Posts Tagged: toefl

Long time

On September 6, 2006 by Anant With 4 Comments - Life, Rants, Yours Truly

Yes, it’s been quite long since I’ve posted. Work, a project I have recently taken up and my MBA applications have all contributed to my hardly having any spare time or for that matter, even a social life..

We have a release this month so it should be slightly easier after that.

MBA applications are killer. There is so much to do and with so little time, they are suffering the most. I have to write, on an average ~4.5 essays per University application. But one of the best things about these essays are that they force me to think about myself, my past and what I have done and what I seek to do in the future. They have required quite a bit on introspection (which I have done, sometimes into the wee hours of the night) :)

I have recently sent out questionnaires to people I work with so that I can get feedback about myself and how I am viewed by them.. This should be interesting ;)
Sleep is a precious commodity which I am losing out on big time. I feel I am perpetually in the land of tiredness :(

In other news, I received my Toefl Score which I must say I’m quite surprised with. I got a 114 out of a possible 120 which is on the higher side of my expectations. And I’m not complaining :D

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Toefl – End result

On August 6, 2006 by Anant With 2 Comments - Studies, Yours Truly

Toefl went well. It is much more easy than I expected. But it’s not like I aced it and will max it.

Reading section was pretty easy although I was a bit nervous at first because I had heard or rather read on the Toefl forums that sometimes instead of the regular 3, 5 essays are given in this section for the same amount of time. Well I got only 3 so I was relieved when the section started.

Listening was a breeze although I might have gotten a couple of inference questions incorrect.

Speaking! This is the section I did the worst on. In one of the questions, I got a bit flustered and so forgot what I wanted to say. In another, I could not finish what I had to say in the allotted time so it was kinda incomplete.

Essay writing was pretty easy. The summarizing section was easy enough. The opinion essay was a cracker. The topic was such a trivial one that I initially did not know what to write. However I managed to wrangle something out and write a decent enough essay (Due to the NDA, I cannot disclose what the topic was)

Ps. Received my GMAT essay score. Scored a 5 on 6. Much better than I expected

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Toefl

On August 3, 2006 by Anant With 5 Comments - Life, Rants, Studies, Yours Truly

I have my toefl tomorrow. Finally ;)

Unfortunately, it starts at 4 pm and with it being a 4 hour test, I might have to be in the test center till 8 pm :(
Whew.. That is a looong time and it will be late!

Anyway, I’m not quite as nervous as I was for GMAT since Toefl seems relatively easier. Buuuut, being as prepared I was for GMAT and yet I screwed it up, I hope I don’t do the same for Toefl :(

OT: Went out of my house for the first time in 6 days. Had to get my bike fixed before the test and did not want to take a chance tomorrow. Realized what an awesome weather the city is experiencing and was pissed of at having to miss all that due to these bleeding exams :(

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Gmat

On July 30, 2006 by Anant With 0 Comments - Life, Rants, Studies, Yours Truly

Ok.. I’m done with GMAT. Atleast for the first time. The reason why I have not posted about it yet is because I’m disappointed with both myself and the measly score I could achieve :(

Anyway, I got a 700 but I’m not happy at all with it. Some of the nicer people in my life ( :) ) tried to cheer me up by saying it’s a good score but it’s not, atleast not for me!

I will have to see what to do next after my Toefl (on the 4th of Aug) firstly hoping I don’t screw that up. I will definitely consult someone with more experience, most likely a career/US education counselor to try and put my score in better perspective and what chances I have!

Sigh.. C’est la vie :(

Update: Got my essay score report. Scored a 5 on 6. More than I expected :)
Will have to see if it balances the lower main score.

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Last call

On July 25, 2006 by Anant With 2 Comments - Life, Yours Truly

So I’ll be flying out to Hyderabad tomorrow morning. Reason: My gmat center is in Hyd. I could not get a Bangalore slot :(

The test itself is day after tomorrow at 1 pm. So I have sufficient time to scope out the test center and maybe get in a bit of last min revision/cram etc. (Not that there is anything to cram in the GMAT ;) )

Regardless I’m mostly prepared for the test except for a couple of topics. Mainly Probability in Quants and Sentence correction and Reading comprehension in verbal. I am hoping I’ll be able to manage the essays though they still feel messy.

Piece of advice to all those planning to write GMAT, work hard on SC and RC in verbal. And concetrate more on verbal, it is much more important that quants and more tricky too.

A more detailed post will follow after my Gmat and Toefl to explain my studying and mistakes I made while doing so ;) As well as a comprehensive list of resources, links etc for reference to others :)

Wish me luck!

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Quickie Update

On July 6, 2006 by Anant With 0 Comments - Rants, Yours Truly

I’ve been extremely busy over the past few weeks. Work, GMAT preparations and other projects. Even study time is quite less and I plan to take a break from work to concentrate on it. And I’m finding it extremely difficult to find time to blog even though I do have a couple of ideas.
One of them is a series of posts about preparing for GMAT and what mistakes I made. Well I guess it’ll have to wait until my GMAT and TOEFL are over. For now, another period of silence ensues :(

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Toefl – Cbt vs iBT

On June 18, 2006 by Anant With 8 Comments - Uncategorized

Since my Toefl is coming up and when I booked it, I could not get a slot for the CBT but only for the iBT. Hence I set about finding out the differences between the two versions of the test.

The main reason why I could not locate a CBT slot was because it has been discontinued since the introduction of the iBT which will happen from the coming July. Now on to the main differences.

The single biggest difference is the introduction of the new Speaking section which will test a candidates English speaking ability and hence moot the requirement for taking the TSE. This section consists of 3 parts in which,

  • The candidate has to speak based on a topic which he is familiar with.
  • Read a short passage and listen a talk related to the passage. Based on them, the candidate must answer questions.
  • Listen to a short lecture/conversation and summarize the key points of the audio.

Besides this, the TOEFL now consists of two essays instead of the earlier one. The scoring is also now on a scale of 0 to 120. I’m not sure of the earlier, but I believe it was a maximum of 300.

For score comparisons, ETS has released a score comparison table (Warning: PDF link)

Due to the addition of the essay and the speaking section, the TOEFL iBT is now four hours longs :O
That is one hell of a long test :(

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The Jump

On June 14, 2006 by Anant With 3 Comments - Rants, Yours Truly

I have finally decided to book slots for GMAT and TOEFL. Actually started reading up on the tests and going through the site in my lunch break and looked for available slots in late July or early August. But that caused a mild panic to set it because no slots were available for GMAT in Bangalore for those periods except 24th July which I did not want to take. So decided to check again when I got home.

Now once I got home, I found out that I must first register on the site and registrations take upto two days to get approved. So I cannot book a GMAT slot until friday I guess :( :((

Then I went about reading up on TOEFL and it’s new scheme and decided to book a slot in it, or if like GMAT, atleast register on the site. Thankfully, there I could immediately book a slot. But, if afternoon was mild panic, the evening was “major panic”.

Why? Because I could not locate a single available slot in the months of Late June, July, August and even September, in 10-11 centers spread in 8 cities. This was for the TOEFL CBT. I then surfed back to the slot booking options and selected the TOEFL iBT. (Yeah this is conducted on a computer too, don’t ask me, I didn’t keep the name ;) ) And to my amazement and thankings, a slot was available for the 4th of August which I booked without hesitation.

Now I only need to start studying for the TOEFL ;) :D
Wish me luck :P

Update:

My account has been approved and I’ve now booked a GMAT slot for the 27th of July, but the center is in Hyderabad :(

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