Improving Your TOEFL iBT Vocabulary: A Helpful Tip

When you read academic materials, how many times do you stop when you see unfamiliar words. Or, when you listen to academic listening passages, do you have your train of thought interrupted when you hear a word you do not understand? Can you accurately spell words to which you listen? Whether you read, listen, or note-take, you will need to have a good command of basic and college-level vocabulary.

During the TOEFL iBT, your vocabulary skills will be tested. You will need to be able to read without stopping frequently, you will need to concentrate intently on the listening passages, and you will need to accurately spell the words to which you listen. Accurate spelling is especially important during the TOEFL iBT integrated writing in that you will listen to a lecture and then write an essay showing how the lecture is related to a reading passage. You want to make sure that you can accurately summarize the key points of the lecture and that TOEFL iBT human raters can understand the words you write–too many misspellings can obscure your meaning. Hence, having good vocabulary skills will help you to get a high TOEFL iBT score.

How can you improve? First, discipline yourself when you practice reading for longer periods of time, for example 45 minutes. During these practice sessions, focus not on individual words but on how the ideas in each sentence relate to the main idea of the reading passage or chapter. As you read, when you see a word you do not know, highlight it in yellow, and, after your 45 minute reading session concludes, you can spend more time trying to understand the word. Write the word onto a 3 x 5 inch note-card with the word on one side and, on the other side, the definition, sample sentence, pronunciation, part of speech, and examples of synonyms and antonyms. Soon, you will have built an impressive vocabulary note-card study system that will help you to advance your TOEFL iBT vocabulary skills. In addition, you will know how to pronounce and spell the newly learned words. If you practice these skills regularly for an extended period of time, you will score high on the TOEFL iBT.