I got an email from Michael Goodine from TOEFL Resources yesterday informing me that the TOEFL is now offered weekly to test-takers. Right now, all my TOEFL Courses are at full capacity until next month. Therefore, check out TOEFL Resources right now if you want to get your speaking and writing practice tests evaluated by a qualified TOEFL mentor. In addition, TOEFL Resources is exactly up to date with all the new TOEFL changes. And, he posts regular free content so you can improve your TOEFL skills and strategies: CLICK HERE
According to the new 2019-2020 bulletin, you are now allowed to take the test weekly. Before, ETS limited test-takers to not being able to take the test more than once within a 12-day period.
TOEFL Offered Weekly to Test-Takers: Do NOT violate this policy!
With the new change, you are now limited to taking the test no more than one time within a 3-day period. Keep in mind the following implications to this change:
- Do not register for another TOEFL exam within the 3-day period.
- If you take the TOEFL exam more than once within a 3-day period, your scores will be cancelled.
- ETS will tell any institutions that you sent your scores to that your scores were cancelled.
- You will NOT receive a refund for your test fee.
TOEFL Offered Weekly to Test-Takers: Should you take the TOEFL weekly?
Of course not! Taking the TOEFL weekly is very expensive. In addition, if you take the TOEFL too many times, you will start focusing too much on test-taking strategies and not enough time on actually improving your English. Most students are taking the TOEFL for at least two reasons:
- To gain entrance into an undergraduate or graduate program
- To clear a healthcare or some other type of work requirement
Whatever your reason for taking the TOEFL exam, you will need to use your English for academic, professional, and personal situations. Therefore, spend most of your time improving your overall academic English. For instance, make sure that you have a strong vocabulary base of about 2,000 college-level words. Moreover, you should set a goal to improve your pronunciation:
- Vowel and consonant sounds
- Syllable division and grammatical word endings
- Word stress patterns with multi-syllabic words
- Sentence rhythm (stress and unstress patterns of function and content words)
- Intonation patterns
- Thought groups and blending
Obviously, be diligent in improving your grammar (both basic and advanced), listening, reading, speaking, and writing so that you are functional.
Keep your eye on your real purpose.
Your purpose is real world communication, not just a target TOEFL score or subtotal reading, listening, speaking, and writing scores. If you obsess and start taking the TOEFL too frequently, you will lost sight of your real goal of improving your academic English proficiency. Taking the test repeatedly does not improve your English, nor does it increase your likelihood of reaching your target score. Don’t believe me? I wrote an article titled “TOEFL Hell,” which describes what happens to students who focus too much on test-taking strategies and not enough time learning English. If you plan on taking the test multiple times, limit your frequency to every 3-6 months. After taking a TOEFL exam, do not simply re-register to take the exam again:
- Look at your score report closely to see what reading, listening, speaking, and writing problems you having.
- Based on your target score and how many points you are short of that goal, choose a TOEFL course.
- As you go through your TOEFL course, regularly send pronunciation, speaking, and writing practice tests so that your accent reduction coach, your speaking mentor, and your writing mentor can give you feedback to help you monitor your progress.
- Once you complete your course, take a full-length TOEFL iBT four hour practice test. If your practice test score is the same as the target score and subtotal scores, register for the TOEFL exam.
Good luck!