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TOEFL Tuesday: Most Important TOEFL Skills and Practice

Lucas Fink

January 20, 2015

TOEFL Prep Materials

Welcome to our first TOEFL Tuesday video post! From now on, you can check the Magoosh TOEFL Blog every Tuesday for a new video lesson.

Don’t forget to leave a comment with any questions or topic suggestions that you may have. We hope you enjoy the video! 🙂

Basically, there are three ways to study for the TOEFL:

1. Learn the format of the test
2. Practice the skills and vocabulary that are specifically helpful for the TOEFL
3. Get more English experience in general

Of those three ways, the most important is the first. Everybody who takes the TOEFL should first learn the format of the test and how to best answer each type of question. If you don’t learn the format of the test, you will receive a lower score than you should.

And in order to learn the format, it is extremely important that you practice with some official practice questions. There are a few resources from ETS, the people who make the TOEFL, that are free.

But there’s not very much free material. For full-length practice tests and more practice in general, the official ETS books are the best sources. There are two official books:

The Official Guide has three full practice tests and a CD that has all three tests in digital format. Those three on-CD tests are the best approximation of the real TOEFL other than “TOEFL Practice Online” (TPO) tests, which are much more expensive. The low price of the Official Guide makes it the number-one resource for self-study. In a classroom, it’s not great, but for studying alone that book is absolutely necessary.

The book of Official TOEFL iBT Tests is paper-only. There is no CD to simulate the actual TOEFL iBT experience. But the test questions are top quality, from real, past TOEFL tests.

Using the official material, you can learn the format of the test quite well. There is no better practice material to bring you to a higher TOEFL score! (Though this PDF of Magoosh TOEFL Practice Questions is the next best thing.) 🙂

PS. Want TOEFL Tuesdays delivered directly to your inbox? Subscribe to our YouTube channel!

Author

Lucas Fink

Lucas is the teacher behind Magoosh TOEFL. He’s been teaching TOEFL preparation and more general English since 2009, and the SAT since 2008. Between his time at Bard College and teaching abroad, he has studied Japanese, Czech, and Korean. None of them come in handy, nowadays.

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17 responses to “TOEFL Tuesday: Most Important TOEFL Skills and Practice”

francodevi

March 20, 2015

Iìm an old (very old) student myself. I like study English and I hope your help be hopefully for me. Thanks.

Reply
1. Lucas
  
  March 25, 2015
  
  That’s great that you enjoy studying English, and I do think we can help. 🙂 Happy studying!
  
  Reply
Zheng fangyan

March 24, 2015

I want to know if it is for free or not.

Reply
1. David Recine
  
  March 26, 2015
  
  Hello Zheng,
  
  It’s Magoosh’s goal to provide affordable test prep help to people from around the world. So we do offer a lot of free resources for our students. These include free PDFs, such as the fantastic vocabulary guide Lucas made (https://magoosh.com/toefl/2015/toefl-vocabulary-pdf/) or the recent ebook Lucas and I did together (https://magoosh.com/toefl/2015/toefl-vocabulary-comics-ebook/). We have free flashcards too: https://toefl.magoosh.com/flashcards/vocabulary .
  
  And of course, lots of free videos and other material here on our blog.
  
  I hope you won’t completely rule out some of our paid premium services though. We offer a lot of reasonably priced additional supports for students. You can check out the Magoosh TOEFL homepage for more information: https://toefl.magoosh.com/ . And don’t forget to watch this blog for new materials— some free, some reasonably priced— as we continue to make more TOEFL content.
  
  Reply
2. Rosângela
  
  January 17, 2016
  
  I’m finishing my English course Wizard this year. Then I want to buy a ABA English course, because I liked a lot one.
  Thanks.
  Rosângela.
  
  Reply
anita

April 19, 2015

that’s fantastic, indeed!!!!!

Reply
1. Lucas
  
  April 20, 2015
  
  Thanks! Glad I could help a bit.
  
  Reply
leda

July 30, 2015

thanks very much

Reply
1. Lucas Fink
  
  August 3, 2015
  
  You’re welcome!
  
  Reply
Hameed shams

January 18, 2016

Thanks ; it is so important for me .

Reply
Sharif

February 16, 2016

woow that’s fantastic and I en it.joying

it’s important for me these lessons and I’ll keep it to watch many times.
many thanks and have a nice day

Reply
mbagnick

March 25, 2016

I’m really glade and thankful to you thank you

Reply
Olga

April 16, 2016

i’m learning English now with ABA course. I adore it and all my teacher. I hope I’ll finish it in June. So I could keep on learning English with Magoosh.

Reply
1. Magoosh Test Prep Expert
  
  April 18, 2016
  
  We’re glad you want to make Magoosh a part of your continued studies, Olga. 🙂 And it’s also great to hear you’ve been enjoying the instruction you’ve gotten form ABA– they’re one of our content partners here on the blog. 🙂
  
  Reply
gayetree

February 17, 2017

thanks a lot. very interesting .

Reply
Hasiba

April 14, 2018

Hi
I have learned many English courses
I want to know that am I ready for toefl exam
But don’t know how
Please help me how should i know in which level am I ?
I can have goof score in toefl exam ?

Reply
1. Magoosh Test Prep Expert
  
  April 16, 2018
  
  Hi Hassiba,
  
  We have some resources that can help you determine if you are ready for the TOEFL! You can start by reading this blog post: Are you ready for the TOEFL? You must be pretty comfortable with your general English level and feel confident in your ability to read, speak, write and listen to English.
  
  One way to determine if you are ready is to take a practice test and answer some practice questions. It can be difficult to answer questions correctly before studying, but you can et a sense of how difficult the questions are and what your current skill level is. For example, if you have a really hard time understanding the reading passages, listening to the audio or responding to the speaking prompts, then you may need more time to improve your general English level before beginning your studies.
  
  You can see some free materials on the TOEFL website and check out our free practice test If you are looking for high quality and affordable test prep to help you prepare, look no further than the Magoosh TOEFL Premium Program! You can try us out with a free trial 🙂
  
  Reply