Hey, here’s something really amazing.
ETS has created a new subsidiary called EdAgree. EdAgree is described as
…an advocate for international students providing a path to help students identify universities that will push them towards longer term success. We help you put your best foot forward during the admissions process and support you throughout your study abroad and beyond.
As part of this mission, they provide free English speaking practice using the same SpeechRater technology that is used to grade the TOEFL!
To access this opportunity, register for a free account on EdAgree. After that, look for the “English Speaking Practice” button in the student dashboard. The screenshot is from the desktop version, but it also works on mobile.
This section provides a complete set of four TOEFL speaking questions. After you answer them, you’ll get a SpeechRater score in several different categories (pause frequency, distribution of pauses, repetitions, rhythm, response length, speaking rate, sustained speech, vocabulary depth, vocabulary diversity, vowels). These categories are used on the real TOEFL to determine your score! You can also listen to recordings of your answers. Note that your responses are scored collectively, rather than individually. That means, for example, that you get a “pause frequency” score for how you answered all four questions, and not a separate “pause frequency” score for each individual answer.
Update: The list of above categories has been revised a few times, as EdAgree has tweaked the tool.
Note that you will get fresh questions every five days. I do not know how many unique sets there are in total. Keep visiting and let me know. However, you can repeat the same questions as many times as you wish.
I took a set a few days ago, and the questions were pretty good. They weren’t 100% the same as the real TOEFL, but they were better than what is found in most textbooks.
It should also be noted that you could probably just use your own questions instead of the ones provided. Do you get what I mean? You are being scored based on technical features, which means that the scores will still be relevant no matter what question you answer.
Let me know if you guys enjoy the tool. Meanwhile, here is my first set of results. I still have room for improvement, as you can see!
Note: This screenshot does not include all of the categories mentioned above, as they were not available when the service started.
