Timeline for What do you think why the English test for non native speakers, TOEFL iBT has become ferociously difficult?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
23 events
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| Jan 10, 2021 at 5:07 | comment | added | shoover | @JyrkiLahtonen AmE, BrE, French, and other speakers all have different pronunciations for "Van Gogh," which are all different from the Dutch pronunciation. cnn.com/style/article/van-gogh-gbr-intl-scli/index.html bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2010/01/… And most of them have no inkling they're doing it wrong. | |
| Jan 16, 2019 at 11:44 | comment | added | user17814 | @JyrkiLahtonen It's an actual one question out of 5. | |
| Jan 16, 2019 at 11:43 | comment | added | user17814 | @JyrkiLahtonen So given a question, "Why would temporal lobe epilepsy appeared to be a plausible explanation for Van Gogh's ilness"? Then do I only need to infer from some words other than that? | |
| Jan 16, 2019 at 10:30 | comment | added | Jyrki Lahtonen | What should I do? lol. I think you were supposed to simply infer that the experts agree that van Gogh was mentally ill. The exact diagnosis is surely unimportant. After all, the dude died over a century ago, so it is unlikely current diagnostic methods can be applied. The important part surely is how his mental health may have affected his life, and (unfortunately more importantly) his art. I didn't hear the questions related to this passage, but my guess would be that those were the central themes. Some questions may have gotten into the details, and I don't know how well I might have done. | |
| Jan 16, 2019 at 10:21 | comment | added | Jyrki Lahtonen | ^*listening* passage (obviously not reading) | |
| Jan 13, 2019 at 16:44 | comment | added | user17814 | I mean, the name of some diseases appear in either reading section or in listening section in the real test anyway. What am I supposed to do? I don't even in my mother tongue what the several of the diseases are as you listened either. What should I do? lol. | |
| Jan 13, 2019 at 16:21 | comment | added | Jyrki Lahtonen | I mean, I doubt you were to list all those diseases, or name the chemical van Gogh may have overdosed on (while drinking heavily)? Or? | |
| Jan 13, 2019 at 16:16 | comment | added | Jyrki Lahtonen | I listened to that reading passage just to test. Yeah. I'm not quite happy with it. Took me a few seconds to figure out that they were discussing van Gogh. Let's be honest, the speaker mispronounced the name horribly :-) Also, if I had not known that his brother was named Theo, I would have had a hard time picking it up. To me the speaker said (roughly) vancooh (assimilates with Vancouver) as opposed fun Kogh what I would expect :-) The list of possible psychiatric maladies has several I had not heard of (in English). But, what were the test takers supposed to do with this material? | |
| Jan 10, 2019 at 14:00 | history | edited | user17814 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Dec 31, 2018 at 20:17 | comment | added | user3395 | @KentaroTomono I used trip up, by the way. Beat yourself up is defined here. But anyway, I understand completely where you're coming from, but take heart, and work hard and the results will come. The only way to learn a language is to imitate native speakers. So do that. Read newspaper articles, short texts, and listen to the news and then try to retell these yourself; try to use the new words you encounter, and so on. | |
| Dec 31, 2018 at 20:04 | comment | added | user17814 | Thanks. You know, when you "trip over" once and lose some parts, you can lose everything. That's where tricks may be. Although I am not "beating" myself, but sure, I need an effort for success. Again, thank you for your comment. | |
| Dec 31, 2018 at 19:49 | comment | added | user3395 | @KentaroTomono Yes, those words are exactly what I was referring to when I mentioned that certain words aren't that common. So, first of all, (by the way, Happy New Year!, haha) you shouldn't beat yourself up over not knowing them, because virtually no one uses that stuff. Okay, you'll hear ephemeral here and there, but bucolic? I've seen that word maybe once or twice in my life – the same with gnarly. I only remember these words because they're so strange (there aren't that many gn- words to begin with, and bucolic also stands out – its etymology isn't apparent at first blush). | |
| Dec 31, 2018 at 18:15 | comment | added | user17814 | By the way, where are you from? I am from Japan, whose TOEFL performance is one of the poorest among countries. ( The average score is same with Mongol's ). Though I don't intend to make this a reason why I performed poor, please understand in some parts of the world, English is a hard language due to the cultural difference. A student I know spent 26 thousand dollars a year and his highest score was 91. All that being said, I'm pretty sure it is only me who can help myself even though I cry over the difficulty of the test here. | |
| Dec 31, 2018 at 17:57 | comment | added | user17814 | @user2684291 Yes , I tripped over the words such as "ephemeral" and "gnaled", "bucolic" etc. But as you say, it is all up to me, what I need to do is to increase the vocabulary, and the ability to catch as many words as possible. But I feel a bit agitated if that lecture was easy for "all" the non native speakers... | |
| Dec 31, 2018 at 17:25 | comment | added | user3395 | I'm not a native speaker of English, but I had no trouble whatsoever understanding that recording you've uploaded; the speaker spoke slowly and clearly. But I can understand how it might've tripped you up a little (some of the words there simply aren't that common). I suggest you read a lot and listen a lot, and pay close attention to how words are pronounced in order to pick them out when you take your exam. I don't know how else to help you. Don't use subtitles when you watch movies, and try to watch both British and American movies in order to cover both pronunciations (if required). | |
| Dec 28, 2018 at 20:31 | history | edited | user17814 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Dec 28, 2018 at 20:15 | comment | added | ColleenV Mod | MIT is an elite school. I would expect it to be extremely difficult for anyone to get accepted. A student who isn’t fluent enough to get a 105 has very little chance of being successful there and taking their tuition money would do them a disservice. Anyhow, this isn’t a discussion about English really. It may be better handled on Academia.se. | |
| Dec 28, 2018 at 20:13 | comment | added | Dan Bron | @KentaroTomono I personally can. And I think most Americans could do asteroid, comet, and meteor, but would struggle with the diff between meteor and meteorite without checking first. And MIT is an extremely elite school. It’s very very hard for regular Americans to get into, even being native speakers. | |
| Dec 28, 2018 at 20:07 | comment | added | user17814 | Yeah, test is a test. But sometimes enough is enough. By the way, can you describe by your own words how different asteroids, comets, meteor, meteorite are without prior checking? "These" are standard words designated for score around 80 of 120. MIT's requirement is 105. | |
| Dec 28, 2018 at 20:05 | comment | added | ColleenV Mod | The test just measures fluency. What people do based on a particular score is a different problem. Tests should measure accurately. I empathize with how difficult it is to enter the US legally if you don’t have a lot of money. | |
| Dec 28, 2018 at 20:03 | comment | added | user17814 | Would the U.S institutions want the poor country folks to have no chance to get the high education in the U.S? Or would you prefer only rich guys take attendance? | |
| Dec 28, 2018 at 19:55 | comment | added | ColleenV Mod | Why should someone who is exposed to English every day and who is extremely fluent get the same score as someone who isn’t as fluent? Isn’t that unfair? It might be unfair to require a higher score than is necessary for a purpose, but the test should measure fluency accurately. If it doesn’t distinguish between someone who commicates easily in English and someone who still finds it challenging, then the test is broken. | |
| Dec 28, 2018 at 19:12 | history | answered | user17814 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |