Learning and Teaching: 2014

Minggu, 23 November 2014

Writing practice (Day 1)

Typing on net book screen

Writing 1

Independent writing

30 minutes

227 words

Topic: Do you agree with the following statement? Advertisement can tell you a lot about a country. Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.

I disagree with a statement that we can get a lot of information about a country through advertisement because it is not the only way we can do for that. The followings are some reasons I provide.

Firstly, advertisement just gives us general information about a certain country not the details. In order to get people interested in visiting a country, advertisement plays a very important role. The information given by the advertisement has a strong effect to make people curious about what the country looks like. Therefore, it the information in the advertisement does not need to be detailed.

Secondly, we can get a lot of detailed information from other people. We will find a lot of things about a country from the people who live in it through chats and asking some questions about it. We do not need to visit the country to meet the people. We can just ask our friends who come from the country or experience visiting the country before.

Thirdly, the information of a country can also be gained by accessing the official website of a country. To get a lot of details, internet is really helpful. We can actually visit the country official website or some other sites which provide information related to it. In addition, they have some menus we can click and access to get what we need.

Bloody weekends ahead: TOEFL iBT preparation

One step closer to TOEFL iBT test

(Day 1)

In order to get an opportunity to study overseas or to get a promising job, we need to meet the qualifications needed by the institution or company we would like to apply. Some developed institutions or companies usually require the candidates to have good standard language competence before considering the other components of qualifications that they have.

Language competence is measured by the score of TOEFL, IELTS, GRE, or GMAT that the candidates have. It means that the candidates have to make sure they take one of the English tests, depending on which test the institution or company needs before applying. And certainly, each institution or company has different standard score of language test for all candidates.

I believe that there are always many overseas studies including scholarships and job opportunities offered every year. It is obviously a great idea to get myself prepared to the qualifications that the institutions or companies commonly set in advance by the end of the year. Hence, taking TOEFL iBT test is the first thing I need to consider before thinking of the other qualifications. To get the score which is above the average is a challenge. And it is going to be my first experience, for I never took this sort of test before. I firstly assumed that the test would be like the other similar one that I have taken before, TOEFL PBT (Paper Based TOEFL). But in fact, it is totally different after I searched information about it through friends and internet. The basic thing that makes them different is the TOEFL iBT requires computer and internet for the test, but the TOEFL PBT does not. There are no speaking and writing sections in TOEFL PBT. And in TOEFL iBT, structure or grammar section is not included.

Since I am not quite familiar with this sort of test, the best thing I need to do is just getting myself well prepared. Taking a TOEFL iBT placement test as a simulation in advance will be very helpful. Besides, buying some books, downloading materials and videos about the tips and strategies from reliable websites and doing some exercises and practices are going to be the only actions to take during the preparation time before taking the real test. I plan to take the test next year by January 2015. Therefore, I actually have three months of preparation. By a consultation with some experienced people and the institution which provide TOEFL test and its preparation, I decided to take a simulation test within this month. And the date is November 22, 2014. And it’s time to work hard. Wish me luck, guys!