In order for foreign speakers of English to go to a college or university in an English speaking country, they must have taken either the TOEFL or IELTS standardized test. The reason for this is because those schools of higher education want to make sure the student can understand, comprehend and interpret his or her course work.
The IELTS test is needed to attend a British or Australian university and the TOEFL test is needed to attend an American school. However, both tests are usually accepted by most schools all over the world. Also, some countries use either of the two the tests as a prerequisite for their own students who want to expand their studies into graduate work.
The TOEFL test is now given in the iBT format. That means that the test is taken on the internet with a certified teacher monitor present. The TOEFL and the IELTS both consist of four sections, reading, listening, speaking and writing, but they are not exactly the same in format. The IELTS format consists of a broader range of questions and a good idea for students to remember when taking the reading part of this test is to read all the questions before reading the passages supplied.
In this section of my blog, I will attempt to give advice on studying for these types of tests and also include helpful links that I've found the most useful to my students.
