Alright, I’ll continue my examination of the new edition of the Official Guide to the TOEFL by looking at all of the changes in chapter two.
Page 38 (important): The chart depicting question types now reflects the fact that there are fewer questions in total.
The specific changes are (old –> new)
Factual Information questions: 3-5 per set –> 2-5 per set
Vocabulary questions: 3-4 per set –> 1-2 per set
The other question types are unchanged. This confirms our earlier speculation that vocabulary questions have been heavily reduced.
Page 55 (important): As discussed earlier, the “table” questions can be worth 2 or 3 points. Tables with four correct answers are worth two points, and those with five correct answers are worth three points. Partial points are possible for both.
Question deletions in the practice sets are as follows:
Set 1: Factual information, Inference, Vocabulary
Set 2: Vocabulary, Negative factual, Inference
Set 3: Vocabulary, Factual information, Vocabulary
Set 4: Factual information, Vocabulary, Vocabulary
Set 5: Vocabulary, Vocabulary, Reference
Set 6: Reference, Vocabulary, Vocabulary
Indeed, vocabulary questions are far less common than before. Note that only three questions were deleted from each set as these sets did not have enough questions in the previous version of the book.
My copy of the sixth edition of “The Official Guide to the TOEFL” has finally arrived! Starting today, I will describe all of the changes in this edition. I’ll begin, of course, with chapter one, “About the TOEFL iBT Test.” After I have finished with all of the chapters, I will provide a general review of the book.
Page 1-2: The description of the test in this edition makes it sound a lot more prestigious than before.
Page 5 (important): The book now mentions that “for the speaking and writing responses, ETS uses both certified human raters and artificial intelligence (AI) scoring to provide a complete and accurate picture of a test taker’s ability.”
Page 5 (important): The book now mentions that “after finishing the test, test takers will be able to view their unofficial scaled scores for the Reading and Listening sections.”
Page 5: The “test format” chart now reflects the current number of questions in each section. The charts for each section later in this chapter do as well, and I won’t mention them below. But see the END of the article for a possible discrepancy.
Page 5 (important): The book now mentions that “you may hear some native English-speaker accents that are not from North America, such as British or Australian.” It includes as link to some samples, but I couldn’t find them.
About the Reading Section
Page 7: As indicated, the chart here reflects the current number of questions. Which is “10 questions per passage.” This probably misleading/incorrect information. See my final note in this article for more information about this.
Page 9 (important): In the reading section “category chart” questions have been renamed “category table” questions. The book indicates that “some table questions are worth up to 2 points and others are worth up to 3 points, depending on the number of correct answers expected.” In the past, these questions were always worth 3 points.
Page 10: A new question is used to illustrate the reading “table” question. The sample is worth 3 points.
About the Listening Section
Page 12 (important): The lectures are described as being “4-5 minutes long.” Previously, they were described as being “3-5 minutes long.”
About the Speaking Section
Page 17: The book now refers to the updated number of questions in this section (4) and the duration of the section (about 17 minutes). It also refers to the fact that the section is partially scored by “the automated scoring system.”
About the Writing Section
No changes.
About Test Scores
Page 21: The book indicates that each speaking response will be scored by a different rater. Previously, the same rater might have scored two of your responses.
Page 22-23: The book now mentons MyBest scores, and that score reports are received after 6 days (instead of 10). It makes clear that “Official Score reports will be sent directly to your designated recipients within eleven days after you take the test.” It is nice to have that in writing now.
Page 24-25: The new (and less detailed) score report is depicted.
General Skill-Building Tips
Page 33: The previous edition says “do not panic.” The new book says “do not become overwhelmed.” I LOLed.
Test Delivery
Page 36 (important): Page 7 says that the reading section has 3-4 passages, with 10 questions per passage. Page 36 says that the reading section has 27-40 questions. Those descriptions do not match. However, this reflects my earlier comments on this blog about how sometimes there are just nine questions in a reading passage. This happens when the “table” question is worth 3 points. Indeed, this is the case in several of the practice reading sets later in the book!
The TOEFL Special Home Edition has been extended to October 31. While students have reported a lot of technical problems, facing those is certainly better that dealing with Coronavirus. Take advantage of it while you can!
The ETS offices will be closed on September 7 for labor day. If you are planning to call about delayed scores or to get help with the Home Edition of the TOEFL, you had better do that before then!
These annual reports provide valuable data about test taker performance. While this year’s figures are similar to last year’s figures, the following data points were mildly interesting to me:
The overall mean (average) score is still 83. But that figure is rounded, and it looks like there was still a significant fractional increase this year.
The mean reading score is now 21.2 (+.4)
The mean listening score is now 20.9 (+.3)
The mean speaking score is now 20.6 (+.1)
The mean writing score is now 20.5 (-.2)
It is interesting that the writing score has decreased. That may represent an ongoing trend. Here are writing scores since 2010:
2019: 20.5
2018: 20.7
2017: 20.8
2016: 20.9
2015: 20.6
2014: 20.3
2013: 20.6
2012: No data
2011: No data
2010: 20.7
Some students do claim that the writing section has been getting more difficult in recent years. They may be correct about that, but it looks like the test was really challenging back in 2014. And it is exactly where it was a decade ago.
Interestingly, the other sections are all up since 2010. Some by a lot:
Reading: 20.1 –> 21.2
Listening: 19.5 –> 20.9
Speaking: 20.0 –> 20.6
It is also worth noting that the use of automated speaking scoring does not appear to have affected average speaking scores, but that technology was only used during the last five months of 2019.
As always, it seems like a lot of the overall increase in scores is coming from the test-prep powerhouses of East Asia. Scores in China are +1 (to 81), scores in Japan are +1 (to 72) and scores in Taiwan are +1 (to 83). However, scores in Korea are -1 (to 83).
Scores in the key markets of Brazil (87) and India (95) are unchanged.
I would love to see which countries have the most test-takers, but I suspect that information is confidential.
The highest scoring country is now Austria, where the average score is 100.
Women still outperform men in listening, speaking and writing.
