year: 2013
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the toefl listening section
the listening section of the toefl is similar to the reading section in format and question type. the major difference is that while the reading section dealt only with expository texts on academic topics, the listening section will include a mixture of lectures and conversations. general content questions general content questions ask you to…
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lucas takes the toefl
any good test preparation teacher should know the test they help students prepare for, and that means actually taking the test occasionally. so on november 22nd, i did just that. i took the toefl in order to share my experience and thoughts with students. yes, i’m a native speaker, and no, i didn’t need to…
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cambridge preparation for the toefl test book review
(note: the toefl books that magoosh reviews and recommends reflect the older, pre-august 2019 version of the test. as of this writing, there are no toefl prep books that reflect the newest version of the test. fortunately, older-format books are still very useful in prepping for the current toefl. for details on this, see magoosh’s…
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toefl vocabulary- phrasal verbs with keep
we haven’t done vocabulary in a while. today, we’ll talk about the topic that everybody loves to hate: phrasal verbs. to be specific, we’ll be dealing with phrasal verbs involving the word “keep.” the trick with phrasal verbs is knowing the context in which they can be used, since many of them are only appropriate…
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toefl vocabulary: ped paed
pedometer. pediatrician. pedal. pedagogy. pedestrian. what do all these words have in common? unfortunately, the obvious answer isn’t quite correct. although all these words contain “ped-,” they actually come from two different roots that, by an unhappy accident, are identical in most circumstances. the latin “ped-” means “foot;” the greek “ped-” means “child.” depending on…
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toefl grammar: using conjunctions
lately, i’ve been dealing with what makes a sentence and what doesn’t. as we’ve dealt with run-on sentences (how not to write a sentence – run-on sentences) and sentence fragments (how not to make a sentence – sentence fragments), we’ve talked a lot about conjunctions and how to use them properly. since it’s a slippery…
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toefl grammar mistake: sentence fragments
recently, i wrote about how to avoid run-on sentences, or sentences that contain several incorrectly-joined parts. if you have the opposite problem, you’re dealing with sentence fragments. a sentence fragment is missing one of the necessary parts (how to make a sentence) of a sentence. these are all fragments (i put the asterisk * next…
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toefl grammar mistake: run-on sentences
theoretically, you can create a sentence that goes on forever. you got a little taste of this in my post about how to write a sentence. you can spend a lot of time adding more adverbs, adjectives, and prepositions, and if you run out of those (you won’t), you can string infinite sentences together with…
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how to make a sentence
i’ve started getting some submissions to the writing activity (woohoo! keep them coming!), and i’ve noticed that some people are having problems with run-on sentences and sentence fragments. if you did the activity a few weeks ago about finding your problem areas in grammar, you’ve already at least touched on this topic. first of all,…
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fun toefl reading practice
the last few weeks have been pretty intense since i’ve been focusing on grammar and composition. to switch things up, try this toefl reading exercise based on a less-serious-than-normal article from a series called “what if.” in each installment of this series, the author tries to answer a silly, complicated, or interesting question scientifically. please…