The 24 hours before your TOEIC exam

Students who often take the TOEIC exam, especially students of Intermediate level or lower, are often confused by the fact that their scores go up and down each time they take it and try to find help from books or their teachers to stop this happening. Although this can sometimes be the result of being confused by new language that you haven't had a chance to learn well yet, or your speed of comprehension being slowed down because you can understand more and so read more thoroughly and therefore slowly, for most people it is simply a result of being tired, unhappy or unhealthy some of the time when you take the test. Here are the sixteen???? things that are most likely to help you improve your TOEIC score that you can do in the 24 hours before the exam- you will notice that none of them are about studying English!

1. Don't cram. As there is only one TOEIC exam for all levels of English learner up to very Advanced, all standard American English (both General English and Business English) could be in the exam. That means tens of thousands of words or expressions. Therefore, the chances that the language you study in the 24 hours before the exam are in the test on that day are very low or even zero. Doing language study that close to the exam could even have negative results due to making you tired or making you look out only for the language you have just studied. It is therefore best to finish all your studying at least 2 days before the exam.
2. Stop all other studying. As well as tiring yourself out and confusing your brain with unnecessary English study, reading or studying anything else too heavy and intellectually stimulating can have the same effect. This includes movies and novels with stories that are difficult to understand. The night before the exam, try to watch some comedy or music videos, and leave all studying and other serious stuff until the day after the exam.
3. Avoid other languages. If you speak other foreign languages apart from English, if at all possible avoid speaking, reading and listening to those languages in the days before the exam. This is so that your brain doesn't take any time to switch to "English mode" on the day of the exam.
4. Make sure you sleep well, but not too much. To be on top form on the day of the TOEIC exam, you need to be well rested but not still sleepy from oversleeping. Even if your test is in the afternoon, set your alarm clock to make sure you wake up after 7 to 8 hours of sleep.  
5. Eat and drink well, but not too much. Even though you are sitting still, you will burn a lot of calories in the exam due to your brain being active and being stressed. You will need lots of complex carbohydrates from things like bread, bananas etc. to keep up your energy levels until the end of the exam, but make sure you don't eat too much and make yourself sleepy for the first part.
6. Eat and drink healthily, but not too healthily. Avoid sugar, as this will give you lots of energy at the beginning of the exam but leave you tired by the end. Vitamins and other healthy foods can be important to combat stress, but if you are on a diet for slimming reasons you will need to give it up for one day as you won't have enough energy.
7. Get a little exercise. Especially if you are the kind of person who cannot easily sit still for 3 hours, some light exercise and/ or stretching the night or morning before the exam will stimulate your brain, help you avoid fatigue, reduce stress, and give you a break from thinking about the exam. Be sure not to tire yourself out though- a good guide is probably to only do 50 to 75% of your usual workout.
8. Be careful what you drink. Some people find that a single glass of wine or small glass of beer helps them relax on the night before the exam and so get to sleep, but for most people even if it helps you fall asleep it can still make your sleep less deeply and so mean that you wake up more tired than if you hadn't drunk anything. Any more than one glass can also have a negative effect on short term memory (very important for the exam) and also make you need to go to the toilet more often. Avoid too much coffee or tea, as like sugar it will leave you tired when the effect wears off later in the exam. Also, don't drink too much water before you go in, because you won't have time to go to the toilet once the exam has started.
9. Arrive early, but with a plan B. The last thing you need on the day of the exam is more stress from difficulty in finding the place where the exam is being held or worries about being late. At the same time, though, extra time standing around outside the exam venue waiting for the exam to start can make you more stressed and tired. One way of avoiding all of these is to go to the exam venue the day before so that you are sure how to get there. Another is to find out from the internet where the nearest local café is, find the exam venue and go back to the local café for a rest before you go back 20 minutes or so before the time you have been told to arrive for the exam.
10. Reduce all other stress. Especially in the Listening part of the TOEIC test, if your mind wanders off to think about something else for even one second, that could be enough to make you miss the information that can help you answer the question. In the last few days before the exam, sort out all the things that might cause you extra stress and make your mind wander if you have forgotten them, e.g. paying utility bills, replying to all your emails, picking up dry cleaning, and taking out the rubbish.
11. Write a checklist. Another possible source of stress is suddenly remembering you have forgotten something you have to do on the day of the exam. Write a list of all the things you will need on the day. Ticking each thing off as you do it can be a great way of taking away your stress. Things you might need to include are: map to the exam centre, photo ID with your signature on it (e.g., passport), pencils and erasers, turning off your mobile, and a bottled drink for before and after the exam. This could also include things you need to do before you leave the house, like switching off the heating and feeding the cat.
12. Do something relaxing in English on the way there. For example, listening to English music on the way to the exam can help you put your mind into "English mode", without tiring your out at all.
13. Do the same routine the day before. To make sure your body and mind are not expecting sleep or food when you want them to be concentrating on the exam, try to wake up and eat at the same times as you will be able to on the day of the exam at least one day before.
14. Lock your English books away. To stop you doing any unnecessary or counterproductive study, and to stop you even thinking about it, put all your TOEIC textbooks, exam practice materials and notebooks away in a drawer and don't even touch them in the 24 hours before the exam.
15. Do something half your usual level. Reading something in English can be a useful way of getting your brain ready to understand English from the first minute of the exam, but only for someone who reads a newspaper in English everyday. Even somebody who is used to doing something in English everyday should try to make it easier in the 24 hours before the exam in order to make sure they don't get tired, e.g. reading an easier to understand newspaper than usual, only reading the headlines, or reading a newspaper from yesterday you already know all the news from.
16. Have a warm up chat. Again, you will need to make sure it isn't something that will tire you out, but if you can meet with one of your friends outside or near the exam centre and have 5 minutes of chat in English, that will mean you are ready for the exam right from the first question (Listening Part One).

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21 ways to get more out of your TOEIC class

Here are 21 ideas on how you can make sure that you really learn a lot in your TOEIC class.

Here are 21 ideas on how you can make sure that you really learn a lot in your TOEIC class.

1. Do it again carefully. Go through the paper one more time at home and make sure you know why each question you answered wrong is incorrect and why every one you just guessed and was okay is actually right. Then go through all the multiple choice answers that you didn't look carefully at and check you understand why all the other option are wrong. If you have any questions about why some of the questions are wrong, it should be okay to ask your teacher during class time, as other students will probably have the same question- or you can wait until after class or ask while all the students are working on something else.
2. Go through the other options. Even for the questions you got right, looking at the other (incorrect) options at home can help you learn what tricks the examiners use and show you some useful vocabulary that you just skimmed past the first time you read or listened.
3. Widen your vocabulary. If you learn a new word in your TOEIC class, by looking up the other parts of speech of the same word (friend, friendly, unfriendly, friendship etc.) in your dictionary when you get home you can not only make sure you learn the original word but also make sure you quickly understand it every time you read or hear it in the TOEIC exam. Make sure you learn the number of syllables and which syllable is stressed (pronounced more strongly) so you can understand when it is being used in the listening paper. Learning different parts of speech can also be useful for error correction in the older version of the TOEIC test.
4. Divide your notebook into sections. Language is easier to remember if it is grouped together with other similar language. Dividing your notebook (or an extra notebook) into sections for vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, reading tips and tactics etc. and copying the new things you have learnt into those sections after class can really help you learn what you have been studying and make it easier to find something you have forgotten.
5. Know yourself. Analyse your own weaknesses, difficulties and priorities and make sure the teacher knows what they are- but please be aware that the needs of other students in the class may be different to yours. It might also be useful to write your priorities in the front of your notebook to remind yourself what to focus on, e.g. "I am good at..."/ "I am not so good at ..."/ "My number one priority is to work on..."
6. Be careful what you buy. Ask your teacher's opinion about any extra TOEIC materials before you buy them. It is probably best to take in a print out with some details from Amazon or a similar bookshop of the materials into class, so your teacher can read about the course before they tell you if they recommend it or not. If your teacher is happy to talk about it during class time, your classmates might also be happy to give their opinions or might want to ask your opinion once you have bought and used it.
7. Write the pronunciation down. Try to write down the phonemic script of any vocabulary that you learnt in class, then check in your dictionary that you have used the right symbols.
8. Learn the answers by heart. If you have done a difficult Listening Part One or Two question in class, it can help your exam preparation (and your ability to speak fluently too) if you learn the whole sentence of the correct answer. You can then test yourself by looking again at the picture from Part One or the question on the tapescript of Part Two and see if you can say exactly the same sentence as was used in the practice exam.
9. Make a good vocab list. The basic rule of learning vocabulary is that the more time you spend on it, the easier it is to learn and the quicker you will be able to understand it when you read or hear a word in the test. Copying the words from your lesson notes or textbook onto a separate vocabulary list or notebook is a good start. In order to be able to understand the vocabulary quickly in the test without translation, try to write the meaning, pronunciation and grammatical information about the word in English rather than your own language, e.g. by writing a gapped sentence with the word you are learning taken out and trying to remember what word it is before you check your answers in the other column or other page in your notebook. It is then vital that you go through the list at least 3 times over the next few days to make sure you remember the new vocabulary.
10. Read the tapescripts carefully at home and check that you know the meaning of and how to pronounce all the words and phrases in it. If your teacher doesn't usually give out tapescripts, ask them at the end of the class if you can have it next week.
11. Take another class. In order to learn quickly and get an all round good level of English, you will need to study at least twice a week. If you can make those classes a mix of a one to one (private) class and a group class, and maybe a mix of General English, Business English and TOEIC exam preparation, that would be perfect.
12. Plan your homework and revision. If you only have a class once a week, you will need to do some study in midweek to make sure you don't forget the language from the last lesson and are fully prepared for the next class. For example, if your class is on a Monday, do your homework on Thursday or Friday- and certainly not on Monday evening or Sunday evening!
13. Do electronic dictionary revision. If you have an electronic dictionary, you should be able to look at a list of the most recent words you have looked up, e.g. ones you asked about in class. Decide which of these words are most useful to learn and copy them down into your vocabulary list or notebook.
14. Speak. Some students are not happy about speaking in a TOEIC class because they don't need to speak during the test. While no more than 10 or 15 minutes of an hour TOEIC lesson should be speaking, there are lots of useful things you can do in that time. Practicing the pronunciation of new vocabulary and using it in conversations will make sure that you learn it properly and that you will understand it when you hear it in a listening text. Talking about tactics for taking the exam will help you decide your own best way of, for example, reading quickly. And a 5 minute speaking activity at the beginning of the class will wake you up and make your brain switch into English mode so that you will remember what you studied in class once the lesson has finished.
15. Write a study plan. To make the most of your classroom time, you will need to study between two and 10 times as much outside the class as you spend in class, i.e. one hour of class time means two to ten hours of self study. In order to make sure that you really do spend that much time and that the time is used well, it is best to write down your weekly study timetable and then tick off each part when you have finished it.
16. Bring one question to every class. For most people, their English teacher is the only person they can ask questions about the tactics and language for the exam, so any class where you just do exercises you could do at home and don't ask a question is probably wasted time. Keep a mental note that you should ask one question during the next lesson, and write down the most important question you have before you go into class. Try to decide if it is a question that everyone will be interested in hearing the answer to, in which case you should ask the teacher during class time. If not, please ask the teacher before or after class or when all the other students are busy doing something else. Even if there are some classes when your teacher doesn't have time to answer your question, you might find writing it down and thinking about it makes you find the answer yourself.
17. Read out loud. At home, try to read the tapescripts of a listening test out loud with natural speed and rhythm. You can also try recording your voice.
18. Re-do old homework or class work exercises. If possible, write the answers to all homework exercises on a separate piece of paper, or write them in pencil so you can erase the answers. You can then go back and do exactly the same homework exercise and see if your score has improved and if you remember the things you learnt at that time.
19. Prioritize your vocabulary learning. If you are an Intermediate level student or below, you will probably find that there are more than 100 words in each TOEIC practice test that you don't know. However, many of these words are not important to learn. Apart from listening to your teacher when they tell you which words you should learn, the easiest way of deciding which words are important is to look in a good English-English dictionary that marks the most important 1000 words/ 5000 words etc. in English with special symbols. If you have already learnt these words, the test will also give you some hints on which words are important to learn and which can wait until later. You should not learn a word if it starts with a capital letter or if it is in a part of the text that is not important to answer the test questions, e.g. at the beginning or end of an e-mail. Do learn the word if it is in the exam question or the same word is used two or more times in tests you do.
20. Write the tips and tactics down. If your teacher tells you a good tip on how to read a text quicker or guess an answer, when you get home write the tip down (in English if possible), so you can read it the day before the exam to remind yourself what to do.
21. Come to class ready to study. To make the most of the time and money you are putting into studying in a TOEIC class, make sure that you are mentally and physically ready to really learn in the class. Make sure you have the right equipment (sharpened pencil, eraser, notebook, and dictionary), that you feel healthy and awake, and that your concentration won't be affected by needing to eat, drink, go to the toilet or remember something you have to do outside class.

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100 Ways to Improve your TOEIC Listening

100 tips to help you with the TOEIC Listening Part One (Photographs)

As most people find TOEIC listening Part One an easy place to pick up points and it comes at the beginning of the exam and so can give you confidence for the rest of the test, it is well worth spending some time and effort thinking about how you can get the most out of it. Below are 100 ideas on how you can improve your score in the short and long term, most of which you can do on your own outside of class:

1. Concentrate on your pronunciation. More than sentences that you would not understand if you read them, most people have problems with sentences in the exam that they would understand if they could read them carefully but have trouble understanding quickly when listening to them from a native speaker speaking at natural speed. Working on your own pronunciation is the best way of making sure you recognize English words and sentences when you hear them in the TOEIC exam.
2. Buy an electronic dictionary that speaks. If you can get a dictionary that has different accents you can also use that to make sure you are familiar with American accents (most of the test) or British and Australian accents (some parts of the test that people who have only studied American English can find difficult).
3. Learn homonyms. Homonyms are words that have the same spelling and pronunciation but totally different meanings, and so have different entries in a dictionary. These are sometimes used in the exam to try and fool you into choosing the wrong answer in Listening Part One. You can find lists of homonyms on the internet, and learning the more common ones can also be a good way of learning similar words that you didn't know.
4. Learn homophones. Sometimes a question will try to fool you by using a word with the same pronunciation but a different meaning in that sentence to the thing you can see in the picture. By learning words that sound the same but have different spellings you can make sure you recognize each word in its context in the sentence. Learning words this way can also help you get the pronunciation exactly right.
5. Practice minimal pairs. A similar trick is to have a wrong sentence that has a word in it that has a similar but different pronunciation to something in the picture, e.g. "first" and "fast". Practising the pronunciation of these pairs of similar words will also help with your general listening comprehension and speaking.
6. Count the syllables. As learning the sounds of a language can take a long time and be difficult without a teacher and/ or special software, a good way to start improving your pronunciation and so listening comprehension is to count how many syllables (beats) there are in every word you learn. You can then check in your dictionary and try saying the word with that many beats. You can mark the number of syllables on each word by drawing a little circle above the vowel of each one.
7. Learn word stress. The next stage is to learn which of these syllables is pronounced longer and louder than the others. Again, you can try and guess this from reading or listening to the word and then check it in your dictionary. You can write this down by making the circle above the stressed syllable bigger than the others, or just underlining the stressed syllable. If you write words with the same number of syllables and the same stressed syllable down in a list, this can help you practice and learn them.
8. Learn the phonemic script. The final stage in learning the pronunciation of English words and therefore making sure you understand them when you hear them is writing the pronunciation of the whole word down. The only way of doing this accurately is to use the special "phonemic script" symbols (if you use the spelling of your own language to do it you will not be able to write down the difference between minimal pairs). As this can take some time to learn, you can start by just trying to write the one difficult sound of each word down and then check if you have used the correct symbol with your dictionary.
9. Practice short forms. As all the voices in the text are using natural speed and rhythm, you will very rarely hear full forms like "I am" or "I would have done", but rather short forms like "I'm" or "I would've done". Using these when you are speaking can improve your fluency and stop it seeming like you are overstressing what you are saying, but more importantly will make sure you can understand those forms when you hear a native speaker using them.
10. Learn connected speech/ how words connect together. Now you have learnt the short forms of grammatical verbs, in order to understand fast, natural speech you will need to look at how other words are changed when they are spoken next to other words. The easiest one to understand is how a consonant (b, c, d, f etc.) at the end of one word joins with a vowel (a, e, i, o etc.) at the beginning of another, e.g. the words "between us" when spoken at natural speed can sound like "betwee nus". You can practice this and see how it affects a TOEIC exam listening by marking the places on the tapescript where you think this happens with a loop between the words and then listen and read to check.
11. Learn and practice sentence stress. The next stage is to look at how the whole sentence sounds together. One of the easiest ways of doing that, which is also one of the best ways of practising it, is to mark on a sentence which words are pronounced the loudest and longest and to practice saying the sentences with that natural rhythm.
12. Learn weak forms of words. Now you know which words are pronounced loudly and clearly, try and listen to how the smaller grammar words between them are pronounced in fast natural speech. For example, when "at" is not stressed in a sentence (which is most of the time, as it is a grammar word that doesn't often give you much information), it sounds more like "ert". Weak forms like this are usually given in your dictionary, so make sure you look at all the pronunciation information when you learn a new word.
13. Record your own voice. Now you understand how and why sentences sound different to individual words in English and so are more difficult to understand, by practising producing sentences like a native speaker would say them you can make sure that you recognise the words you know when you hear them in the test. If you don't want to buy a digital voice recorder, you might find that you can use a mobile phone, MP3 player (e.g. iPod), cassette recorder or computer and microphone record yourself and listen back on. Obviously, the best sentences to practice with are real exam sentences.
14. Buy a pronunciation practice CD ROM. Some language learning CD ROMs come with headphones and a microphone and claim to be able to analyse your voice and tell you how well you are pronouncing in English. Although the scores such programmes give you are actually very unreliable, the process of saying the same word or expression over and over again to try and matching the wave pattern on the screen is good pronunciation practice.
15. Listen and read and repeat. As well as reading sentences from the tapescript with the rhythm and pronunciation you have written on it, you can try repeating the sentence and recording your voice just after hearing the exam version. If the thing you are playing the recording on and the thing you are recording your voice on are different (e.g. a CD player and digital voice recorder), you should be able to record the exam version and your voice one after the other and try and listen for differences when you play it back.
16. Shadow reading. A variation on the activity above that is really good for speaking and understanding at natural speed and with natural rhythm is actually trying to speak at the same time as the tape, saying each stressed syllable at exactly the same time as the voice on the tape. Before you start speaking, you will need to listen a few times and try and remember where the stressed syllables are or write them onto the tapescript.
17. Listen and repeat. A step up in difficulty is to listen over and over to one sentence and try to repeat the whole thing without looking at the tapescript. When your idea of what the whole sentence is isn't changing, you can check with the tapescript and then listen a few more times with your book closed.
18. Listen and write and repeat. This is similar to the activity above but possibly a little easier as you try to write the whole sentence down as you listen to it a few times, like a dictation. When you have checked your answers, you can then do some speaking practice with it.
19. Build up the correctly pronounced sentence from the end. Although it may seem strange, rather than starting at the beginning when you try to pronounce a sentence with natural sounds, rhythm and speed, it is actually easier if you start from the end. For example, for the sentence "The man is stepping onto the bus", it is easiest to pronounce it by saying "bus", and then "the bus", and then "onto the bus", until you have built up the whole sentence.
20. Make sentences about everything you are doing in English throughout your day. As most sentences in TOEIC Listening Part One are descriptions of things people are doing, by trying to make English sentences in your head describing what you are doing ("I am sitting on a bus", "I am opening up my laptop") and what people around you are doing ("The man wearing a hat is carrying a package"), you can practice this language any time you are out and about in the street. If you are in a café or sitting on a bus, you can also write those sentences down.
21. Label the picture. Apart from being caught out by the pronunciation, the biggest problem students have with the TOEIC Listening exam is with words they don't know. You can reduce this problem by looking at the photos in a TOEIC Listening practice exam and labelling all the things you can see in the picture (e.g. lift, button, lift door, briefcase). After trying on your own, use a dictionary to check your answers and find more words. If you don't have any exam pictures to do this with, you can try the same thing with pictures from a picture dictionary.
22. Brainstorm more words. As the pictures you see in the exam will not be exactly the same but the situations will be similar, after writing the things you can see try to brainstorm other words connected to that situation, e.g. for a street scene you could add "cycle courier" and "bus shelter".
23. Brainstorm collocations. Once you have a  list of words for a particular situation, try to think of verbs for each object, e.g. for "bus timetable" the verbs could be "look at", "read", "check with", "find", "copy" etc. Knowing these combinations of words will help you understand the exam sentences much quicker than if you just learn single words.
24. Brainstorm possible exam sentences for each situation. The next stage is to write out whole sentences for each of the verb + noun collocations you have written, practising saying each one with natural rhythm and linking.
25. Learn the vocabulary of travel. One common situation shown in pictures in the exam is places connected to transport, e.g. at a taxi rank or in the airport. As well as brainstorming the vocabulary, you can try reading the English notices on public transport in your city, and listen to the announcements. Buying a phrase book (a kind of short language course and dictionary for travellers) can also help with TOEIC Listening Parts One and Two.
26. Learn the vocabulary of offices. If you have an office at home, one way of learning the names of the objects you can see is to label the real objects in your office with post it notes with the names written on. If this could be embarrassing, try sketching your office and labelling the drawing instead.
27. Learn the vocabulary of restaurants. One newer way of practising this vocabulary is to visit restaurants in a virtual world like Second Life. This is also useful for TOEIC Listening Part Two.
28. Learn the vocabulary of things you see in the street. Like the vocabulary of travel, buying a phrase book with CD can be good practice for the types of shops etc. that you would see in an American main street.
29. Draw a picture of each option before looking. One fun way to practice the skill of picturing what you hear that can help TOEIC Listening Part One is to listen to one exam question and try to make a sketch of each option you hear, e.g. drawing "The man looks happy", "The man is giving a package to the woman", "The man is holding open his trench coat" etc. You can then look at the exam picture and see which of your pictures it is most similar to in order to find the correct answer.
30. Imagine each picture before looking. This is the same as the activity above, but just picturing what you hear instead of drawing it.
31. Try to write down each sentence as a dictation. Although you don't need to understand every word of a question in the exam, trying once or twice to write every word of an exam question down can help you analyze which words, sounds and pronunciation changes of fast speech you have most trouble understanding and so need to practice most. If you type the sentence into your mobile phone or laptop as you listen, you can also then use the corrected version for revision over the following days and weeks.
32. Write down just the most important words. As you don't need to understand every word, you can also do a listening and writing exercise that is more similar to what you have to do in the exam. The first time you listen, just write down one word for each sentence that is probably the most important to get the correct answer. This is probably a noun or a verb, although it could also be an adjective or some other part of speech. You can then listen again and add one more word to each sentence etc, until you are ready to check which the correct answer is and if you wrote down the correct words with the tapescript of the listening.
33. Write lots of sentences describing the picture. Before you listen, write at least 15 sentences describing things in the picture and then listen to see if any of the exam sentences are similar to one of the sentences you wrote.
34. Watch wildlife documentaries. It is quite rare in normal life to hear someone describing something you can see, as happens in TOEIC Listening Part One. One common place you do hear this kind of language is wildlife documentaries, many of which were made by the BBC and/ or the Discovery Channel and so will have English language sound on the DVD, e.g. Planet Earth or The Secret Life of Plants.
35. Watch science documentaries. Other kinds of science and engineering documentaries are similar, and have possibly more suitable vocabulary than programmes about plants and animals.
36. Watch sports. Another common situation in your everyday life in which you might hear someone describing something you can see is when watching sports. If you watch a sport from an English speaking or other foreign country, on satellite and cable TV nowadays you can often change the language of the commentary to make it English.
37. Listen to sports commentary. If you can understand TV sports commentary, the next stage is to listen to a radio or podcast version and see if you can understand without pictures.
38. Watch breaking news. Although news TV like CNN is a lot more difficult than TOEIC Listening Part One, if there is breaking news like parades and other ceremonies, car chases, hostage stand off crises etc, this language is similar to what you will hear when photos are described in the news. You can also often find these clips on Youtube, especially ones connected to famous people like O.J. Simpson.
39. Listen to audio commentary on DVDs. Again, films and TV series have very different language to TOEIC Listening Part One. However, if you listen to the optional audio commentary where the director describes how he made the film that way and why, this is more similar to the exam.
40. Make your own home videos with audio commentary in English. If you have a video camera, this is probably the audio visual thing that is most similar to TOEIC Listening Part One.
41. Act out the exam sentences. If you don't have any technology, you can still practice the exam language in a more active way that will help you remember it by listening to the exam sentences without looking at the picture and try acting out what is described.
42. Keep an audio diary. Speaking is the most similar skill to listening, but finding something you can talk about everyday without finding a teacher is quite difficult. If you record yourself talking about what you did during the day, that is similar to the description of actions in the Listening Part One and will be easy to remember because it is personal to you.
43. Buy a photography book. Although the detail explained in such books is usually much more than the simple description you hear in the TOEIC Listening part one, it is still a nice way of reading something easier in English. If you know that you are the kind of person who will buy a book and forget about it, try buying it in the form of a calendar or diary with different photos every week or day instead, e.g. "365 Days from the Air".
44. Label your photo album in English. One step up from the idea above is to put one line descriptions with each of your own photos, either as stickers in your photo albums or as one line descriptions with online photo albums like Flickr.
45. Play Pictionary with your one to one teacher or study partner. This is a game where you draw something and the person you are playing with tries to guess what it is as quickly as possible. You can do this with exam sentences (read from the tapescript) and pictures or with your own ideas.
46. Play a miming game with your private teacher or study partner. This is like Pictionary, but acting out the sentence from the exam tapescript, the photo, or your own ideas.
47. Write exam tasks for each other. If you do this with an exam picture, when you do the exam task it should be easier than if you come at it cold.
48. Go over and over, longer and longer. Do the first task. After checking your answer and maybe reading the tapescript, listen to the first task again to make sure you now understand everything and then go straight into the second question. Check this one, go back to the beginning of the tape and do those two questions again before you go onto the third question etc.
49. Learn the correct exam sentences off by heart. As the sentences in this part of the exam are always quite similar, learning a few sentences so you can repeat them days or weeks later with the correct natural pronunciation can be a good way of preparing yourself to hear other exam tasks.
50. Carry around the exam picture to test yourself with. Once you have learnt the correct exam sentences, you can test yourself on them by looking at the exam photo several times a day and seeing if you can remember the sentence that was used to describe it in the exam. If you don't want to carry paper around, you can take a photo of the exam picture and store it in your mobile phone, MP3 player, PSP etc.
51. Listen again, try to picture the photo, and look to check. If you have an MP3 player (iPod etc.), you can do a version of this where you listen to sentences again, try to remember the photo that went with it, and then look at the exam photo you are carrying in your pocket, in your notebook, or as an electronic version on your mobile phone or MP3 player.
52. Use your electronic dictionary in the street. Keep your electronic dictionary with you and look up words of things you are doing that you don't know the words for. You will then be able to use the list of most recently looked up words when you get home and write them down. Many mobile phones also have electronic dictionaries in them you can do the same things with.
53. Learn the most common verbs. As well as being in every English sentence, verbs are also often the part of the Listening Part One sentence that changes the meaning the most. Finding the most common verbs in English from the special marks in your dictionary or from the internet and learning them and their pronunciation can be a great help.
54. Start slow. If you can play recordings faster and slower with your cassette recorder or computer music player software, when you are practising repeating the sentences start really slow and then speed up to natural speed.
55. Start fast. To make the natural speed of the exam seem easier, you could try starting with the recording even faster than normal speed and play it again and again while bringing the speed down until you think you can understand or guess the correct answer. If the speed you have understood it at is the same as the real speed or even faster, you have done very well.
56. Try it with background noise. Another thing that can make listening more challenging and so make the real listening seem more manageable is doing it with headphones on somewhere a little noisy like on a train. When you do the same exam task somewhere quiet later on, you will find it is much easier. This is also good practice for the exam, where the silence and sound quality might not be what you are used to.
57. Play around with your graphic equalizer. The exam sound system might also not be set up with a perfect balance of high and low sounds, so it is worth trying a few exam questions with the amount of bass etc. changed to see how that affects your ability to understand.
58. Try it somewhere busy. Another distracting thing can be people moving around, which could also be a factor in the exam more than where you practice at home.
59. Try to identify the accent. A good way of listening very carefully for how fast, natural speech of a native speaker really sounds is to try and see if you can identify if each sentence is said by a British speaker, an American or Canadian speaker, or an Australian speaker. After you think you know, you can check with your teacher, find an example of each accent on the internet to compare it to, or sometimes it will be written in your exam practice book.
60. Repeat with an accent. After you can identify different accents, trying to copy them is another good way of developing your understanding of native speakers at natural speed.
61. Read it out first, then listen and check. When you have practiced copying native speakers, try taking an exam sentence you have never heard before and pronounce it with the speed, linking between words, rhythm and intonation (pitch) of a native speaker, then listen and check how similar you were to the exam recording.
62. Mark the sentence stress and listen and check. To make the task above easier, you could try guessing which words are pronounced strongest (usually "vocabulary words" that give the most information about the thing being talked about), mark them on the tapescript, and then listen and check.
63. Listen and mark the sentence stress. The activity above is just as useful with an exam task you have just completed in the usual way, to make sure you can pick out the most important information next time you listen.
64. Mark the links and listen and check. Another way of analysing how the language will sound when spoken by a native speaker in the TOEIC is to mark on the tapescript where you think the pronunciation of two words will run together like one word, and then listen and check.
65. Listen and mark the links. Again, the idea above can also usefully be done after finishing a practice exam task.
66. Mark the extra linking sounds and check. A more difficult effect of words being spoken quickly next to each other is extra sounds being added to make your mouth move smoothly from one sound to the other, for example the extra /w/ sound when you say "so open" quickly so it sounds like "sowopen". Learning which vowel sounds together add which sounds and marking them on the tapescript before you listen will help you with this.
67. Listen and mark the extra linking sounds. Again, this is a good way of making sure a practice listening test is something you learn from and so understand better next time by listening carefully for these sounds the second or third time you listen to a TOEIC Listening Part One question.
68. Check the tapescripts for words that often come up. When you have done a few exam tasks, listen again to them (if possible) and read the tapescripts, checking whether any words are used in more than one of the questions. This can not only help decide what are important things to remember the meaning and pronunciation of, but is also a good reason for reading through the tapescript one more time and therefore reminding yourself of other thing like common grammatical forms.
69. Describe your own photos to someone in English. You can also make this into a game by describing one of a page of photos and seeing if the person who is listening can guess which one it is.
70. Play the Magazine Search game with your study group. Each person has a copy of a magazine (either the same as each other or different is okay). One person chooses one picture from anywhere in the magazine and says one sentence about it, e.g. "The woman isn't looking happy". The other people race to be the first person to find a picture that matches that description in their own magazines.
71. Do a picture jigsaw with your study group. Cut up a TOEIC Listening Part One or other photo into several strips. Mix them up and give one strip to each person. Without showing your pieces of paper to each other you have to describe them and decide together which order they go in. Put them down on the table in the order you decided and see if you were correct. 
72. Do a Picture Dictation with your study partner or study group. Your partner(s) must try to draw the picture you are describing. When you are happy with their drawing, show them the original photo and discuss the differences together. If you can do it with a TOEIC Listening Part One photo, this is a good warm up before you do the exam task for that photo.
73. Do a Blind Picture Dictation with your study partner or study group. This is the same as the idea above, but you can't look at your partner's picture as they are drawing it, so they have to ask you questions to check if they understand what you mean.
74. Go on an English language guided tour.  As well as tours for foreign tourists in your town like bus tours or tours of historical buildings, some factory tours might also have English language tour guides. Because the guide will spend some time describing what you can see, some of the language will be similar to what you will hear at the beginning TOEIC listening paper. If you find the tour difficult to understand, reading a guidebook first in English or even just in your own language could help.
75. Listen to a museum audio guide. If you can't find a tour in English or are too embarrassed to ask to go on the English language tour as you are obviously not a tourist, you could try just hiring an MP3 player in your local museum that explains the exhibits as you go round. If you can find one for a photography museum, that might be the most similar language TOEIC listening part one. Some local councils also offer a similar service now on your mobile phone as you are walking around the historic parts of town.
76. Give someone a tour of your workplace in English. If you don't have this opportunity, you can just write down what you would say if you had to give a tour and then practice with and without your script. Make sure you write down what people you can see (your colleagues) are doing, as this is the most similar language to what you will hear in the TOEIC Listening Part One.
77. Write out a whole exam sentence in phonemics without gaps. Once you have learnt phonemics really well or with the help of a dictionary, try to write out a whole TOEIC Listening Part One sentence in phonemics. Don't put any gaps between the words, because when we are speaking two or more words often run together like single words. Test yourself over the next few days and weeks on whether you can still understand the sentence, then read it out loud and mark the same sentence stress as was used in the original listening on your phonemics.
78. Try to remember the sentence from just the stress patterns. Similar to the idea above, but this time only draw a line of small and big circles to represent the rhythm of the sentence in Listening Part One and then test yourself over the following days and weeks to see if you can remember the sentence and pronounce it correctly.
79. Change the incorrect options to make them correct. A good way of remembering the grammar and type of sentence used in this part of the exam is to take the three options that are incorrect and see if you can make them really match the picture while changing as few words as possible. This is also a good way of understanding and remembering the tricks that examiners use to fool you.
80. Change the correct option to make it incorrect. Another way of practising the same things as above is to see if you can change the correct option into something that is incorrect for the picture just by changing one word, the tense of one verb, one letter, one sound etc. If you are studying with other people, you can then read the unchanged correct option and your changed wrong one to them and see if they can decide which one describes the photo.
81. Stop the exam sentence half way through. The second or third time you listen to a TOEIC Listening Photos question, pause the tape or CD and try to remember how the sentence ends. Test yourself again later, but stopping the recording at earlier and earlier parts of the sentence, eventually just listening to one word before you try to say the whole thing.
82. Reduce the number of times you listen. Although you will never hear anything twice in the exam, listening just once the first time you try an exam task can be such a shock that you won't learn anything from it. In order not to go the other way and get too used to hearing everything repeated and therefore trying to understand every word, listen to the first question 3 times before you answer, listen to the second question twice, listen to the third question just once but stop to check your answer, then listen to the rest of TOEIC Listening Part One section without stopping.
83. Underline the words that gave you the answer. To practice picking out only the important words in the TOEIC listening, after you have finished a question check your answers and underline the minimum number of words with which you could understand that one of the options was the correct choice. This is usually possible with between two and four words. Practising this can help you not be distracted by words that are not necessary to answer the question. You will also notice that these are almost always stressed words in the sentence.
84. Underline the trick words/ the words that show you that option is wrong. When you have spotted how you could easily choose the correct answer, do the same with the other 3 options, underlining the few words you would need to understand to see that each of those sentences is wrong. Sometimes this is possible with as few as one word. Doing this can help you see what tricks are in the TOEIC questions.
85. Tap out the rhythm of the sentence as you listen. Before you try to repeat a line to practice English rhythm, try listening to the sentence and just making the beats with the beat of the sentence. You can then try repeating whilst beating out the same beat, and then without the help of your pen.
86. Mark all the schwas in a sentence. The most used sound in the English language is called "schwa". It is the "er" sound like at the end of words like "computer", and is pronounced while your mouth is completely relaxed, like the sound made by someone who is too shocked to speak. Listening for this sound on an exam recording and marking it on the tapescript can be very useful as it is in most of the words that change pronunciation depending on whether you stress them or not (like "can" and "for") but is easy to miss because it is never stressed and so is always pronounced quickly and quietly. You can also get some idea of where the word stress and sentence stress is by doing this, as schwa is never stressed and so the main beats of the sentence must be elsewhere.
87. Trust your instincts.  Researchers have shown that if someone writes an answer to a multiple choice question in a test and then changes their mind at the last minute, they are more likely to change the answer from a correct answer to a wrong one than from a wrong one to a right one. If you are not sure why you think your first idea was wrong, don't change it.
88. Listen to English in a relaxed way before you go into the test. As this is the very first part of the test, being awake, in English mode and ready to go from the very first moment can have an impact on your score in the first few questions. Doing actual English study on the morning of a test is a very bad idea as it will tire you out and mean that you won't be able to concentrate by the end of the test. However, listening to some English music or radio with an English DJ is a nice way of getting your mind into "English mode" and ready to hear native speaker voices with natural speed and rhythm.
89. Speak English before you go into the test. Again, be very careful not to tire yourself out, but a little friendly chitchat in English with one of the other test takers can help get your brain ready to listen to English.
90. Learn famous lines from films. All the sentences in the TOEIC Listening Part One section are a single sentence, which is quite rare in normal communication or in the media. One way of learning natural rhythm and speed in such sentences is to learn famous lines from the movies and practice saying them exactly as the actor does. Another advantage of this is that native speakers will often use such famous quotes in social conversations (although obviously not in the test for copyright reasons), and it can help your social skills if you can recognize some of the more famous ones by people like Robert De Niro.
91. Try to predict what answer is wrong before looking at the picture. Sometimes it is possible to guess that at least one of the sentences is wrong without actually looking at the picture. Listen to all four sentences and cross off the ones you think are not likely to be in the picture (e.g. "The woman is sitting on a hose"), and guess which one might be correct. Then look at the picture and check. Thinking about the questions this way can help you learn what tricks the examiners use to fool you, and help you practice guessing skills.
92. Do it again, but testing your study group partners. Either on the same day or later, take the tapescript of an exam task you have done before and test your partners with it, but reading out the sentences yourself. To make it challenging for them, try to read out the sentences as quickly as you can with the unstressed parts of the sentence really short.
93. Warm up. To make sure you actually learn something from practising exam questions, make sure you are awake and have your brain in "English mode" before you start any exam practice at home.
94. Try a test cold. Remember that in the test you will not be able to have a cup of coffee and sit around and relax before you start the exam with Listening Part One. If you want to know how you will do under real exam conditions and practice for it, sit right down and do a test without any warm up a few times.
95. Do it at same time of day. Another way of making the exam practice realistic is to try a Listening Part One at exactly the same time as you will be doing that part of the real TOEIC test (probably in the morning). You can then build up from that to doing the whole test at the real time.
96. Try it with exam conditions. Even if you haven't learnt anything about the other parts of the exam yet, if you want to really see how you can do on this part of the exams you will need to do it all the way through and continue onto other parts of the listening without stopping.
97. Try it tired. Another thing that will be true in the exam is that you will have to be able to do the test however you are feeling, so try at least a few practice tests even when you don't feel like it. One way of practicing this for Listening Part One is to do a listening test backwards, finishing with Listening Part One instead of starting with it.
98. Try the whole test backwards. This will not only give you even more idea of how well you can do Listening Part One when you are feeling tired, it will also allow you to try the last sections of the Reading with a fresher mind than usual.
99. Try the listening after the reading. This is similar to the idea above, but easier to arrange if you have a tape rather than CD and so can't easily skip between tracks.
100. Try different warm ups. As this will be the first part of the real TOEIC test, before doing each Listening Part One practice test, you can experiment with different ways of warming up, to see which one will suit you best on exam day. For example, you could try listening to English music, relistening to a test you have done many times before, or talking to yourself in the bathroom mirror.

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TOEIC FAQs

Frequently asked questions about the TOEIC exam with answers

How long is the test?

Two hours

How many questions are there?

100 listening questions and 100 reading questions

What kinds of questions are there?

All the questions are multiple choice, where you choose the one correct answer from three or four options.

What things should take into the exam?

You will need a pencil and eraser, plus spares, but you will probably not be allowed to take them inside a pencil case to avoid cheating. You will not need a pen. You will also need photo ID with your signature written on it, for example a passport.
There is also quite a long list of things you can't take into the exam. As well as the things that could help you cheat such as notes and dictionaries, you are also need to make sure that your watch alarm and mobile phone do not ring and disturb the test takers, and that you do not take in highlighter pens or a ruler. These last two are to stop some people getting an unfair advantage by using special reading techniques.

What's the difference between TOEFL and TOEIC and which one should I take?

Both tests are written and administered by ETS, an independent non-profit organisation in the USA. TOEFL was designed as a university entrance test (similar to IELTS in Australia and now the UK) and contains some language which is similar to what you would hear and use if studying in an American university. TOEIC was designed as a test of Business English, but is perhaps better described as a test of more everyday English, including the English that you might use in your working life. Although many people choose TOEFL if they want to enter a university and TOEIC if they want to show their English level on a job application, both are often just used as a proof of General English level and you might want to choose which by how well they are recognized in the country you wish to use it in instead of how you want to use it. Alternatively, you can choose by which one you think you will get a better score in- if you have already used English in your studies that might help you to get a higher TOEFL score, and the same with business and TOEIC.

Does the TOEIC run out after two years?

No, once you have taken TOEIC you can write that score on your CV forever, but employers might be suspicious of an old score and ETS recommends that you retake the test after 2 years because your ability will probably have changed.

Is there a break between the listening and reading sections of the TOEIC test?

No

What can I do if I need to go to toilet during the TOEIC test?

Perhaps to make sure you don't drink too much before the exam and therefore don't disturb the other students, no information is given about this by ETS. It may be possible to go to the toilet during the reading test, but as people usually run out of time during this test it could have a very negative impact on your marks.

How well recognized is TOEIC outside Asia?

TOEIC is also popular in the USA, Canada and Mexico, and is used inside some large corporations in Europe. Although an employer in the UK might not have heard of TOEIC, it is still better known than BULATS (the equivalent Cambridge exam), and you should easily be able to explain on your CV and/ or in the interview that it is the world's most popular Business English test and what your level means.

Where can I get real past exam papers to do exam practice with?

You can't. ETS does not make past papers available to either students or textbook writers. If you see a book that claims to be based on real past papers or the analysis of past papers, it is not true. The closest thing you can find is probably a book with the official ETS logo on the cover.

What is the most difficult part of the TOEIC test?

Statistically, candidates score higher on the Reading paper than on the Listening test, but this might be at least partly due to these tests being most popular in countries where English listening skills are generally weak.

Do I need to take a class to improve my TOEIC score?

For most students, studying with a teacher is better than studying at home alone. You might want to particularly think about taking a class if:
1.      You are unmotivated
2.      The practice materials that you are using tell you which answers are wrong but not why
3.      You have taken the test or practice tests several times and your scores have not been rising
4.      You keep making the same kinds of mistakes

If a book says "TOEIC ®" on it, does that mean it is an official ETS exam book?

No. ETS gives official recognition to very few TOEIC preparation textbooks and test practice books, and although many of the others might also be good practice there are many examples of cheaply made and unrealistic TOEIC books out there who have not been checked by anyone. You should be particularly careful when choosing materials for the new (after 2007) TOEIC exam, as many small publishers printed books before the final details of the exam were made public by ETS.

What level should I be before I take the TOEIC test?

Although there is no fail in TOEIC, students who are less than Intermediate level will find that their scores go up and down quite a lot every time that they take the test because they have to guess quite a lot of questions. Low level students will also find that doing a TOEIC course or practice TOEIC exam papers will not teach them the language they need to improve their general English level. Perhaps for this reason, TOEIC has introduced the lower level "TOEIC Bridge test", but as yet it is not recognized by many employers and so might not be as useful on your CV as a TOEIC score.

Can I eat and drink in the TOEIC test?

No, you cannot take food and drink into the test. This probably also means no chewing gum and no sweets.

How can I explain what my TOEIC score means to someone who doesn't know the exam?

When you get your test score you will also be given a "can do" sheet that tells you what the score means that you can copy onto your CV and/ or explain in an interview when you apply for a job. It is also worth mentioning that TOEIC is the most popular test of Business English in the world.

Is the new style TOEIC more difficult than the old one?

Although the new test sounds more difficult because it has longer listening and reading texts and less of the easier Listening Part One (photograph) questions, ETS say that the tests are equivalent, and the first batch of official test takers in May 2007 in Japan did not especially complain of the difficulty or see an unexpected change in their scores. The skills needed are, however, slightly different, so some people will find one version of the test slightly more difficult than the other.

How long does it take to get the TOEIC test results?

It depends on the country you are in, but is usually less than a week.

What happens if I am late for the test?

You will not be allowed into the test centre, you will not be able to take the test on another day without paying the full fee again, and you will not get any refund. Please make sure you arrive at least 20 minutes before the arrival time you are told.

If I do really badly, will I still get a certificate?

As there is no pass and fail mark in TOEIC, everyone gets a certificate.

If I don't know the answer, should I leave it blank?

No, never leave a blank. As no marks are taken off for wrong answers, if you don't know the answer try to eliminate any you think are wrong and then quickly guess between those that are left and move onto the next question. In the reading test, if you finish everything and have time at the end you can go back and try these questions one more time if you like, but make sure you write down some answer the first time you try it in case you run out of time.

Can you cram for the TOEIC test?

No. You can improve your score with some tips and tactics for reading and listening, but as grammar is not a big part of the test there is no list of language points that you are sure to come up in the test that you can learn in a short time. TOEIC is a test of all proficiency levels up to very advanced, so virtually all standard American English could come up in the exam.

Do I need to be working/ be a businessman to do the test?

Using English in your working life or studying a Business or Economics subject in English can help a lot for the test, but having a generally high level of English and being prepared for the test are much more important.

Is TOEFL a General English version of TOEIC?

Many people use TOEFL that way, but in fact TOEFL was specifically designed to prepare people to study in American universities, and there is as much specialist academic language in TOEFL as there is Business English in TOEIC. In both tests, however, all of the "specialist" language used is stuff that native speakers who are not businessmen or university students would also use.

Many people say they can't finish the reading paper. Should I take a speed reading course?

Speed reading is not recommended for most non-native speakers, and some experts do not recommend it even for native speakers either. Speed reading is a way of reading a whole text quickly, whereas the best tactic in the TOEIC for reading quickly is usually to read the questions first and try to find the place where the right information is, or at least to skip unimportant parts like the tops and bottoms of emails.

Is TOEIC or TOEFL better known internationally?

In some parts of Asia TOEFL is not as well known as TOEIC, but in most of the rest of the world TOEFL is more famous. In Australia, the UK and parts of Europe, IELTS and the other Cambridge tests such as FCE are better known. However, if you can properly explain what the test consists of, what organisation gives the certificates and what the level means on your CV or in conversation, any of these international qualifications should be useful.

Is TOEIC a test of American English?

It certainly helps to study American English for the TOEIC, especially for the Listening part of the test. If, for example, you only know British English business terms, some time spent studying the American equivalents can be very useful. However, the new format exam also includes some British English and Australian English speakers, and people who have only studied American English since school can find these parts difficult to understand.

What are the differences between the versions of the TOEIC before and after the 2007 changes?

The main changes are that in the new style test there is no error correction section and some of the listening and reading texts are longer with more questions per text. The length of the exam and the number of the questions stays the same, and although the new version seems more difficult ETS say the level of difficulty is also the same.

What TOEIC level is good enough to get a job in English?

Although some jobs such as translators ask for scores of 800 or above, any score above about 300 shows a basic ability to use English in the workplace, it simply depends on the job.

I've heard different opinions on whether TOEIC is a Business English test or not. Is it?

TOEIC was specifically designed to be a test of Business English and the English that people need to use in the workplace. As business is part of all of our lives nowadays, however, it is perfectly useable as a General English test.

How long do I need to study before I take the exam?

In terms of doing exam practice, it is perfectly possible to do the test without any practice at all but even just doing one practice test is very useful at least for making you feel less nervous on the day of the test because you know what you are doing in each part of the test. Make sure, however, that you do not do any practice on the night before the exam. The longest you will probably want to do just exam practice is a month- any longer than that and a good proportion of your preparation for the exam should focus on getting your general English and Business English level up. For example, a one year course or self study plan should probably be 60 to 80% general practice of English and the rest grammar, vocabulary, skills and exam practice for the TOEIC.

Why did my last TOEIC score go down even though my English is at the same level?

It could be due to outside factors like you being tired or stressed. Alternatively, it could just be a statistical blip because you were or unlucky in the match between the questions and texts in a particular paper and your knowledge. In some cases, silly mistakes like writing the answers next to the wrong question number can also have an impact.

Why did my TOEIC score stay the same, even though I have been studying lots of English?

Apart from the reasons given in the question above, this could be because you have been studying lots of new language that you can't yet use quickly in test conditions and/ or haven't been revising the language you knew before and so have got slower at understanding it. Another common problem is that as your ability to understand the reading and listening texts increases you start trying to understand every word rather than looking out for the most important information.

What TOEIC materials should I buy?

In terms of making sure it is close to what you will see in the exam, it is best to choose something officially certified and recommended by ETS (the company that writes the TOEIC and TOEFL exams). You will need to carefully read the back of the book to make sure this is true, as many other publishers understandably want their materials to look official too. If you can't find anything with the ETS logo on, have already finished those books or will be using them in class and want something different for self-study, books from the other big international publishers are also usually okay.
In terms of the kind of book you want to buy, that will depend on how much time you have before the exam, if you are taking a class and what materials you are using in it, and what your own strengths and weaknesses are.

What is the single most important part of my English to improve if I want to improve my TOEIC score?

Most people find that a lack of Business English and General English vocabulary is what is most holding down their score. The second biggest factor is often a lack of reading speed, and the third is often not understanding fast, natural speech.

Why does my TOEIC teacher have speaking and pronunciation parts in class, even though I am only going to do listening and reading in the exam?

Speaking in a TOEIC class can be very useful- in getting you ready to listen to or read something, in discussing exam tactics, and in practising vocabulary and pronunciation so that you understand it when it is spoken at natural speed during the test.

Is TOEIC an Advanced level exam?

To get 850 points or above in TOEIC is a proof that you have Advanced listening and reading skills and can use those skills quickly and efficiently in a business setting. However, some people find it possible to reach that mark without having truly Advanced level writing and/ or speaking skills, and employers might want to give you an additional test on these skills in order to check your all round English level. Jobs that only ask for TOEIC 700 or below might not need an Advanced level of English, but students generally need to be at least Intermediate in order to benefit fully from studying for the test.

Do I need to do well in both the Reading and the Listening papers?

Not necessarily. The final mark is the total score from both papers, so if you make some mistakes in one paper it might be possible to make those marks up by doing better in the other one.

Although there is no grammar paper, I heard that they secretly test your grammar in the reading and listening papers. Is that true?

There are a few questions that you can get wrong by, for example, mixing up the meaning of tenses. However, most people find that the vocabulary is more difficult and more important for passing the exam.

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