TOEFL - Truth About Education

Advice for TOEFL Preparation

Hello, I am Max Feo, JD, MBA, Tax LLM.

I am foreign-born. English is not my native language.

I studied for 3 or 4 weeks and passed TOEFL with the score of about 95% correct. Now, I will share techniques and methods I used to prepare for exam.

I also took GMAT and went through MBA program, and few years later took LSAT and went through law school, finishing in about 40% top of my class.

Not bad for such language-intensive program like law.

Overall, I had 15+ years-long fulfilling career in american companies in the USA and abroad.

I worked all kinds of jobs – including Verizon Communications, LegalZoom, eMinutes, and several different law firms. I also traded stocks and options and did some forex a while ago.

I am just a regular, real and kind of lazy person. I succeeded – and so will you.

We will focus on TOEFL preparation, choosing major and college for your education, college advice and career advice.

With correct preparation, especially with the help of a good instructor, passing TOEFL becomes easier.

High TOEFL score is very important because it can open more doors for your future career.

Cheers.

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Regarding Colleges in the USA.

First of all, here is very important advice I learned the hard way – it applies both to foreign students and US citizens or residents.

In the US, success of getting a job after graduation really depends on two following formula:

Major * School Rank = Job & Career.

Major

Major is an area of study like biology, journalism, accounting, marketing, arts, etc. This is very critical for job and career success. On the one hand, you may want to pursue your passion, say, in literature, arts or music.

But, after graduation, your chances of getting a good job are kind of slim – small, because there is not as much demand for these graduates – see Indeed.com or other job site and do your own research.

Getting job in US is difficult in these areas even for a citizen. For such low-demanded majors(degrees), one needs to go to a much better ranking school to increase chances of career anywhere in the world. See next section “Major.”

Now, degrees where graduates are in demand, like STEM (Science, Technical, Engineering, Medical), generally may be a better choice career wise.

It is easier to obtain first job and build career in these areas because they require expertise which many people simply do not want to develop, resulting in fewer graduates, lower supply, greater demand from employers, and better chances of getting a job and decent salary.

School Rank

Hiring in US is very much based on pedigree nowadays. Pedigree means how well known and well ranked is the school where you went to. For example, even with liberal arts degree (a pretty worthless degree) from, say Harvard or Yale, a graduate is much more likely to find a job even in industry not related to his or her major.

Simply because, well, employers love to hire someone from Harvard or Yale.

I will tell you that for law schools, and for business schools especially, school ranking is a very big deal. For example, going for your marketing degree to say, top 300 business school in the country, or, for example, same Wharton, Yale, Harvard, University of Texas, or USC or UCLA will make a HUGE difference in ability to find work.

For STEM degrees this problem is not that critical – STEM graduates lower ranking schools are more likely to find jobs than non-STEM graduates. There are some schools which are locally known for certain degrees – but those are special cases.

School Cost

There is not need to discuss it, as the lower the cost of education, the better. If you got into top US college – good for you. If not, going for lower ranking colleges needs to correspond with lower tuition cost.

Summary.

So, let us recall. In US, and in many other countries, your job and career success initially depends on two very important factors below.

Your college admission decisions must be based in large part on these two factors: Major + School Rank.

TOEFL

TOEFL was one of the easiest exams that I took because I prepared correctly and received 94%-95% correct just after 3 weeks of preparation. Why? Because before that I was developing my English skills in a very particular way. In fact, 70% of my TOEFL skills I learned by incorporation language immersion and language operation Technics I learned before I even decided to take TOEFL.

I will tell you about couple of them. The only way to learn a language quickly is to operate in it.

Meaning, not passive listening, but active reading, listening, analyzing, learning. To learn English – you must learn in English. Doe sit make sense?

For example, people learn language much faster when they learn certain topic in it. Do you like animals? Well, read articles in English about animals. Try to memorize information there, try to understand every single word.

Active Learning Technique

Here is a technique which contributed to 25%-30% of my language learning success: I read a passage form a book, textbook for American high school, article from a magazine, and translated every single word in it, and wrote a translation into my language of each single word above each English word. Then I would read this passage again, and again – 3-4 times – and would refer to my own translation.

I tried to memorize, understand meaning of every single sentence. I did it every day for about 3-4 months, and then, suddenly, my understanding of English exploded – quantity has become quality in my brain. English has become easy for me. After that I used other methods prepare for TOEFL including test preparation courses.

We did not have so many TOEFL preparation courses back then. Nowadays there are more test preparation companies which do excellent job in preparing for TOEFL.

One of them which I show here – Magoosh – has excellent course which can make it EASIER for you to prepare for TOEFL FASTER and get a better score on test. I strongly encourage you to check their free one-week trial offer.