Aim for English
Note-taking in TOEFL iBT
Why, when and how to take notes during TOEFL iBT
TOEFL iBT at a glance
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- TOEFL iBT overview and general tips
- The language you'll need in TOEFL
- Independent tasks in TOEFL iBT
- Integrated tasks in TOEFL iBT
- The importance of taking notes
- Understanding inferences in TOEFL
- Understanding stated details
- Understanding main ideas
- Summarising
- Know your own English
- Skills you'll need in iBT
- Writing in TOEFL
- Speaking in TOEFL
- Listening in TOEFL
- Reading in TOEFL
TOEFL iBT tip of the month
TOEFL assesses your ability to communicate in an academic environment. There are similarities in reading, listening, speaking and writing questions. While your English has to be very good, the test won’t be impossible if you learn a few skills and do as much practice as possible.
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Note-taking in TOEFL iBT
What’s important?
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Imagine you’re studying at university.
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See how the passage is organised.
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Use your notes to answer questions.
Taking notes throughout TOEFL
Take notes throughout the TOEFL test. In reading, you might want to draw a picture of what’s being described to help you understand what it looks like. In listening, it’s the only way to get through the questions. In speaking, use notes to prepare your ideas so that you can talk fluently. In speaking and in writing, you’ll have to take notes on reading and listening passages before communicating.
When you’ve finished taking notes, just run your eyes over them: use the details to check that you’ve understood the main ideas correctly. Often a reading passage will have a heading, but that doesn’t mean that’s the complete main idea. This heading might be there to get you thinking about the topic.
Importantly, the details will tell you what aspect of the topic is being discussed. This is especially important in speaking tasks three and four: if you understand the main ideas properly, this helps you predict what the listening is going to be about.