TOEIC-Exam Tips-2011

TOEIC- Introduction






TOEIC is an acronym that stands for Test Of English for International Communication. It is the most widely used English language exam taken by more than 4 million business professionals worldwide. The TOEIC test measures your ability to use English in daily business situations covering such topics as corporate development, finance and budgeting, corporate property, IT, manufacturing, purchasing, offices, personnel, technical matters, health and business travel. A growing number of international companies recognize the TOEIC as an objective indicator of a person's proficiency in business English. It is important to understand that the TOEIC does not measure what have you learned in one particular English class but evaluates your general command of the English language in a business setting. This means, you have to use and explore as many materials, resources and methods as possible in order to improve your English. You should create an environment in which you are exposed to the English language on a daily basis. For example, you can listen to the Voice of America, watch television on CNN, SkyNews or BBC, read newspaper articles in English and write emails. In addition, the Internet provides you with a wide variety of learning tools such as electronic newsletters, discussion groups and forums. On english-test.net you will find a large number of interactive tests that help you learn the core vocabulary of the TOEIC test. There is a total of 684 tests with 10 questions each. If you take all of our tests you will have learned 3420 words that frequently occur in the TOEIC.











TOEIC
Test of English for International Communication
TOEIC is a standardized test that measures your listening and reading skills, and or your speaking and writing skills. This exam evaluates your ability to function in international business and real-world settings rather than in an academic setting. Some students take the TOEIC because they want to improve their English. Other students take the TOEIC because they need it for an intensive English course or they want to apply for a job that requires a TOEIC score. Every institution expects a different standard of proficiency from its employees or students.
Here are some of the topics on the TOEIC:
Typical TOEIC Topics
Banking
Entertainment
Health
Housing
Industry Jobs
Offices
Restaurants
Transportation
Travel

Here is the format of the TOEIC:
TOEIC Format
Listening and Reading Test
Listening
100 questions, 45 minutes
Part I: Photographs (10 questions)
Part II: Question-Response (30 questions)
Part III: Short Conversations (30 questions)
Part IV: Short Talks (30 questions)

Reading
100 questions, 75 minutes
Part V: Incomplete Sentences (40 questions)
Part VI: Text completion (12 questions)
Part VII: Reading Comprehension-Single Passages (28 questions) Double Passages (20 questions)
Speaking and Writing Test
Speaking:
About 20 Minutes, 11 Questions
Various tasks including describing a photo, expressing an opinion, and providing a response or solution
Writing:
About one hour, 8 questions
7 written responses and 1 opinion essay
The TOEIC is developed in the United States, but is used throughout the world. The test developers use American language and spelling. The voices in the listening section are American, European countries or Australian accents.

I. Overview of the New TOEIC® Test

Over ten years of research on the English language and how people actually communicate confirmed the need for a new proficiency test that better reflects English language tasks likely to be encountered in business contexts. Therefore, the TOEIC® Test has been redesigned to include authentic reading and listening tasks in addition to new Speaking and Writing sections.
The improved TOEIC® Test assesses proficiency by aligning questions with everyday language scenarios that happen in today’s workplace. Tasks are now more authentic. Not all tasks have been changed, but some tasks give test-takers the opportunity to respond with language that is appropriate to the situation; in other words, how would someone at work respond in this particular situation? The difficulty range is the same. Many of the question types are the also the same.
Changes to the Listening section:
A decrease in the number of photograph questions in Part I.
The use of recorded as well as written questions in Part 3 (short conversations) and Part 4 (short talks).
A shift from individual questions to sets of questions in Part 3 (short conversations).
The use of different English accents, such as those spoken in the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, and Australia, are used in the recordings.

Changes to the Reading section:
The elimination of Part 6 (error recognition questions) of the current test.
The inclusion of passage-based sentence completion questions (Part 6) to sentence completion items (Part 5).
The inclusion of some reading sets of questions based on two inter-related passages (Part 7).
The new Speaking test will measure a test taker’s ability to speak English in business contexts. Test-taker responses will be rated by online scorers who will evaluate the test taker's ability in language areas such as pronunciation, intonation, grammar, vocabulary, relevance, and completeness of response. The test will take 20 minutes to complete. Eleven questions will be used to measure different aspects of speaking ability.
The new Writing test will measure a test takers’ ability to use written English. The responses will be evaluated by raters who will consider overall organization, appropriate and precise use of grammar, and vocabulary. The test has eight questions and will take 60 minutes to complete.
The scoring system for the revised TOEIC® Test will remain almost the same: 5 to 495 for each section of the test and 10 to 990 for the total test score. However, a new scoring scale for the Speaking and Writing sections will be introduced. Additional improvements to the TOEIC® Test include enhanced score reports that will provide performance feedback within a test section and identify strengths and weaknesses in specific skill areas.