а вы слышали о новоы версии TOEFL ?
Я прочитала что в 2005 году тест будет изменен,так как студенты плохо говорят по-английски
New TOEFL in 2005!
Some of you may have heard that a new format of the TOEFL will become standard in 2004. For many of you, this change will not affect your preparation, but I know that there are some of you who are already starting to plan your TOEFL preparation now, so here's what I have heard about the upcoming changes. All of this information comes from several telephone conversations I've had with TOEFL higher-ups in Princeton over the last few years.
First, a little history of the changes. Back in the late 1990's, TOEFL wanted to completely change the TOEFL. At that time, they had a project, which they called "TOEFL 2000," whose goal was to completely change the TOEFL by the year 2000. These changes involved first, converting the TOEFL from the paper-based test (PBT) to the computer-based test (CBT) by the year 2000, and second, completely changing the format of the test. However, as people who visit TestMagic.com know, that didn't happen; the CBT is still quite similar to the PBT in many ways. Implementing the CBT turned out to be much more difficult than TOEFL had imagined, and it took much longer for them to do what they thought they could do. As a TOEFL representative told me on the phone, the CBT TOEFL is an "intermediate step" between the PBT and the planned 2005 iteration of the TOEFL. testmagic.com
The 2005 TOEFL will be drastically different. First, it will not contain grammar questions like those seen on the TOEFL now. Second, test takers will be required to speak! From what I was told on the phone, test takers will speak into a telephone and their talk will be digitized and sent to TOEFL for scoring. Currently, the TSE is recorded on cassette tape, which makes it easy for tapes to be lost at some point in the processing stages. Third, the talks that test takers listen to will no longer be the artificially slow and correct English that the current TOEFL uses. The new TOEFL will use actual lectures from actual professors given in real universities. As the TOEFL representative explained to me on the phone, these conversations will include mid-sentence shifts in speech, for example, "Today we're going to study the molecular composition of heavy metals--oh, wait--oh, yeah, I remember Erin Billy asked me an important question last week after class. Erin, could you repeat your question to the class? "
Although this version of the TOEFL would seem to require a lot of technology to implement, TOEFL has decided to make a paper-based version of this test as well, for those areas where it would be more difficult to maintain a computer testing center. I'm guessing that if your area currently uses the PBT, you will continue to do so in the future. One of the main reasons for using the paper-based test, as I was told, is that in some locations, certain unforeseen and unpreventable circumstances, such as power outages, may prevent test takers from taking the computer version of this test.
Finally, I was concerned about the cost of the test. The TOEFL representative told me that TOEFL was going to try to keep the test as affordable as possible. The way he said it made me think that the price would go up, but only a little bit. He said that TOEFL realized that the current fee is quite expensive for many test takers.
Some of you may be wondering why TOEFL is changing the test. The simple answer is that people complain--teachers, test takers, admissions committees. Many people think that the TOEFL is artificial and that it doesn't truly reflect one's ability to speak and understand English in an academic setting. We all know, for example, people who can get really high scores on the TOEFL but cannot speak very well or understand what people say to them. That in a nutshell is why the TOEFL is changing.
