Hello BOS (brothers of SIFORS), introduce me to Putu Dhanu Driya, an Undiksha Information System student, on this occasion I will share a few tips and my experience with all of my friends, especially Sifors's friends. Even though we are students from the information systems study program, that doesn't mean other sciences are no less important, besides focusing on developing expertise in the field of information systems, we also need to develop other supporting skills, one of which is English skills. English is an international language that can be a door to open various career opportunities in the future, with skills in the field of qualified information systems, and coupled with fluent English, people will definitely look at you, especially your recruiter later. One proof that someone is fluent in English is the TOEFL certification, TOEFL certification is one of the mandatory requirements that must be followed if we want to apply for scholarships, apply for jobs, or participate in certain activities. Well, on this occasion I will share my experience and tips for us, how to answer the TOEFL test effectively and efficiently for students from non-English study programs, especially from the Undiksha information systems study program.

During lectures, we must have often heard this phrase, "effective and efficient", this phrase is something that must be instilled in every software development process to the design of organizational business processes. It turns out that this phrase is also important when we answer the TOEFL test, friends. Here I will focus on the TOEFL ITP test, but these tips are still useful for other types of TOEFL tests. TOEFL ITP is an acronym for Test of English as a Foreign Language Institutional Testing Program, which is an English proficiency testing program for ages 16 years and over which is available both offline and online.

Before that, let's get to know more deeply, what are the characteristics of the TOEFL ITP? TOEFL ITP is a test consisting of proficiency exams in the fields of listening, structure and written expression, and reading comprehension. All these fields will be completed in one time with a total time of 115 minutes, the highest score you can get is 677 and the lowest score is 310. TOEFL ITP has a cost range between Rp. 350,000 to Rp. 750,000. Then, what are the parts of the proficiency test all about?

1. Listening comprehension which measures your ability to understand spoken English which usually takes the form of a conversation between two or more native English speakers;
2. Structure and written expression which measures your ability to compose structured and grammatically correct English sentences.
3. Reading comprehension which measures your ability to read and understand and conclude reading material written in English.

Even though it looks difficult, if it is accompanied by the right effort and strategy, especially for those of you who have to think smart and fast, of course it is mandatory to have a strategy in answering the TOEFL test. I have previously taken the TOEFL ITP TEST twice, from englishvit and Undiksha Language Centre, on that occasion I got a score of 593 and 660 out of a maximum score of 677. In this blog article I will share tips and strategies that I use in answering the TOEFL test. based on my experience and the results of a little research on the internet.

1. Exercise Routine
   The TOEFL test is an English proficiency test that sometimes uses vocabulary that we have never heard of before, therefore it takes practice. You can do intense TOEFL test practice h-1 month by answering the TOEFL test mockup on the internet, then h-1 week you can start answering online tests for free on EF-SET, during this period of time you should focus on improving your score.
2. Listening Tips
   Besides you have to focus on the conversation, but focusing on every detail of the conversation sometimes makes you confused about the essence of the conversation, the quick way is you can focus on what and when, what is the point of their conversation and pay attention to information that contains an element of when, because generally listening more often ask what and when aspects, such as when the conversation occurs, and other information that contains an element of when. In addition, do not forget also the sentences that have the tone of agreement or disagreement, usually sentences that have the tone of agreement and disagreement already contain the essence of the conversation.
3. Structure Tips
   Now for structure and written expressions, in this section we usually harvest points, because the questions are short so it doesn't take long to understand the essence of the question, the tips in the structure section are to focus on the subject and verb of the sentence, English verbs are very dependent on the subject of the sentence, so that these two things you must understand are related to each other, such as the subject which will make the verb have an s/es ending and the subject which will make the verb remain unchanged. In addition, make sure to read the sentence to the end, because there will be the word "except" or "except" which often deceives us. Make sure in the structure section you answer the whole question, because on the TOEFL test there is no point deduction.
4. Reading Tips
   The reading section is a very tiring part and takes a lot of time to answer just one question, but with the right strategy, we can get a lot of points in this section efficiently. The first tip is to scan the whole question and choose the easiest question first, then move on to questions that ask about aspects of discourse conclusions or those that ask about discourse summaries. You also need to know the question keywords, for example "what is the main idea of ​​the passage?" This question actually looks difficult because we are required to read the entire discourse, but we only need to read the first sentence of each paragraph and look for words that keep repeating themselves in each sentence, so we can be sure that the word is the main idea of ​​the discourse. The last strategy is if you feel confident with all the questions you answered, but there are still some empty and difficult questions, you can do a speed reading technique and choose the answer option that is closest to the core of the discourse, so that even if you choose an answer at random, at least there is a process of understanding the discourse behind the choice of the answer.

So many tips that I can share with SIFORS friends, see you in the next article.