Английский язык > Learn English with Rebecca [engVid RebeccaESL] > TOEFL Structure Skills for iBT success!

hi my name is Rebecca and in this video

we'll be talking about the TOEFL IBT

structure as well as the skills alright

because the exam has a particular

structure and it also has certain skills

that are required in order for you to do

really well okay

so let's discuss what these are let's

start first with the structure the TOEFL

IBT exam is an exam which lasts for

about four hours and it has four

different sections they are reading

listening speaking and writing and they

come in that order okay you have about a

10 minute break after the reading and

listening sections alright that's the

basic structure which you need to be

aware of the reading section lasts for

60 to 100 minutes the listening section

lasts for about 40 to 60 minutes

they then you have your 10 minute break

or so the speaking section lasts for

about 20 minutes and last of all you

have your writing section which lasts

for about 50 minutes you have two tasks

to do there okay

so that's the overall structure of your

exam now let's look at how you can do

well and in order to understand how to

do well you need to see what skills are

involved in the TOEFL IBT exam some

students think because we are testing

reading writing listening and speaking

that these are the four skills and

that's that well yes and no in order to

do well in reading writing listening and

speaking there are a number of other

skills involved which are written on the

board so let's have a look at these okay

alright so we could say that the skills

that are required for you to do well on

the TOEFL IBT

our language skills as well as academic

skills by language skills we can say

some primary language skills and some

secondary language skills the primary

ones are the ones you mentioned in the

beginning and the ones that most

students expect which are reading

writing listening and speaking all right

but what else is involved in order for

you to do well in these parts let's look

at them this is where some of the

secondary language skills come in

grammar is no longer tested directly on

the TOEFL IBT it used to be in previous

versions of the test but luckily for you

it's not there as a specific section

anymore but we have grammar tested

indirectly how well when you speak you

should be using correct grammar and when

you write you should also be using

correct grammar so grammar will be

tested in directly in your TOEFL IBT is

in okay also vocabulary is tested

throughout reading writing listening

speaking pronunciat­ion does matter when

we say that pronunciat­ion does matter it

doesn't mean that you have to speak with

an American accent or a British accent

or South African accent or anything

special what you do have to do is to

speak correctly and clearly so that

anyone under else who's listening can

understand you that's the critical part

every single human being who speaks

English has an accent I have an accent

and each of you has an accent and that's

perfectly fine if I try to speak your

language I would also not sound like you

and that's perfectly fine as long as I

can be understood so that's what you

should keep in mind when you're trying

to speak English to enunciate clearly

but don't necessaril­y try to imitate a

particular accent

and if there are any specific errors in

pronouncia­tion then those would need to

be corrected because otherwise somebody

could understand something quite

different from what you intend to say ok

that's about pronunciat­ion spelling is

another skill that comes in obviously

this will matter in your writing section

and related writing skills are

capitaliza­tion and punctuatio­n

you have to know which words to

capitalize and how to punctuate your

sentences and paragraphs alright so

these are some of the language skills

which are required and tested directly

or indirectly in the TOEFL IBT exam all

right now let's look at some of the

other support skills that you require

which lots of times students are not

aware of and they don't understand that

if they are weaken those skills that's

going to undermine their success in the

TOEFL IBT what I mean by undermine is

that's going to make it more difficult

that's going to weaken their ability for

them to get a high score in the TOEFL

IBT exam so let's look at what some of

these academic skills are okay the first

one is skimming what is skimming

skimming is a skill related to the act

of reading skimming means running

quickly through a passage to get a

general idea of what it's about what

does that mean for example in the

morning when you get the newspaper if

you still get the newspaper at home and

you don't read everything online you see

the headline and you want to know what

happened so you just read quickly

through the article to see to get a

general idea a quick general idea of

what it's about

that's called skinny all right then

after that is scan what's the difference

between skimming and scan

scanning is when you're looking for a

particular piece of informatio­n

skimming allows you to run through the

entire passage and scanning you're also

running through the passage but with a

different purpose in mind the purpose is

to look for a particular piece of

informatio­n for example if you rather

than a news story about an earthquake

happening in a particular country you

might skim the passage and then you'll

have general knowledge about the

earthquake but if you happen to have

family or you know someone in the area

where the earthquake struck then you

might be looking for more specific

informatio­n about where that earthquake

took place right so you might be looking

for the name of a city for example that

would be an example of scanning because

you're looking for a specific

informatio­n all right another skill that

you require an academic skill is

synthesizi­ng what is synthesizi­ng in

synthesizi­ng means combining informatio­n

integratin­g informatio­n which you

receive from different sources in the

TOEFL IBT it is an example of

synthesizi­ng is an example of the

integrated scale that they're testing

who are asked sometimes to read

something to listen to something and

then to write about it or to read

something listen to something and speak

about it all of this requires the

ability to synthesize or combine

informatio­n okay all right next point

summarizin­g again when you read and hear

different kinds of informatio­n you want

to summarize it mention kind of

encapsulat­ed or summarize it in short

all right write about it in short when

you summarize the final length of your

passage is shorter than the

passages okay another very important

skill which students sometimes struggle

with actually is note-takin­g they don't

always understand the importance of that

but when you are doing a TOEFL exam and

you're doing the listening passages you

have to know how to take notes very

quickly and effectivel­y this is a kind

of skill in itself which you do develop

as you go as you're in school but also

more so in university because you have

so much informatio­n coming at you and

you have to be able to decide which is

the relevant informatio­n and which is

not as relevant and be able to record

that informatio­n in some way this is

really important on the TOEFL IBT

because in the listening section if you

have effected notes it can help you to

answer your questions in the writing

section if you've taken effective notes

you'll be able to write your first task

very effectivel­y where you have a

reading and listening and then you have

to combine that informatio­n okay so this

is another scale to work on quite

separately another one is paraphrasi­ng

paraphrasi­ng means basically expressing

the same ideas in different words

alright so when you paraphrase you take

the original sentence and you express it

in your own words you're actually not

allowed at all in the TOEFL IBT or in

university to copy somebody else's words

now you're allowed to do that because

that's called plagiarism and plagiarism

is a very serious offence in

universiti­es and also on the TOEFL

if you're asked to combine informatio­n

from a reading passage for example and

listening and if you copy something from

the reading directly more than maybe one

or two words and that could be evidence

of plagiarism so you want to fund learn

a variety of techniques to enable you to

paraphrase effectivel­y so make sure you

also get a lot of practice do

okay and the last one is something minor

most students today those young students

who've grown up around computers are

quite comfortabl­e with this this is

keyboardin­g and keyboardin­g basically

just means being able to type on the

keyboard into a computer all right you

need to be able to do that in your TOEFL

exam on your writing section because the

entire exam will be typed in okay so

that's a kind of overview for you of

TOEFL skills that are required so next

time you are studying please bear in

mind not only to work on your reading

writing listening and speaking but to

understand that all of these skills are

going to determine how well you do on

your TOEFL and of course I wish you a

lot of luck with your TOEFL if you'd

like more informatio­n about the TOEFL

exam you can go to my website it's

www.google.com/mapmaker stream's about

English or about TOEFL or IELTS or

anything else then please visit our

website at wwlp.com okay that's it for

now see you later

bye for now