TOEFL
TOEFL stands for Test Of English as a Foreign Language. Different people frequently pronounce the acronym differently: /toh-fel/ or /toh-eh-fel/. The correct pronunciation, however, is more like /toh-ful/, with the stress on the first syllable.
TOEFL is probably still the most popular exam in the world. It is accepted by about 7,000 colleges, universities and agencies in over 130 countries worldwide and serves mainly for college or university admissions and for scholarship and graduation decisions.
The exam has undergone many revisions over the years – there used to be a paper-based test and a computer-based test, and now only an internet-based test. The scores have also changed and at present the maximum score is 120 points.
The test has four parts (the four basic language skills): Reading, Listening, Speaking and Writing, all of them bringing you points converted to a 0-30 score scale, thus having the same weight towards the final score. Some of the sections include integrated tasks which test the combined use of two or more of these skills in an answer to an academic task type – for example, you may be asked to read a passage and/or listen to part of a lecture and then you have to say or write something based on the information in those sources. At any rate, the test is void of pure grammar tasks as the ones it used to include. In its current format the emphasis is on the understanding of written or narrated text and on the ability to create a spoken or written text, all of them in an academic environment. The topics that are covered are similar to the information found in textbooks from courses taught in colleges and universities during the first two years. The idea is for this exam to provide you with and test you on the skills you need to communicate effectively in real-life academic situations in the university classroom and on campus.
The TOEFL exam is administered by ETS (Educational Testing Service) through registered test centres around the world. In Bulgaria you may sit the test in Blagoevgrad, Burgas, Gotse Delchev, Plovdiv, Sofia, Varna and Veliko Tarnovo and the different centres offer a different number of test dates a year. The test is taken on one day and is about four hours long.
TOEFL iBT Test takers can view their scores online 15 working days after they take the test. They will also receive a copy of their score report by mail.
