Practice Test For The New TOEFL® iBT Exam

I. Overview of the New TOEFL® iBT Exam

TOEFL® stands for the Test of English as a Foreign Language. This test is designed to measure the English-language ability of people who do not speak English as their first language and who plan to study at colleges and universities in Canada and the USA. Language specialists prepare the material for the TOEFL® test. The TOEFL® Test Committee of Examiners establishes overall guidelines for the test content and specifications. All the content, questions, specifications, and final test forms are reviewed for cultural and racial bias and content appropriateness, according to established Educational Testing Service (ETS®) procedures.

The TOEFL® exam has undergone some important changes. In order to meet the challenge of providing a more comprehensive assessment of an applicant’s ability to understand and use the English language in an academic environment, a “next generation” TOEFL® test has been developed to assess all four language skills - listening, reading, writing, and speaking. While some questions in each of the sections are similar to questions found on the previous computer-based test (CBT), others are new. Thus, the scoring system has changed as well. Each of the four language skills is now reported on a scale of 0 to 30. There is also a total score. In addition, the TOEFL® Internet Based Test (iBT) no longer has any computer-adaptive sections; it is a linear assessment test covering a full range of levels of question difficulty. Note taking is allowed on the TOEFL® iBT Test in order to better reflect real-life academic situations. The iBT Test takes approximately four hours to finish, and is administered via the Internet at secure, ETS.-approved test centers.