The Ankh-Morpork Times

My TOEFL scores just came in! And they are almost as expected: excellent in the Reading, Listening and Writing Sections (29-30 out of 30) and mildly disappointing in the Speaking section (24 out of 30), which leads to a total of 112. As I mentioned in my previous post the testing conditions for the speaking part were not ideal and I was got distracted by other test takers... Nevertheless, I'm happy with the good result and am now looking forward to take the other hurdles in my way to a Masters Degree in the US :)

Labels: English, Master

Monday, June 25, 2007

GRE update

The results of my GRE arrived today! As I already knew the Verbal and Quantitative Scores I was dreading the result of the Analytical writing task... However, I needn't have worried, I got full marks and scored 6.0 on a scale from 0.0 to 6.0 :).

Just one more week and I'll get the results from the TOEFL as well.

Labels: English, Master

Monday, June 11, 2007

TOEFL

Last Saturday was the big event, I took the TOEFL ;). It could hardly have been more different to the GRE. First, it was in Zürich, that is to say close to my home. Second, registration started as announced 30 minutes before the test time. Third, there were about 40 people taking the test at the same time...
To the test. The first block was dedicated to Reading Comprehension. We had to read three texts and answer several questions. The texts were quite technical from various fields and even though some of the questions were a bit challenging, compared to the GRE Analytical it was a breeze. Next was Listening Comprehension. We listened to 9 lectures and discussions, answering questions about the main points as well as some details of the texts. For me this wasn't too tough either.
After a ten minute break, the TOEFL continued with the Speaking part. Basically this wouldn't have been too difficult either; we had to talk about general topics, summarize discussions, as well as combine information from texts and spoken dialog. The challenging bit was that there was only 15 seconds to prepare for 30 seconds speech and that several students were speaking at the same time (the answers being recorded by the computer). Several times I got distracted by other students and almost lost the thread of my argument.
Finally we had to write two short essays, first about a general topic and then summarizing a text and a lecture. The hardest part there was writing concise texts and not to get lost in long sentences.
Now it's time for the waiting game ;). The results are due in 15 business days.

Labels: English, Master

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Goodbye GRE, welcome TOEFL

Finally, after two months preparation the GRE is now over. I took the exam last Friday in Geneva. Almost the hardest part was staying calm before the exam started. My appointment was for 1pm sharp and on the confirmation letter there was a note asking me to be there at least 30 minutes ahead of that time. So being a conscientious fellow I was there at 12.20, but no one was in sight. The exam room was closed and the corridor deserted. The closer it got to 1pm, the more disquieted I became. Then came 1pm and still no one was in sight! I was starting to wonder whether they had forgotten me. Having traveled 4 hours to get to the exam I wasn't willed to just turn back and try my luck another day. So I decided to stick around. And then at 1.10pm someone arrived and I could start. So far as I can judge I'm quite happy with the result of the exam. I got almost full score in the quantitative (mathematical) section (790 out of 800) and a respectable result for a non-native English speaker in the verbal part (550 out of 800). The analytical writing essays went quite smooth as well, but it will take about two weeks for the results of those to come in.
So next up is the TOEFL which I'll sit next Saturday in Zurich.

Labels: English, Master


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