Even for a native speaker, it can be difficult to remember all of the information from a TOEFL lecture without taking notes. Fortunately, you can take notes on any section of the test (the notes will be destroyed when the test is over). Although this is a great help, it can also complicate the matter further, since you have to learn to multitask. This post will give you some tips to speed up your writing so that it won’t bog you down as you try to interpret the material from a lecture.
Make a shorthand and practice it
Use plus signs and minus signs to indicate positive and negative effects, arrows to show causality and relationships, and make up abbreviations for commonly-used words (bio. for biology, biologists, and biological; comp. for competition; i.e. to mark an example). Use not only abbreviations, but also symbols, and even quick drawings (like a happy face to mark an advantage).
Here are some common words you may want to make abbreviations for (words on the same line can share an abbreviation, as the exact word meant will be clear from context):
biology, biologist, biological
chemistry, chemist, chemical
business
anthropologist, anthropology
benefit, advantage
drawback, disadvantage
economic, economy, economist
history, historically, historian
geography, geology, geologist, geological
literature, literary, literal, literally
administer, administration
consequence
resource/natural resource
tradition
technical, technological, technology
Practice note-taking
Do you like watching American sitcoms? Great, use them to study. Sit down with your favorite show and practice taking notes—what are the most important things people say? What jokes and gags are in the show? What’s the main plot of this episode? I admit that this won’t be nearly as much fun as relaxed TV-watching, but it will help you to pick out the important information and get it on paper quickly, as sitcoms move very quickly.
Intersperse your TV note-taking sessions with academic note-taking, so the abbreviations we talked about at the beginning of this post will be automatic, and you’ll be used to taking notes on thought-provoking material (which, let’s face it, sitcoms aren’t).
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