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TOEFL iBT - CPE (Certificate Proficiency) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Immersion, Schools & Certificates |  | |
| Fabrizio Pentaglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4996 days ago 103 posts - 157 votes  Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, French, SpanishB2, Portuguese | Message 1 of 5 23 January 2011 at 11:32am | IP Logged |
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Hello guys,
I just got my TOEFL iBT score: 111/120 points - (R. 27/30, L. 30/30, S. 27/30, W. 27/30). According to the ETS website and its "CEFR Official Score Comparison Table," my level of language competence should be somewhere around the C1 level. This is actually pretty discouraging English being my first foreign language... I've been learning it for ages, and what I eventually came up with is a C1 level! Great... Having said this, I think time is come to get ready to sit the CPE (Certificate of Proficiency in English.) So, to sum up: Does anyone know how to prepare for this language certification? How can I sharpen my English? Constructive advices are as always more than welcome :) Many thanks Link:" Comparison table" Edited by Fasulye on 27 January 2011 at 6:48am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Bradley326 Groupie Joined 5990 days ago 78 posts - 104 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Kazakh, Spanish | Message 2 of 5 23 January 2011 at 3:19pm | IP Logged |
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Don't put so much stock into the "level" of English you're given. First of all, exam English isn't nearly the same as real English. I'm an English teacher and I spend most of my time preparing students for TOEFL/IELTS, and some of them can manage very high scores, yet their actual English abilities (in practical terms) are fairly bad.
My recommendation for further study would be to focus almost exclusively on vocabulary. Judging by your post and your TOEFL score, you probably have pretty good grammar. So the last hurdle to reaching real "fluency" would be to try to increase your vocabulary as much as possible to the level of a native speaker. The nice thing about vocabulary is it helps all aspects of your language: speaking/listening/reading/writing. How you do this depends on your learning style, but obviously using native materials is a good bet for you. Please please please don't fall into the trap I see lots of students succumb to; they focus so much on preparing for individual exams, that they completely neglect their general English. You can spend thousands of hours preparing for a specific exam, but if your general English is lacking, your scoring possibilities are going to be limited. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| CorruptingYouth Newbie United States webkohder.net Joined 4870 days ago 6 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 3 of 5 23 January 2011 at 7:25pm | IP Logged |
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Fabrizio, if you didn't say that you are learning English as a second language, then I
would think you speak English as your first. It's very good. As an American, I know plenty of native English speakers who would probably fail that test! Having to write academic papers or for publication (where tight style guidelines force the writer to get creative sometimes) has increased my own language skills. Perhaps you can find a situation where your writing would be critiqued by people who are already very proficient? Also, I think that knowing idioms is very important to sounding like a native speaker. It might not help you with your test, but there are many websites that list English idioms. Just be careful as their use is very dependent on region, age group, situation, etc. The websites I saw weren't always clear on that. If you want to use a new idiom, I'd ask an English speaker what they think first. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dragonfly Triglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 6293 days ago 204 posts - 233 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, Mandarin | Message 4 of 5 23 January 2011 at 7:48pm | IP Logged |
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As you may know, there are 5 papers in CPE. For me the best preparation for the "Use of English" and "Reading" were past papers: the more, the better. If I made mistakes in the tasks, I wrote out the sentences to remember them. I think, Anki can work here, too. As for "Listening", you have to get used to it, as the questions are rather round-about there, and often logical abilities are tested, not language per se. Again, do the listening tasks from CPE textbooks. When it comes to writing, you just have to remember the structure of different tasks (essays, different types of letters, etc.) and remember about the time. As for "Speaking", it's better tohave someone to practice it with.
Good luck. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Fabrizio Pentaglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4996 days ago 103 posts - 157 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, French, SpanishB2, Portuguese | Message 5 of 5 27 January 2011 at 11:35am | IP Logged |
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Hi there,
I'm sorry for my very late reply, I apologise. Thank you guys, I really appreciate your answers! It's always useful to read about other people' recommendations and personal experiences, you're an invaluable source of inspiration for a "young" learner like me :) I think you're right, I should probably focus my attention on vocabulary and idioms. I might maybe use this visual bilingual English-Spanish dictionary I've got and combine the study of the two languages... I don't know, it's just an idea. Going through the past papers of the exam is a good idea too, but I think I'll do it just before I sit the certification. I would rather use them in order to "crack" the test, to come up with some good strategy. Resources for native speakers are probably the best I can use, but I just have to figure out how to make the best out of them. Anki is a useful tool, but I find it extremely boring. Damn... :P @ CorruptingYouth: Thank you very much for your kind words :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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