TOEFL Test Sections

What are the different TOEFL sections?

The four sections of the TOEFL are the listening comprehension, the structure, the reading comprehension and the writing test. The listening comprehension and the structure sections are computer adaptive, so your first question is of medium difficulty, and the next question will be harder if you get it right and easier if you don't. You need to answer all questions and can't go back to questions once you have confirmed your answer. Reading comprehension and the essay are not computer adaptive so you can go back and change your answers later and you can also skip questions.

Listening Comprehension tests your understanding of spoken English. During the three parts of the test, you will listen to recorded information and see pictures of the speakers and other images on your computer screen. Part A will be a series of short sentences and you then pick the answer choice closest in meaning to them. This is paraphrasing and there are 20 questions. Part B has 15 questions, based on a short conversation between two people. A third person will ask a question based on the conversation and you will need to answer the question. This tests your listening to dialogue. Part C also has 15 questions. There conversations or talks take place and there are four to six questions on each.

The Structure and Written Expression section of the TOEFL measures your ability to recognize good grammar in written English. The first type of question in this section has a sentence with a phrase or a word missing and you need to choose one of four phrases or words that best completes the sentence. The second type of question features complete sentences that have four phrases and words underlined. You need to choose the phrase or word that needs to be changed to make the sentence correct.

The Reading Comprehension section measures your ability to read and to understand short passages which are similar in style and topic to those students will encounter during a university course. There are between  8 and 12 questions for each of the passages.

The Writing section measures how you can write in English on a particular topic. It will test your ability to generate and then organize ideas and support the ideas with evidence or examples, based upon an assigned topic. When you are given your topic you can type your answer into a computer or write it by hand on your answer sheet. Scoring is based upon your grammatical correctness and the style of writing you use as well as the ideas you have and the ability you have to support your ideas using examples. Two readers will grade your essay on a scale of 0 to 6.