How can I practice my "Reading to Learn" skills? 

"Reading to Learn" questions measure how well you can absorb information you've read and retain the important points of a passage. Here are a few tips to help you master this section of the test:

• While you are reading a passage, summarize the major points by creating a chart or outline.
• Practice paraphrasing individual sentences in a passage, and then progress to paraphrasing an entire paragraph. Paraphrasing skills are important because you will be tested on your ability to recognize paraphrases (in reading) and to create paraphrases (when writing and speaking).

How can I better listen for pragmatic understanding?

Listening for pragmatic understanding is an important part of effective communication. Here are a few things you should notice while listening that will enhance your pragmatic understanding.

• Listen to the speaker's tone of voice for clues about his or her degree of certainty about the information. How sure is the speaker of the information he or she is presenting?
• Listen for changes in topic or side comments in which the speaker briefly moves away from the main topic and then returns to it (digressions).

What should I know about the Speaking section?

There are a few simple things you can do on the day of the test to help the Speaking section go as smoothly as possible:

• Be sure to adjust your microphone carefully. Do not touch your mouth to the microphone, or scorers may find it difficult to understand what you are saying. 
• Adjust the headset volume to a level that is comfortable for you.
• Speak into the microphone at an appropriate volume, neither too loudly nor too quietly. If you whisper, scorers may find it difficult to understand what you are saying.

What is the "Integrated Writing" task?

For this task, you will first read a passage about an academic topic for three minutes. Afterward, you will listen to a lecture related to that topic. You will then be asked to summarize the major points made in the lecture, and explain how those points relate to the passage you read.

This task asks you to demonstrate your ability to communicate through writing about academic information you have read and listened to.

Advice for writing your response:

• After you have read the passage the first time and listened to the lecture, briefly reread the passage and your notes.
• Then, make a short outline of the points you wish to make before you start writing your response.
• You can use your scratch paper to write this outline, or simply draw connecting lines between your reading notes and lecture notes to show relationships. Or, if you prefer, you can type your outline and notes right into the answer area, and then replace these notes with the sentences and paragraphs of your response. 

What are "Connecting Content" questions?

"Connecting Content" questions ask you to complete a chart or table, or to arrange events in a particular order. As you listen to the lectures, pay attention to the way you format your notes. Clearly identifying terms and their definitions as well as steps in a process will help you answer questions of this type

How are the reading passages selected?

TOEFL iBT reading passages are excerpts from college-level textbooks that are used in introductions to a discipline or topic. These excerpts are used because the goal of TOEFL iBT is to assess how well students can read the kind of writing that is used in an academic environment. 

How can I recognize "Detail" questions in the Listening section?

"Detail" questions require you to understand and remember explicit details or facts from a lecture or conversation. These details are typically related, directly or indirectly, to the gist of the text, by providing elaboration, examples, or other support. In some cases where there is a long digression that is not clearly related to the main idea, you may be asked about some details of the digression.

"Detail" questions are typically phrased in the following ways:

• According to the professor, what is one way that X can affect Y?
• What are X?
• What resulted from the invention of the X?
• According to the professor, what is the main problem with the X theory?

What are the "Insert Text" questions in the Reading section?

"Insert Text" questions give you a new sentence, then you are asked where in the passage that sentence would best fit. To answer correctly, you must understand the logic of the passage itself and the grammatical connections (like pronoun reference) between sentences. 

Look at the structure and the logic of the sentence you are inserting. Pay special attention to logical connecting words; they can provide important information about where the sentence should be placed. 

Here are some frequently used connecting words:

• On the other hand
• For example
• On the contrary
• Similarly
• In contrast
• Further, or Furthermore
• Therefore
• In other words
• As a result
• Finally

What should I know to be successful on the "Reading to Learn" tasks?

Here are some tips to help you master this part of the test:

• Identify the passage type (classification, cause/effect, compare/contrast, problem/solution, description, narration, and so on).
• Create an outline of the passage to distinguish between major and minor points.
• If the passage categorizes information, create a chart and place the information in appropriate categories. Practicing this skill will help you think about categorizing information, and be able to do so with ease.
• If the passage describes the order of a process or is a narration, create an outline of the steps in the process or narration.

How can I improve my response on the "Independent Writing" task?

The second task in the TOEFL iBT Writing section is the "Independent Writing" task. You are asked to present your opinion regarding an issue, and you will have 30 minutes to write an essay in response.

Advice for writing your response:

• An effective response is typically approximately 300 words.
• There is no maximum word limit—you may write as much as you wish in the time allotted.
• Although you may still receive a top score if you write fewer than 300 words, shorter responses typically do not demonstrate the development of ideas needed to earn a score of 5.
• Keep track of your time—try to finish writing your essay by the time the clock counts down to 4 or 5 minutes remaining. Use the remaining time to check your work and make final changes.

At the end of 30 minutes, your essay will automatically be saved.