Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Introduction…...…..............................3
5: Customize to Yourself.....................24
Copyright © 2017 by PrepScholar. All Rights Reserved. This book may be electronically
forwarded verbatim by anyone at no charge as long as this book is still available at no charge
on the site www.prepscholar.com/toefl/s/ and no modifications have been made.
INTRODUCTION:
How to use this TOEFL guide
Hi there! I’m Yuan, the TOEFL
Director at PrepScholar.
4
We don’t just know how to beat the TOEFL ourselves, we
know how to teach YOU to beat the TOEFL!
The TOEFL wants you to think that not everyone is cut out
to beat it. However, I know that with the right motivation
and approach, anyone can beat the TOEFL.
How do I know that YOU can beat the TOEFL? Here’s how:
5
You have the discipline and drive to go above and beyond
in life, and I’m here to help you succeed.
If you study the TOEFL right, you are one giant step closer
to realizing your life’s dream. If you study the TOEFL
6
right, it should be the simplest part of your dream.
8
1: The Critical Factor
You get what you put in
No matter who you are, why you are taking the TOEFL, or
how you’ve learned English in the past, there is one factor,
one inevitable law of the world, that can’t be bypassed. You
need to be motivated to put in the necessary time and
effort to study. No study process in the world can make a
dent on your TOEFL score in under 20 hours.
9
better results than students who were not internally
motivated.
TOEFL
The fact is, you you need to hit your target TOEFL score
in order to be considered to study at your dream grad
school or work at your dream job. You probably already
know this – but I can’t emphasize this enough.
”
fewer than 100 hours doing TOEFL prep,
period.
11
But despite knowing how important the TOEFL is, most
students still do not spend enough time studying. Instead –
they spend time browsing Facebook and looking for
inaccurate TOEFL information from other students, or
getting nervous breakdowns after hearing someone else
scoring well on the TOEFL. They are always on your phone,
and never actually spend the time to sit down in silence
and work hard to improve.
Again, the key is that you have to study for the TOEFL
the right way. That’s exactly what our Complete TOEFL
Prep Course is designed to do. 100 hours of studying
poorly won’t raise your score, but 100 hours using proven
techniques and strategies definitely will.
TOEFL
”
We humans are most motivated when we accomplish small
tasks and receive rewards or self-satisfaction when we
13
accomplish these tasks.
14
them schedule their study sessions and to hold them
responsible for actually studying. This is why PrepScholar
will check in weekly and prompt you to schedule actual
study sessions. We’ll send you reminders and track each
time you come in. We’ll also send weekly reports to you so
you know you’re on track.
Students who use PrepScholar have said over and over that
it’s the best TOEFL system they’ve ever used because they
no longer have to worry about what to do, when to do
it, and how. PrepScholar takes care of all of that. Instead,
students can focus on what’s really important: learning
how to tackle the TOEFL and get more points. Some have
even said studying with PrepScholar is addictive!
You can spend all the time in the world prepping for the
TOEFL, but if you don’t do it in the right way, you’re not
going to make any progress.
“
The TOEFL gives grad schools what they
”
want by making the test tricky for most
non-native English speakers across all
disciplines!
17
At PrepScholar, we take the TOEFL multiple times a year
and our Complete TOEFL Prep contains practice questions
that are continuously updated. We are constantly
identifying and finding the most recent TOEFL question
types and teaching it to you.
18
rely on their brand name to sell copies without actually
caring about educating the student.
”
This is why PrepScholar’s Complete TOEFL Prep uses two
sources to allow you to learn the real TOEFL. First, we
incorporate online, fully simulated TOEFL practice under
the same experience, time pressure, and question
format as you would see on the real TOEFL iBT.
20
3: Focused Practice
Practice your specific skills.
21
To do well on the TOEFL, you need to learn nearly 50
separate skills. There are four sections – Reading,
Listening, Speaking, Writing, and each is made up of
multiple sub-skills:
• Within Reading, you need to know 10 different skills
from vocabularies to understanding inferences, etc.
• Within Listening, you need to know how to listen for
Main Topic, Facts and Details, Organization, and
Purpose, etc.
• Within Speaking, there are 6 different question types
and each requires a different approach.
• Within Writing, there are 2 prompts with very
different strategies to tackle.
”
Most students who study for the TOEFL have an approach
so broad that it becomes completely ineffective. They say,
“I need to improve my Speaking score,” or “I need to get
better on Reading.” Because they think it’s an overall
weakness, they spend hours doing TPOs. When they fail to
improve their score, it’s no surprise to me. They’re not
focusing on training their specific weaknesses!
But after all, this is what the ETS wants – they want
24
people to prep for the TOEFL in the wrong way so that
people do poorly and have to take it over and over again
to get the scores grad programs want. But by reading this
guide, you are now be ahead of most students.
25
4: Master Your Mistakes
You get what you put in
”
wrong, and you MUST know how to avoid
this mistake in the future.
Now imagine Bob Dylan and John Lennon are both standing
by your side. You play a chord, and Bob Dylan tells you
27
exactly what you need to improve. You write a verse, and
John Lennon tells you exactly how to improve it. They
tell you, step-by-step, what you are doing wrong and what
you are doing right. Putting all this into place, you end up
playing a song better than you did after 100 hours of
aimless practice. Then, after just another 20 hours of
coaching and practice, you’re already way better. You
know now exactly what to avoid in the future, what to
focus on, and thanks to under
Again, the TOEFL works exactly the same way! You have
the choice of blazing through 100 practice questions and
feeling good without improving. OR, you can focus on
why you’re missing each specific question, and after
just 20 questions you’ll already have mastered your
mistakes. This is how you’ll get better with PrepScholar.
”
builds in review into every single lesson.
28
also review every single question that you missed and
learn what mistakes you made.
29
5: Customize to Yourself
Ignore one-size-fits-all
The final strategy I have for you is the final pillar that will
tie all of this together. It hinges on the idea that you are a
truly unique person. And I don’t mean this in the way that
30
your second grade teacher meant it. I mean this:
”
prep in a way that’s customized to you.
- Yuan