TOEFL Tip #216: Say what you’ve LEARNED, not what You’ve HEARD

by Strictly English TOEFL Tutors on June 22, 2014

The Speaking section of the TOEFL asks you to orally summarize short reading passages as well as conversations and lectures. But almost every test-taker has the wrong idea about what the content of that summary should be. The biggest error is that they want to repeat the same words that they heard in the lecture or read in the passage. Understandably, they think that if they use the same words, then they will be proving to TOEFL that they have covered all the lecture’s or passage’s points. But there are many drawbacks to repeating the exact same words.

First of all, there is the idiomatic nature of language. If you heard:
“Carbohydrates are vital nutrients for a growing body to maintain optimal health.”

and you wrote down:
“Carbo, vital, body, optimal”

then you might try to string these SAME words together like this: “Carbohydrates make vital the body for optimal condition.”

And as we say in English, “Close, but no cigar.” This is “close” because you have used the same words as you heard, but it is “no cigar” (you didn’t win the prize) because you got the English all wrong. For example, the body cannot be “made vital”. Again, “for optimal condition” is not really an English phrase. A listener can figure out what you mean, but he/she will also figure out that you don’t know English well enough to know that this is not really an English phrase.

So what is the solution to this problem?

Don’t repeat what you HEARD, repeat what you LEARNED, and—-most importantly—-in your OWN WORDS.

A summary like this would be much better and score a lot higher: “Carbohydrates are very important. Kids need them in order to stay in the best possible health.”

The complaint that this advice usually receives is: “But what happened to those advanced vocabulary words like ‘vital’ and ‘optimal’? I need those advanced words to prove to TOEFL that I understood what I read/heard and to prove that I’m smart!”

In brief: No. You. Don’t.

TOEFL wants to hear natural English delivered in an effortless stream of fluid prose. The level of the vocabulary doesn’t really matter. By the very nature of the topic they give you to summarize, you’ll be forced to use some advanced words. Let’s face it, you really can’t talk about the biochemistry of nutrition without using some big words. But the best answer will be the one that relies on your own vocabulary as you explain what the materials taught you about the topic. If you focus your attention on proving to TOEFL that you learned something from the reading and listening passage, then the language will take care of itself!

TOEFL Tip #213: Inference Is King!

by Strictly English TOEFL Tutors on July 26, 2013

An important key for doing well on the TOEFL exam is understanding how the exam is set up. TOEFL is NOT designed for test-takers to find information as if the exam were an Easter egg hunt with relevant information scattered throughout it. Instead, it’s designed for you to derive information through critical thinking skills.

We know there are fact questions and inference questions, and to the native speaker these are starkly different. Fact questions for a particular passage are similar to an Easter egg hunt. Like Easter eggs hidden in tall grass or behind a rock, the answers to fact questions are in the passage, but may be tricky to find. If you look carefully enough, however, you will be able to locate them. Inference questions require critical thinking skills. You have to put together pieces of information in the passage to infer something that the passage does not directly state. For example, if the passage states that the weather has been rainy for several weeks, and that it’s spring, you can infer that spring has rainy weather.

But sadly, only the most fluent of non-native English speakers will find FACT questions as simple as looking for a truth that is explicitly stated on the page. To be sure: the truth IS THERE, but it is buried under tricky vocabulary, confusing phrasal verbs, or advanced grammar. So it’s a fact question for a native Speaker, but ultimately it becomes an inference question for anyone who doesn’t know all of the vocabulary or who has never encountered the idiomatic expressions used.

Consequently, even though there may be only 1 or 2 questions per passage explicitly identified as INFERENCE questions (those are the ones that have the word “IMPLY” or “INFER” in the question), there might be 8-10 questions that require the same critical thinking skills as does a question explicitly identified as “inference.”

Therefore, studying critical thinking skills and lateral thinking skills will be very useful when preparing for the TOEFL. Our recent posts about absolute modifiers in general and modal verbs in particular demonstrate how critical thinking can help you to choose the correct answers. Similarly, this post on the limits of memorized answers points out the need to evaluate the information on the TOEFL exam, rather than attempting to memorize answers that you can plug into the prompts for the Speaking and Writing sections. This Wikipedia entry describes lateral thinking, and here are some exercises to challenge you!

TOEFL Tip #209: Compare The English in Different News Stories on the Same Topic

by Strictly English TOEFL Tutors on June 22, 2013

 

Strictly English is a strong proponent of using news sources to improve your English. You can improve your listening and reading skills by reading the news. The more you immerse yourself in English, the more thoroughly English will become your second language.

 

This post expands on an idea mentioned in our discussion of using 360 Research to improve your English. As you read about one news story in a variety of sources, observe the level of formality for the English used in each source. A story in The New York Times, for example, will use formal English, but someone’s blog post will likely more causal. Twitter or Facebook are even more causal.

 

How can you know if a writer or speaker is using English formally or informally?

 Look at the grammar and word choice. Formal English doesn’t use contractions or slang expressions; sentences are always complete, and the vocabulary is sophisticated. Informal English often uses contractions, text-speak abbreviations (LOL), and other slang phrases. Sentences may not be complete, and vocabulary is often simple.

 

Also, context is often useful for understanding how formally or informally someone is speaking or writing. Writing a blog that your friends will read is different from writing a newspaper story for the general public. The blog might make jokes, or exaggerate a particular aspect of the story, or use colorful vocabulary; the newspaper story doesn’t. Understanding the differences between those two audiences will help you to notice the different levels of English.

 

This is important for the TOEFL exam because you should be using a fairly formal level of English in your written and spoken answers. This shows stronger mastery of English, and an ability to choose the right level of English for the right audience.

 

So, as you are reading and listening to various sources of English, be sure to take note of how the writers and speakers differ from each other.

TOEFL TIP #208: Crossword Puzzles Improve Your Vocabulary

by Strictly English TOEFL Tutors on June 14, 2013

Crossword puzzles are great tools for building your active vocabulary. A crossword puzzle is a grid with blank spaces to fill in words across (left to right) and down (top to bottom). Each word has a clue, and as you fill in the crossword, the letters from one word help you to fill in another word that intersects with it.

 The daily crossword puzzle in The New York Times is well-known, and Monday’s puzzle is the easiest. By contrast, the Sunday Times puzzle is famous for its difficulty! With the following rules, a student with intermediate-level English can do a New York Times Monday puzzle. Practice vocabulary with a crossword puzzle to vary your study routine!

 1. Know the crossword puzzle rules:

• Answers are the same grammatical form as the clues. A plural clue will have a plural answer, so you can put an “S” in the answer’s last box.
• Similarly, tenses must match, so a past tense clue must have a past tense answer.
• Remember phrasal verbs, so a clue for “dispersed” could have the answer “handed out.”
• Abbreviations in clues means the answer is an abbreviation, so a clue of “Headed the CIA” would be “JEH” for J. Edgar Hoover.

2.  When it’s just a fact – especially a person’s name – use Google!  So a clue, “Won the swimming gold in 2012″ can be found in Google, and that will help you fill in some letters for words that “cross” the Olympics answer.

3. Look at word patterns instead of the clue. The clue “gregarious” may not help you very much, but if you have some letters already filled in, then you might figure out the answer. For example, this answer might be partially filled in as:

t a _ k _ t i v _

and we know that TALK is a common word in English, and we know that TIVE is a common suffix in English. And we know that the letter between the “K” and the “T” has to be a VOWEL (a, e, i, o, u).

The best part is that the New York Times repeats words often, so you see them again days later, which helps you to remember them!  For example, you’ll see ALOE at least 5 times within the first month of doing crosswords, so you’ll be sure to remember what it means!

 

 

TOEFL Tip #207: Active vs. Passive Vocabulary

by Strictly English TOEFL Tutors on June 7, 2013

 Whether you speak only your native language, or have learned a second (or third, or fourth …) language, most people know a lot of words.

  But the real question is, how well do you know them?

 The words that you recognize in context when you read or hear them are your passive vocabulary. You understand what these words mean, and can follow what’s being written or said. Whether you’ve seen and heard these words a few times or repeatedly, the words in your passive vocabulary are familiar when other people use them, but you yourself don’t use them.

 The words that you use in your own speaking and writing are your active vocabulary. You not only understand these words, but you can also call them up from memory and use them accurately. Most people have a larger passive vocabulary than active vocabulary, and use somewhat different sets of words when speaking or when writing.

 Here’s an example of passive vs. active vocabulary. When you read a newspaper item or listen to a radio report, you’re probably using your passive vocabulary. You can follow the news item because you recognize the words in context. When you tell someone else about the same news item, you use your active vocabulary. For example, if the news item is about a natural disaster in which people died, your passive vocabulary would make it possible to understand “devastation” and “death toll;” you would then use your active vocabulary to refer to the “large amount of damage” and “number of people who died” when you talk about the event with someone else.

 One goal of learning a new language (or improving your skill in your first language) is to convert as many words as possible from passive into active vocabulary. You can do this by studying the vocabulary you recognize, and making a specific effort to use it in conversation. In the above example, you would say “devastation” and “death toll” as you talked about the natural disaster. You might struggle to remember the correct words at first, but the more you do it, the more words you will add to your active vocabulary.

 Next week, we’ll talk about another technique for converting words from passive to active vocabulary: crossword puzzles.

 

TOEFL Tip #203: More Ways to Immerse Yourself In English

by Strictly English TOEFL Tutors on May 11, 2013

One of the most effective things you can do to prepare for the TOEFL exam is to immerse yourself in English. As we’ve noted before (here, here, and here), seeing and hearing English as part of your daily life will improve your skill in the language. The more you have internalized the rhythms and vocabulary of English, the more you can focus on the specific content of the TOEFL rather than worrying about the basics.

Here are some more ways to increase the amount of English you encounter every day, especially if you are living in a country where most people speak a language other than English:

1. Change the language setting to English on all of your technology devices (laptop, smart phone, tablet). Use English for all of your applications, as well. That way, you’ll learn English computer words like SAVE, DELETE, TRASH, RESTART, DESKTOP, etc.

2. Chose English when using an ATM. Typically, most people don’t really read the ATM screen because we all use them so often that we just know what to push. So now that you know what buttons to use, slow down and read the screen. Then you’ll learn the words like WITHDRAWAL, or SAVINGS ACCOUNT, or ENTER or PRESS.

3. Ask for an English-language menu when you go to a restaurant. If you live in a big city that has a lot of tourism, they probably have an English menu. Use it to learn words like BROILED, or SNOW PEAS.

4. Turn off the subtitles in your language on your TV so you only hear English.

5. Find an English-only radio station, or download podcasts of English-language podcasts from National Public Radio.

What are your suggestions for incorporating more English into every day? Share them in the comments section!

TOEFL Tip #200: Use BeeOasis.com To Practice Paraphrasing

by Strictly English TOEFL Tutors on April 20, 2013

Accurately paraphrasing a passage in the TOEFL Reading section can help you with various types of questions, such as vocabulary, understanding the details of the passage, and inserting a sentence into the passage. Yet, for many students, paraphrasing is a challenging skill. You need to capture the essential information in the original material without repeating key vocabulary or sentence structure. In addition, you will usually use fewer words in a paraphrase than in the original passage.

But how can you practice paraphrasing and know that your work is accurate? Use a website like BeeOasis.com.

We at Strictly English love BeeOasis.com, for its broad range of topics, and for its use of easily accessible English. In fact, we think it’s such a valuable resource that we’ve been giving our clients one month of free access to BeeOasis.com for over a year now.

Here’s one suggestion for using BeeOasis.com to practice paraphrasing. Read the entry on the novel Black Beauty, and then read the Wikipedia entry for the same novel. Notice that you can understand much more of the Wikipedia entry’s vocabulary because you’re already familiar with the ideas from the BeeOasis.com version. Words like “disabled,” “composed,” and “forthrightly” in the Wikipedia version are easier to figure out when you have the context of “lame,” “written,” and “outwardly” from the BeeOasis.com version. You can also start with the Wikipedia version, paraphrase it yourself, and then compare your paraphrase with the BeeOasis.com version to test your accuracy.

Try it for yourself! Find a topic from BeeOasis.com that is also in Wikipedia, and see how much of the harder English you can understand after you’ve read the easy version on BeeOasis.com.

TOEFL Tip #154: Effective Intermediate English

by Strictly English TOEFL Tutors on May 4, 2012

In an early scene (at the 4:40 mark) of the 1993 movie Philadelphia, Tom Hanks’ character has been illegally fired from his job and is looking for a lawyer to represent him in court. He comes to Denzel Washington’s office, and begins to tell his version of what happened. Soon, Washington’s character says, “Explain this to me like I’m a two year old.” The character’s point is that clear communication is essential for understanding complex issues, and sometimes, sophisticated language impedes clarity.

Last week’s post emphasized the importance of clear and precise intermediate English on the TOEFL exam. This week, we’re following up with a comparison of flawed advanced English and excellent intermediate English to illustrate what you’re aiming for on the TOEFL. Remember, the TOEFL is a test of communication, so clear ideas and clear expression need to be your primary focus on the exam.

Last fall , we presented a list of how TOEFL scores correspond to everyday life. Professional public speakers, such as Oprah Winfrey, correspond to a TOEFL score of 30. With that in mind, we’ve taken a sample from Oprah’s commencement speech at Howard University in 2007 and altered it somewhat, introducing the sort of errors that might easily happen on the TOEFL exam.

Here’s the example of flawed advanced English:

“The human dearth of your integrity is the most we had to offer and I would beseach you to remember what Harriet Tubman said her efforts to spirit salves of the plantation. Hariet Tubman once said that she would have liberated thousands more if only she would have convinced them they are salves. So do not be a salve to any form of selling out, maintenance you integrity it have always been, I believe, an only solution to all problems in the word and it remains the only solution.”

Although this example has polished vocabulary as well as rhetorical flair, the numerous misspellings and problems with prepositions, articles, subject/verb agreement, and sentence structure would lower the score for this passage considerably.

Here’s the version of Oprah’s passage in flawless intermediate English. It makes the same points, but in a more direct, clear manner:

“The greatest sacrifice we can make is to give up our integrity. Remember what Harriet Tubman said about her work to get slaves to freedom. She once said that she could have helped thousands more escape slavery if she could have made them realize that they are slaves. Do not sell out and become a modern slave. Keep your integrity. I believe this always has been, and always will be, the solution to the world’s problems.”

The sentences here are a bit shorter, the vocabulary is simpler, and the message is easy to understand.

Remember clarity and directness are not signs of weak English skills. They are the hallmarks of excellent intermediate English.

TOEFL Tip #152: Improving Your Comprehension

by Strictly English TOEFL Tutors on April 20, 2012

Having a high level of reading and listening comprehension is integral for success in those sections of the exam. Perhaps you’re already listening to public radio and limiting your use of your native language in your daily routine. Doing this will improve your comprehension in English, but how can you gauge your progress?

One way is to regularly compare articles in Simple English Wikipedia with those on the same topic on the main Wikipedia site. Read the Simple English version first, and when you completely understand it, switch to the main Wikipedia version. Notice what’s different about the main Wikipedia version: more advanced vocabulary and sentence structure, as well as additional details about the topic. If you have high reading comprehension, you should be able to read the main Wikipedia site with minimal difficulty. You could also switch the comparison by reading the main Wikipedia entry first, and then the Simple English version. If your understanding of the main Wikipedia article does not match what the Simple English version says, you need to work on your comprehension skills.

Let’s look at an example about the American Revolution.

The Simple English version says, “The American Revolutionary War was a war fought between Great Britain and the original 13 British colonies in America. . . . The colonies became independent, which meant that the British Empire was no longer in charge of them.” The sentence structure is simple, and a key vocabulary term, “independent,” is defined.

The corresponding article on the main Wikipedia site says, “The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which the thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America. … Ultimately, the states collectively determined that the British monarchy, by acts of tyranny, could no longer legitimately claim their allegiance. They then severed ties with the British Empire in July 1776, when the Congress issues the United States Declaration of Independence, rejecting the monarchy on behalf of the new sovereign nation separate and external to the British Empire.” Here, the sentence structure is more complex, the vocabulary is more sophisticated and is not defined, and there is substantially more detail.

Measure your comprehension by looking for opportunities to compare articles on the same topic written for different audiences. The more easily you can switch from an article written for an introductory-level audience to one written for an intermediate-level (or higher!) audience, the better your comprehension.

TOEFL Tip #149: Immerse Yourself In English

by Strictly English TOEFL Tutors on March 30, 2012

ETS has recently launched a new all-Japanese TOEFL website. While Strictly English can understand the value of a native-language version of the TOEFL site for those who are just beginning to research the TOEFL exam, we feel strongly that prospective TOEFL test-takers who are already preparing for the exam should read the ETS site – and as much other information as possible – in English.

As we noted in Tip #86, Strictly English has repeatedly seen that students who have very little exposure to English outside of a classroom or a tutoring session simply do not improve as much as those who are living a 100% English-language life.

It’s important to remember that living in an English-speaking country does not guarantee that you’re living a 100% English-language life. Many international students living in the U.S.A., for example, live with people from their own country, and only have friends in their language school who are from their own country. As a result, they are not really living their lives in English even though English is around them all of the time.

We understand that since Japanese TOEFL test takers have some of the lowest scores compared with all other nations, it might make sense that their English might not be good enough to understand the all-English TOEFL website. But the Japanese-only site puts them at even more of a disadvantage. It gives such students another opportunity to avoid confronting their real English abilities (or lack thereof). If you’re the world leader in English-proficiency testing, you know that the world looks to you to be the trusted authority on who is ready to enter an English-speaking university or who is ready to get a professional license that requires English. Enabling people to avoid English as long as possible seems counter-intuitive.

One story that highlights the damage caused by staying in your native language as much as possible happened during the last U.S. Presidential election. We had told a Japanese student to retire his Japanese Yahoo homepage for the English Yahoo homepage. He didn’t. One day, while listening to a lecture about the U.S. government, the student did not know what “senator” meant. Since that election cycle had “Senator Obama” and “Senator Clinton” and “Senator McCain” vying for the Presidency, the tutor was flabbergasted that this student did not know a word that had been in the headlines every day for the 6 months that the student had been in the county. When the tutor, who was absolutely sure the word “senator” would be all over Yahoo.com, asked the student to go to this news site, he was saddened to see that the student was still using Japanese Yahoo. When the tutor asked the student to go to English Yahoo, he pointed out how the word “Senator” was on the page at least 8 times. Had the student been using his computer *in English,* he would have known more TOEFL-relevant vocabulary.

We believe that ETS should be not be helping to slow down a test-taker’s acquisition of English. Having an all-English website helps visitors wake up to their real English abilities sooner. With so much riding on a student’s TOEFL scores, the sooner they have a realistic assessment of their English abilities, the sooner they can begin working harder to achieve their academic and professional goals.

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