TOEFL experience (home edition) as a non-native speaker (3 days of prep) and my results
Hi everyone,
I always promised myself that I would also try to explain how my experience with TOEFL went as a non english speaker (i'm french) since many posts on reddit helped me a lot on reducing my stress level before the exam
First, if you know the deadlines of your application or whatever, book your exam as soon as you can! i didn't find anything related to this topic anywhere but i was trying to have my exam the latest I could since i wasn't prepared but booking your exam session within 7 days of the test will include some express fees! the exam is definitely not cheap as it is so if you can avoid these fees that i paid... do it
Plus, they say that you get the results in 3 days, which could be the case if you're lucky but I booked the exam on May 13, and got the results only today (May 19) since there was an administrative review and my deadline was today so all went well surprisingly, so please plan in advance and don't wait for the last minute like i did because i almost regretted it (i was telling myself that an english exam couldn't be that bad so I waited)
Also, I was (really) worried for the exam since it was mandatory for an exchange program and I wouldn't be able to go abroad if I didn't have the results needed, I would say that I understand english very well (reading in english became natural thanks to wattpad LOL and listening too since all the contents I watch online is in english) but i was quite nervous about the writing and speaking part (in france, it's really rare to write fulls essays in english if you're not specialized in this field, as for the speaking part you can easily guess that french people rarely speak english).
-> I had 3 full days of preparation and focused primarily on the writing part (i told myself that it was the best section where i could gain points since i couldn't magically improve my speaking in 3 days).
WRITING
-Once you understand the tasks, that's quite easy (i fortunately have no issue regarding grammar since i read a lot in english and words easily come to me), the Build a sentence part was really easy for me and I think (99.999% sure) that i got all of the sentences right which definitely helped me score 5 in writing.
-For the email part, it's quite easy too once you understand which topics usually come out (a request/a problem/express a concern/ask something related to school or work or housing) and i advise you to have a template (at least the formal things you need to have in your email)
-> MANAGE YOUR TIME!! i was way too confident for the write an email task before the exam, but I never tried to write one on my own (i didn't do any mock test or sample test in their full length) before and during the test, I was too stressed that i couldn't find my words or any ideas and i didn't even have the time to write my last sentence to finish the email (thank you blablabla best regards etc) but it seems that it didn't really affect my score in this section
-> for the academic task, my advice would be to NOT repeat any argument but try to find a simple argument on your own (my subject was something about environmental actions for the planet and i literally wrote that i try to recycle my plastic bottles lol) and always take into account both students' opinion or at least write their names once !
SPEAKING section: the worst part, i'm still a bit traumatized
-> to be honest, it was awful. First, i do NOT have a good memory so the listen and repeat task was HELL for me but i knew it before the exam so i didn't even try to train myself on this task since i knew it was just pure luck on the sentences (it was even HARDER than the few videos on youtube that i watched to be familiar with the task), all my sentences were quite long and I wasn't familiar at all with the subject so i know that i repeated for SURE only 2 sentences out of 7... (catastrophic at this point and i thought that my entire exam was no longer good enough to target a good score) so honestly i do not have any advice here, just try to do your best and maybe change the words a bit but keep the meaning if you can..
-> the INTERVIEW part: horrible, probably the worst minutes of the exam. First, note that the subjects are quite similar to those for the academic discussion in my opinion so you could reuse some examples from that part! For example, it could be technology related, environment related, work or school or habits related. I once again had a topic related to the environment that i found quite technical (renewable energies...)
-> when i listened to the 1st question, i knew i was cooked so i didn't even try to come up with good ideas or opinions or any elaborate sentences haha but when the microphone was up, i just knew that i had to talk and keep talking and avoid any blanks or silence so i just spoke like if i was in front of a mirror and i said everything that came up naturally in my mind (for example, they asked me the initiatives taken in my country for renewable energies and i literally answered that i lived in Paris and therefore there wasn't any big initiatives possible for solar panels or whatever lol..). So, probably don't follow my example and try to give examples if you can and that can really answer the question but i would say just talk if you panic, i assume they didn't care the content but listened to how i spoke and if it was fluid. I didn't use a structure or a template for my answers and sometimes, be prepared for 2 questions in one so don't forget to answer both of them (i forgot and partially answered the questions so i think i got really lucky on this one). I used a lot of fillers ("um..", "like") but my score is surprisingly good!
CONCLUSION: i'm really really happy for my results and now i'm just waiting for my school to tell me where i could go (it will depends on others scores too so let's see!).
I was reading every SINGLE posts on reddit and facebook groups to reduce my stress and have a few tips so i hope this post will help others too, i would be happy to answer any questions, do not hesitate, my head is still focused on the toefl exam so i will gladly help you!
