“At first, I didn’t understand how important deep knowledge of the language was in order to get a high score for TOEFL. I, like a lot of people, thought that practice is a key for success and that quantity will turn into quality one day. Instead of actually learning the language, I just tried to train myself on TOEFL.
The speaking section was my Achilles heel. I always thought that it was unfair for ETS to make test-takers to fit so much information into the 45 second time period. After another attempt to pass the test, I was almost 100% sure I would get a high score for the speaking section, because I managed to use a lot of information from the given materials and I was very frustrated when I got my report and I had failed my speaking section again.
After that Danijela recommended me to try the “Academic Vocabulary Workshop” course. I was able to finish the first section of the course before my next TOEFL attempt and finally I lucked out. Even though I thought I would fail again because this time my speaking answer was missing some of the information, apparently, I underestimated the importance of academic words for the test. Unfortunately, ETS doesn’t explain what they actually liked in my answer, but I remember using a lot of academic words because my topic was similar to the topic from the section of the workshop I just finished.”
Elena Downey, Pharmacist, Philadelphia, PA