brunorafaelli

Hey Tino, Well, I went to the US on July 19th, 2004 on a J1 visa. I was an Au Pair for 1 year and 6 months. In January 2006 (before my J1 visa expired), I applied for a changing of status which was approved afterwards. Between January 19th, 2006 and March 3rd, 2006 I was waiting for the approval of my changing of status which was accepted on March 3rd. I started as a full time student in the Winter term (2006). I also took Spring classes, but I did not take Summer classes (I had the option to take the Summer off). When I was about to sign up for the early Fall classes (which started on September 5th), I got the news that my mom was sick, so I decided to come back to Brazil. I told my International advisor and she informed the immigration that they should terminate my student visa. The advisor told me that I had then 15 days to leave the US (starting from September 5th), so I left on September 19th. That is basically what happened with me throughout my stay in the US. I have to thank you Tino because you have been very helpful even though you don´t even know me. I really appreciate that, and I am sure that everything that you told me is gonna help me out.

Once again Tino, thanks for the great insights. My major is gonna be "Health and Fitness", which I have already studied 3 terms when I was in the US. The only reason why I thought about mentioning the teaching gig was to show some "ties" with Brazil, but I agree with you that it would be important to talk about the job only if it were related to my major (that is not the case). By the way, I forgot to mention that I had changed once my J1 visa to a F1 visa having the same family as my sponsor. I got my changing of status in March, 2006 and I came back to Brazil in September 2006 (I lived in the US for more than 2 years). That means that I have been here in Brazil for almost 4 months. I believe that they might ask me why I came back to Brazil and cancelled my F1 visa. The reason was a family health issue, which I can prove showing some medical reports. I decided to take part in my mom´s Physical Therapist treatment ( I am a PT), and fortunatetly she has stabilized. Do you think that they would ask me to prove that she was ill? Tino, I don´t know how to thank you for your help. This interview will definitely decide my career and my future.

Hi Tino, how are u doing? I really liked your tips. They were very helpful. I will use them to be the more prepared that I can. I took care of a guy with cerebral palsy when I was an Au Pair. He is 21 years old, and he has 5 professionals working directly with him nowadays. I will try to get a copy of the contract or any letter from the family sponsor showing that they already have other people working with him, and for that reason they don´t need me working for them. What do you think about that? Another thing that I wanna ask you is about my job experiences. I have been working as a teacher in Brazil, but I haven´t signed up a contract with my employer. It is a temporary job, and I don´t know if I should talk about it on the immigration forms. I am afraid that the focus of my interview changes and thus, I will not be able to provide all the important information that I have. Do you thing that piece of information might interfere with the course of my interview? Yes, my interview is gonna be in São Paulo. Thanks a lot Tino.

Tino, thanks for your reply. I have been reading all the posts here and I would like to thank you for all the advice that you have given to all of us. I have already gotten both the letter from the American family and the affidavit form. Thanks for reminding me of that. I am going for my visa interview in Brazil, on January 26th. I would appreciate the extra information that you have for the Brazilian´s visa interview. Thanks.

Good morning folks, My interview for a student visa is going to be in January, 2007. I have some questions regarding the forms and the information the I have to provide: My former host family is going to be my sponsor (I was an Au Pair for almost 2 years). They will take care of my tuition fees and they will also provide me with room and board. Should I say that my sponsor is gonna cover all my expenses, or should I say that both my parents and my sponsor are gonna help me on that? I am afraid that the immigration official just asks for my parents bank statement and therefore concludes that they do not have enough funds (right now, they are able to prove that they have an amount 3X as much as the value of my tuition, per year). On the other hand, if I say that my former host family is gonna take care of everything (they have a much higher income than my parents do), they might not understand why they are doing it, even though they are like a family for me. What would you guys do in my place? I was thinking about saying that both are gonna help me, and if they ask me how, I would say that my parents will take care of my flight tickets and personal expenses, and my sponsor will take care of my tuition. I would appreciate your advice. Thanks!

How are u? I am glad that my tips for the questions 1 and 2 were helpful. I believe that it is impossible to get a good score if you do not do well on the first 2 questions. So, keep practicing them. By the way, if you want to send me some sample answers I will definitely try to help you with some other tips. Regarding the question 5, you can turn this question into the easiest one on your test. Simply because this question allows you to follow an organized pattern for your answer. Everytime you come accross the 5th question, pay attention 1st to the student´s problem, then jot down the two solution´s to the problem given by the other student. What you have to do here is: 1.Briefly state the student´s problem 2.Briefly give the two solutions that the other student gave to the problem (two sentences) 3.Choose one of the solutions, and explain why (spend a little longer here) The 6th question is controversial. In my case, for example, I found it hard to pay attention to the main points, specially when I was not acquainted with the topic. My strategy here was, write down 2 or 3 main points from the lecture. Sometimes the lecture helps you in terms of organization because the professor talks about a topic and gives two or three examples to illustrate the subject. If this pattern is being used, I suggest to you to answer as following: The professor talked about the definition of physical exercises which is... the two examples were aerobic and anaerobic exercises... the aerobic is (just one example).. and the anaerobic is (just one example)... If you run out of time you should be ok, as long as you talk about the main points, which in this case is the definition of aerobic and anaerobic (you might omit one example if your time is up). On the other hand, if the lecture does not have this pattern as above, I recommend you to "cut to the chase". That means, go directly to the point of what is being asked. If the question asks you about the similarities between two developing countries, you might start by saying: There are several similarities between Brazil and Argentina. For example, both deal with poverty (one example). In contrast, they have a very strong economy which is basis for the Mercosul (example)... My advice here is to practice a lot how to find the main points. You may use the Listening exercises just to practice how to find them, which by the way, will be asked along the Listening questions. I hope you pass the test!!! Good luck!

I believe that somebody else has already posted that, but I believe that the best way to save time to answer the questions on the Reading section is not to spend a long time reading the passage. Try to read the passage in 4 or 5 minutes, and remember that you can always refer to the text afterwards. Regarding the vocabulary, there will certainly be one or two words that you might not know what they mean. My advice is to try to figure out the answer by using the options that you have and to see the answer that best fits in the context of the sentence. You may try to practice that by doing exercises from Longman, Kaplan and other books. Good luck!

First of all, thanks for your compliments. What is exactly your difficulty on the Reading part? I hope I can help you. Take care.

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First of all, thanks for your words and I hope that you guys get the score that you need. I can´t speak on behalf of ETS, but I sure can tell you guys exactly the way I answered the questions. 1.The first two questions (familiar topics). First of all, I started with an introduction, for example, " I believe that cellphones shold be banned in the classroom''. Then I gave one reason why (disturbs students), and finnally I gave an example that happened when I was in high school. Basically, I explained that somebody else´s cellphone had rung during a final exam, and that made me lose the concentration and it turned out that I got a bad grade. So, What I want to emphasize is, start with an introduction showing the person what you are going to talk about, give one or two supporting ideas, and preferable, make the answer the more personal you can (telling examples from your life, or making up examples). The same works for the 2nd task, pick your choice and use the same pattern. 2.For the integrated task which was about a campus situation, I started posting the student´s opinion about the announcement (which was what the question was asking), and then I said that the student gave some reasons why he disapproved the announcement. This introduction was something very brief, so I wold have more time to talk about the announcement and the student´s reasons for disagreeing with it. So, the next thing I did was briefly talk about the announcement (no more than 15 seconds), and then point out maybe 2 or three reasons why the students was against the decision. In this part, I spent a greater amount of time because this was when I focused on what was asked beforehand. To conclude, I don´t recommend that you guys spend a great amount of time elaborating an introduction or talking about the reading passage. Concentrate on the student´s opinion or reaction towards the decision. 3.For the integrated task which has a reading passage and a lecture about a certain topic (Geology, History...), I confess that I struggled to answer it the way they want. I have serious difficulty to concentrate on talking about a topic that I am not acquainted with, so It was very hard for me two jot down the most important points from the reading and the lecture. My advice here: Practice!! You may find very useful to summarize the lectures from the Listening part, once they are similar to the ones on the Speaking part (they are just longer). In sum, for this question I did not start with that introduction proposed by Longman. I started by answering the way it was asked. For example, if they ask you about the impact of the devastation of the rainforest to the human beings, I would have started by saying that the devastation has caused problems to the environment such as... Then, I would talk about a term that was defined on the Reading passage, and so forth. Concluding, I did not use the strategy that asks us to summarize the reading and the listening passages. I answer what the question asks about,and in addition to that, I added examples from the reading passage. I hope this helps. Please, remember that this is not a pattern that must be used for everybody to answer the Toefl questions properly, but only the way I used and found easy to practice. Bye

How are you doing? Sure I can help you. For the first integrated task, the most helpful book that I found was Kaplan. Actually, what really helped me was the Kaplan´s CD which contains several samples of answers for the "Writing section". The samples really helped me because I could see a pattern being used to answer the 1st integrated task. In my previous tests, I was afraid of comparing the Reading passage and the Listening passage using strong terms such as (The professor disagrees with the passage... ; The professor refutes the idea proposed on the passage...), and I lost this fear after I read the examples from Kaplan. They really want you to be direct to the point (cut to the chase), always comparing the passage and the listening. You just have to be careful not to use wrong comparisons or to misjudge the professor´s point of view about the reading passage. For the second task, again I believe that examples from your life or "made-up" situations should be used. Try to make the question the more personal you can! Besides, you must use a variety of sentece constructions for your essay. For example, within a paragraph you should use long senteces, short senteces, try some inversions and things like that. This tools make your essay more attractive to the readers. Remember also to use one or two complex constructions to show that you are acquainted with grammar. For instance, senteces such as: Rarely do I go to the zoo /// Not only do I like soccer, but I also like volleybol. I hope that helps. bye

Hi, how are u? I absolutely agree with you when you say that we may make up an experience that we might have never had in order to answer the first 2 questions. The point that I want to make is, the more natural and detailed your answer, the better your response. P.S. Thanks Takku! Good luck on your test! So long.

Have you taken the test yet? I am sure that I failed on the other tests first because I didn´t give examples from my personal experience when I answered the first 2 questions, and second because I spent a long time summarizing the reading passage and it turned out that I didn´t have time to answer the question. Bye

Hy folks, I took my test in Brazil, and the previous ones in the US. I don´t think this made any difference because everybody who took the test on October 18th had the exact same questions. Bye

How are you doing? I prepared by myself, but I also took 4 classes with a teacher in order to improve my speaking skills. What I recommend to everybody is: 1. Practice speaking using the topics posted on the Speaking section of this forum. I may have practiced more than 50 times with different questions about People, places... 2. While answering the integrated tasks, remember to talk about the reading passage ( I believe that for the 1st integrated task, the strategy proposed by Longman works out very well). 3.Try to answer exactly what they are asking you on the question about a lecture and on the integrated task which has a reading passage and a lecture about a certain topic. I believe that Longamn is the best book to prepare for the Toefl, but I got a little confused and lost when I tried to follow its tips on this two types of question. I was always trying to summarize the reading passage, and this took me almost 25 seconds, and sometimes it prevented me from doing what is really important: Pay attention to what they are asking me! I think that is it for now. I hope these tips are helpful. Good luck folks!