Hi everyone!

I recently gave my TOEFL and got a score of 27 Reading, 28 listening, 27 speaking, 29 writing.

Firstly, I would want to thank u/gregmat for his extensive TOEFL 2 week study plan, it really helped me structure my preparation and he is a pro at explaining how to solve all the questions. Secondly, I would recommend getting the ets tests volume 2 book as I used it for my practice tests.

I religiously followed the 2 week gregmat plan followed by 2 weeks of tests (I ended up giving around 5) from the volume 2, and between the tests I would figure out where I went wrong and practice that until the next test.

Some section wise advice:

Reading

This section is pretty straightforward, you don't need to read the entire passage, just understand the main idea of each paragraph and write it down as you anyways end up reading the important passages during the questions. Pay attention to the authors purpose and sentence rephrasing questions as they can sometimes be tricky. Remember, you need to go for the best answer not the perfect answer.

ALWAYS USE EVIDENCE, I cannot emphasize this enough, you may be tempted to choose an answer which may sound correct especially under pressure and with long paragraphs. But I beg you to not give in and really look for evidence, I was victim to this in the initial practice tests but eventually got better at shutting off that urge. For TOEFL, using your outside knowledge over the passage won't be as damaging as GRE, but I would still recommend to consider the essay as the word of god. I personally messed this up on exam day as I was consistently getting 29-30 in practice. I think I started the exam too quickly and did not settle in properly first with the environment and was too stressed out.

Listening

This section is quite easy to score if you know what you're doing. You don't need to note down every detail, basically I just followed whatever gregmat said and took abbreviated notes and did not focus on minute details. I would like to add that you should focus more on the flow of the conversation. For example, the mood of the person, their tone, etc. Take notes about general ideas of what the professor is talking about especially in the lectures and try to also focus on the tone and mood in the conversations.

Speaking

This section was my Achilles heel, Even though I am pretty good at forming ideas and words and fluent in my tone, I tend to mess up grammar while speaking and that is evident in my speaking score. I was pleasantly surprised that I got such a high speaking score and I think they are a little on the lenient side with this section especially with international students. I remember I messed up two out of the four questions, as in I did not entirely stop but there were some hiccups and I literally lost my train of thought in the middle of the first question. The key here is moving on and just continuing the next point even if it sounds abrupt as just sitting silently will knock your score down further. It may seem easy to do but trust me it is one of the hardest things you will have to learn in TOEFL. At home and during practice you have to resist the urge of pausing the recording when you practice in case you stall and just keep going even if it is super uncomfortable. Once you get used to hearing your own voice and being uncomfortable, you will be able to face these situations in case they occur on test day.

WRITING

This section I was naturally proficient at but I still wanted to get a near perfect score so I practiced anyways. CHATGPT is a god gift, It is amazing when grading your essays and academic discussion prompts. It tells you exactly where you went wrong and points out details which no human could've. Obviously you take some of its advice with a grain of salt especially if your content is good compared to the level 5 responses provided and it is just being nitpicky. But it sure as hell detects awkward phrasings and grammar issues which are something you should really focus on. Especially in the academic discussion prompt, where this matters more as the content is naturally lesser. My integrated essay was around 300 words and Academic discussion answer was 150 ish for those who care about the length.

General advice

• If you're giving the toefl at a test center, it gets very chaotic and noisy, try to emulate this scenario, I was already seasoned to this as there was a construction going beside my house when I gave my practice tests.
• To reduce the duration of the above, try to reach the exam center first. That way you can go in first and start the test before everyone so you won't be disturbed during your listening and reading sections.
• If you start panicking midway, just pause for a moment and take a deep breath. Know that this is just another test which won't even matter after you are done with your grad admissions. You will probably even forget about your experience altogether.
• You'll just lose more points the longer you dwell on difficult questions or wrong answers, so accept a loss and just move on. Solving that one difficult question for five minutes and getting the answer will not give you extra points, in most cases you will lose time to solve the next 5 easy ones losing 5 points.
• Gregmat is the GOAT, I took his advice to heart, especially about cutting losses and trying to be the best, not perfect. Do properly listen to what he says.
• I did introduce my own template for speaking questions 3 and 4 as I was more comfortable with that so you can change up things if they work for you( For question three I just defined the term and gave the examples by joining them with my templated phrases like "this is illustrated by the professor...", etc. For question 4, I just kinda winged it as I preferred to dive directly into what was asked than explaining the concept and following greg's template as I did not have enough time.
• I am a fast speaker but I had to slow done A LOT, the reason being a fast speaker also made me more prone to just blanking out, finishing too early or using filler phrases if I could not form further sentences. Speaking slowly gives you more time to think what you're saying and also helps you check your grammar better.
• Settle into the environment on test day, I messed this up as I started the test as soon as I sat at my PC so that I would not be disturbed by everyone's voices during their speaking section. But this was a huge mistake as I was already stressed. So make sure you settle down, take some deep breaths, get comfy with the headphones, mouse, chair, etc. It's okay as you only need all that focus in reading, you can just turn up the volume to full in listening section to not get distracted. And I doubt anyone would finish their reading and listening both before you finish your reading.

So that was it, all the best for your test and take it easy!

(Ignore all the awkward phrasings, grammatical errors in my post as I'm already done with my TOEFL xD)