Archive for November, 2009

Three Secrets to Dramatically Increase Your TOEFL iBT Reading Abilities

Sunday, November 29th, 2009 at 3:36 pm

Readers make good leaders!

Michael Buckhoff’s “7 Step System to Pass the TOEFL iBT

Exam!” “Give me a power-packed TOEFL lesson!”

Watch Videos: Pumpkin Patches and TOEFL iBT, Corn Mazes and TOEFL iBT

Reading, reading, and more reading on the TOEFL iBT! For example, you will take a 60-90 minute reading section with several reading passages approximately 750 words long. You will read several shorter campus-related and academic passages during the speaking section, and you will read an academic reading passage during the writing section.

To pass the TOEFL iBT, you will need to understand the main ideas and critical supporting points of these reading passages, for you will be expected to answers questions about them later. Therefore, if you can answer most reading questions correctly, you will have a high TOEFL iBT score..

TOEFL iBT test-takers often have great difficulty with TOEFL iBT reading. In fact, many complain that they are not able to finish the assigned readings before the time limit. Why is this? A slow reading speed (0-180 words per minute) with an advanced English learner can be caused by a number of factors. Little or no regular extensive reading practice, not completing timed reading exercises, and limited academic vocabulary knowledge cause the learner to have poor concentration which result in a slow reading speed. Finally, a slow reading speed results in poor reading comprehension.

So what do you do? First of all, you find out what you reading speed is. Then each week increase your reading speed gradually while maintaining 60-80% comprehension until you can read comfortably between 250-350 words per minute. In addition to doing timed readings (TOEFL-style reading passages are ideal for this), you need to read extensively (TOEFL-style readings do not accomplish this task). For extensive readings, you should read 350 + page novels and books that focus around a central theme. You should do 45 minutes of extensive reading each day.

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