estaitra

I am so happy for you Clementine, congratulations[clap]

Hi April, I followed the templates given in this topic>>http://www.www.urch.com/forums/just-finished-my-toefl/120279-finally-i-got-it.html Just practiced 5 days. Spoke loudly and slowly. I used some transitional words and one idiom in total.

Hi Flossy, There is no pass or fail mark in TOEFL. every university and every institute has its own required scores. I believe for pharmacists is states they ask for 26 in speaking section. I am not from States and neither a pharmacist. There are many people here who are pharmacist in states, you can ask them.

This is a hard topic , I mean I am not a creative writer and it would be hard to elaborate it so much. However, I think your essay is too short. It is 255 words instead of minimum 300. If you want to get a good score, you have write more than 350. You can use the movie's name in the introduction and explain a little bit about it. It is relevant and it will make your essay longer. You don't have to write a real name, you can invent one! You can elaborate about Sushi and that there are many variety of Sushi and etc. Don't start a sentence with "And' or "also" this is very spoken not written English. Personally I think, take of the shoes sounds better than removing..correct me if I am wrong. You did not use many transitional words, such as "moreover, however, furthermore, in addition" for instance, you could start the sentence with "in addition" instead of "And". You can give a description about Sacora trees..elaborate your thoughts. Tell us what san means and what chan means..not everybody knows this. Again, paraphrase the topic in the conclusion. Don't use the same "reflect" use affect or whatever.

Not really. I just stated my opinion in one sentence and then gave reasons each with a personal example. If you start with description you won't have enough time to elaborate your reasons.

I don't think that you should necessary "improve" your English to get a better score in TOEFL-IBT. I mean generally yes, you should read and speak English more, but at some point, it is really about using techniques. I took my first TOEFL in February and I got 110 with 23 in speaking, and then I took the second one in June and got 113 with 29 in speaking. I did not study for the second test till 5 days before the test. However, I live in an English speaking country and I speak, read and listen to English everyday. That's been said, there was no improvement what so ever in my English after the second test, it was just that I used the right technique. I belive after you got some basic and intermediate skills in English, you should develope techniques to overcome TOEFL. No matter how good your English is , if you read really slow and want to read the text word by word, you won't have enough time to finish the questions. No matter how good and fluent you are speaking, if you don't say what they want to hear, you won't get the score and no matter how creative writer you are, if you don't write that 5 paragraphs, you won't get the score.

Salam Sima:) Just saw a few posts from you. I took the exam in June and got 29 in speaking. I followed the template which I fround from youtube: This is the template for Q1 but you can find templates for other questions on youtube as well from the same Joseph. Good Luck

If you are taking TOEFL-IBT you can take notes during exam.

Hi Clementine, I am sure you will get the required score this time. I had the same feeling after my second exam, that I did better the first time. I don't know why though. I think I said a lot more things at my first exam,and the second one was kind of brief but clear answers. Now, take care and rest a lil bit you deserve it:)

I don't think there is a limit for it. I have read few threads of people who took the exam again while waiting for the first test's results.

When I read your post, it was like I am reading my own story. The first time I took the exam, I was confident that I did really well in speaking section. I was sure that I will get a very good score in speaking..when the results were out I was in shock and disbelief. It crushed my self esteem as well. I kept asking my BF (who is a native speaker) if I speak really bad. I even would stutter if somebody did not get what I said at the first time! I was thinking how embrassing is that after living in Canada for 4 years, I can't get the required score. However, when I saw other posts here, I found out that there are many people out there like me. I asked for rescoring, and kept waiting and checking my ETS account every freaking minute. One day, when I called them for the 10th time, they said that the score did not change. I was angry...so angry but I did not have any choice..my future depends on this score, or I should say goodbye to be a physician here.. Anyways, my advice to you, don't take it personal. After all, sometimes human raters are not in mood and after listening to 1000 recordings a day, one should do it exceptionally well to get a 26.. The only thing that I would recommend is to do a little reserach about the exam centre. Some centers are famous to have bad microphones..as my first exam center was. The other thing is try to eliminate mm uh and pauses. It is very hard but it is doable. Hopefully you get your desired score in the rescoring and if not, you will do it this time. Just don't give up. Keep up the hope:) Take Care, Estaitra

I don't think that there is a minimum age. I remeber when I was in your brother's age, I was taking TOEFL courses,although I never took the exam by then, nobody told me that I am not eligible.

Thanks Clementine:) the first time I took TOEFL I did ask for rescoring. Unfortunately, after 1 months ,it did not change. However, the exam center that I took the exam in, had very bad microphones and the instructor told us that the microphones are not "great". I can't say my speaking has been improved since the first exam. I just watched few videos on youtube and practiced the template and I got the required score. The second exam center was good in terms of microphones although it was almost 30c inside:)

Kaplan is slightly harder than real exam, I think considering the stress factor in real exam, it will give you the best estimate.

Unfortunately it might take up to one month from the confirmation date to receive the rescore results. However, some people get the rescore result in few days.

213 is 79-80 in IBT>>http://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/TOEFL/pdf/TOEFL_iBT_Score_Comparison_Tables.pdf

I am a sister not a brother:p If I were you, I would contact ETS to see what happened with your exam, if scores are canceled, you should get a refund.

No you can't be late for your exam. However, some centres will allow you to start your exam a little bit earlier. For prometric centre , simply it will be in th exam centres name. like prometric centre Montreal.

Exam centres are different from each other. Some of them are very strict and some of them not so much. In general, prometric centres are more strict about the rules. When you get there they do an ID check and then take a photo. Then they assign everone to speacial seat. So everyone has his own seat. However, I think you can ask them to assign you to a seat far from the door , which is less noisy. Specially if you are taking exam in a college and dont want to be distracted. Then they will give you pen and paper. You can not bring your own.In other center they allowed everone to bring things inside but put it under the table. When everone took seats, they will come and do an ID check and enter a code to start exam.

it looks good. However, if I were you , I would give 3 reasons instead of two. Although, Ican't think of any other reason , but I think they look for an essay of 5 paragraph :introduction, 3 reasons, and conclusion. I think you can eliminate a little bit of explanation for first and second reason and add third reason. Also, I think you can add few sentences to conclusion, like a sumary of reasons. I think you are very creative writer and you write beautifuly, just you have to pay attention to little thing. another thing, never start a sentence with But..it is considered run on sentence. (your second reason).

I am afraid you can't buy TOEFL IBT certificate. If it was that easy everybody would do it instead of sitting for such tiring exam!

Nothing strange happened. The test centres have only so many seats and most exams are on Saturday or Sunday and sometimes Friday. So if other students book the seats before you, the capacity of test center will be full and it won't show up when you are looking for specific date. It happens often in summer.

My advice for reading part is to practie practice and practice. I found Kaplan reading is harder than real exam and it helped me for exam. You do not have enough time to read the text first, and even in my case I don't read the text at all. I start question by question. Usually there are questions from everywhere and you have to read the text anyways while you are looking for the answer. I try to answer easy questions first (like meaning) then answer other questions. For writing you have to follow a template. see this video and his video for independent q>> hope it helps.

well if you need a specific score in any section like 26 in speaking, you need to practice. No matter how fluent you are, if you don't say what they want to hear, you won't get the score. You have to create a template for speaking to score high in this section. However, if you just need a score of 90 or something, you don't need to practice much. Don't forget many native speakers were unable to get a score of 26 in speaking section of this test, because of the reasons mentioned above.