TOEFL is the most popular, widely respected and accepted English language test in the world. It is recognized by over 10,000 universities and agencies worldwide. It is also accepted in over 130 countries around the globe, including the United States, the U.K., Canada, and Australia. This exam is designed to measure the candidate’s capability to understand and use the English language at a college level. The test is used for the same purpose as other standardized exams such as ACT and SAT. All these tests are used by universities and colleges as an important consideration for admissions into their academic institutions. Colleges and universities consider them as a proof that a person will fit into the academic environment in their institution. Various institutions put different levels of importance on TOEFL and use them with other deciding factors, such as the GPA of the student, class rank, recommendations, extra-curricular activities, and community service.

The duration of the TOEFL test is four hours and it focuses on the use of language in an academic learning environment. It is designed to evaluate one’s English usage ability in four different areas:

Reading Section

The total exam questions in this part are between 36 and 70. You will be required to read about three to five long passages from existing academic texts. From each passage, you will be asked about 12-14 questions. The time allotted to this section is between 60-100 minutes. Areas where you can expect questions include the main ideas of the passage, vocabulary, details, among others. It is important that you read the passages very well and understand their concepts and details before you start answering the questions.

Listening Section

This section of the exam contains about 34-51 questions. You will be required to listen to 4-6 lectures, which include classroom discussion. Each of the lecture recordings is about 5 minutes long and each comes with about 6 questions. In addition to this, you will also be asked to listen to 2 or 3 short conversation of 3 minutes each. Each conversation will have 5 questions that you have to respond to. The questions will focus on the main ideas of the conversations, inferences, details, and many others.

Speaking Section

This part is made up of 6 tasks with a total of 20-minutes duration allotted to it. In this section, you will be required to express your opinions on two familiar concepts related to the academic world. You will also be given 4 integrated tasks where you will be required to read and listen to some passages and then communicate the information while defending your opinions in a concise matter.

Writing Section

This section consists of two tasks of 50 minutes. You will be given two writing assignments to work on. In the first assignment, you will be required to read a specific passage, listen to another, and write on the relationship between these two ones. In the second assignment, you will be asked to write a personal essay to sustain your opinion on a given topic. TOEFL is administered in two different formats: the paper and pencil test and the Internet based test (iBT). The choice of format you take is basically dependent on your testing center. There are over 4,300 testing centers for TOEFL across the world.