Why Do You Fail In TOEFL?

TOEFL test is one way to certify your English knowledge for academic or personal purposes. TOEFL test has been available for students since 1964 and takes place almost 50 times a year. This means that it has been on the market for quite a long time. What is interesting is the fact that the number of people who take the TOEFL test annually. Take a step back and try to guess the number of TOEFL test-takers annually. Now, you can check with the official number. 2.3 Million. Every single year the amount of people who take this test is 2.3 Million. Unfortunately, we don’t have the data on how many of those 2.3 million people take the test again in order to improve their score but I can easily say that more than half of these people consider taking the test again. So the question arises. Why do people consider taking TOEFL for the second time? We can even state this question in a better way in order to find the root cause of why people fail on this test. Why do people fail in TOEFL?

I will answer this question by giving you a more structural response. Let us divide the question into small chunks first and analyze the whole question by digging into each of the sections in TOEFL.

Why do people fail in TOEFL Reading

TOEFL Reading is the first section that you have to deal with when you sit for the TOEFL test. It might be a little frustrating to get the score you want if you fail in the following points.

Strategy

You need to know the necessary strategies to solve each question type. You might be quite good at reading. Maybe you have already 1000 read books under your belt. However, this does not guarantee that it will translate into success in TOEFL. I have had many students who were quite good in English but they could not get the score they needed and the problem was that they were refusing to apply the strategies for the question types in TOEFL Reading. The key takeaway point here is then mastering question types and their strategies.

Vocabulary

If you do not have an ample amount of vocabulary you will struggle to understand and apply the necessary strategies to get the point you need in TOEFL. There are a lot of applications like Memrise or Duolingo which you can use to enlarge your vocabulary. People generally underestimate this point and then in the long run since they do not understand what they read they fall for the wrong response.

Why do people fail in TOEFL Listening

TOEFL Listening is the second section that you have to go through in the test after the reading section. Be careful with the following points.

Concentration

Most of the people somehow can not concentrate throughout the listening section in TOEFL. They get distracted and could not keep up with the pace. You need to solve this issue. If you have problems with the concentration you can always improve it.

Note-taking

This is one of the most frequently asked questions from my students that I have tutored. Should I take notes? Is it ok not to take notes? My answer is always the same. Please do take notes. It will be really challenging to answer the questions from the listening without taking notes so you need to pay attention to that.

Why do people fail in TOEFL Speaking

This is the section where most of you fail to get 26 out of 30. Well, I can understand. Let me analyze, though, why.

Intonation

Intonation is one of those factors that are overlooked by the students most of the time. In order not to fail you need to clearly and distinctly deliver your speech. Try to place some emotions into your speech. Even if you are not in the mood you can fake it a little bit.

Structure

When the proper structure is missing then it will be tough for you to get a good score. You should not be jumping from one example to another without giving proper details. Divide your speech into introduction, development, and the conclusion. In this way, you can clearly put your point across to the listener.

Timing

Timing surely plays a crucial role in achieving a decent score in TOEFL Speaking. Most people exceed the time they have for their speech. The reason why some students of mine failed to get good timing was that they had some issues with their structure. A lengthy introduction is not necessary. You should be avoiding having long introductions in your speech. Keep it short, simple, and clear in order to give the best impression to the listener.

Why do people fail in TOEFL Writing

If you have got this far in the TOEFL test it means that you are almost done with the torture. However, people still fail because of the following points.

Structure

Like in the speaking section in TOEFL, the structure is the key to success in the writing part. You need to have clearly stated introduction, development, and conclusion for the independent part.
For the integrated part you can check out some of the templates that are readily available online.

Vocabulary

Most of the students failed in this section because of using the same sentence structure with the same type of vocabulary. You need to diversify the types of sentence structure you use. Try using sentence connectors and apply them throughout your essay. Use different types of vocabulary.

Conclusion

TOEFL is a type of exam that people fail regardless of their background in English based on their goals for this test. One thing, however, is certain that you need to have a good level in English. It means that you have decent comprehension and speaking skills. Grammar rules are also not unknown to you. If you think you are no problem with that but still fail then it is a matter of the points that are mentioned above. Work on your weaknesses and pass TOEFL next time with ease.

If you would like to get tutoring from me, you can visit the following link: https://drlanguage.org/toefl-tutoring/

For more information, please check out ets website: https://www.ets.org/toefl/test-takers/ibt/take/centers-dates/