasks 2 and 3, I felt that the reading time was way too short. Task 2 gave me 50 seconds and task 3 gave me 30 seconds. In task 2, the student agreed with the text. That threw me off because I was prepared for the opposite. For task 4, the question asked us to point out the two disadvantages discussed in the lecture and not for a summary. This section was the most challenging for me.
Writing - pretty straightforward as Greg had discussed. The writing window gives you an option for cut, paste, and undo as well as a word counter at the top. That was reassuring as I didn’t have to count the words once I was done. I wrote about 250 words for task 1 and 350 for task 2. I had more than enough time for it. The tasks are easier because you don’t need to think as much as you need to for the GRE writing tasks.
Overall, I’m optimistic about my scores.