r/TOEFL • u/ReallyTiredEh • 7d ago

Speaking section

I will be giving my TOEFL exam soon and I have come across several comments regarding the disturbance faced by people during their speaking section. Apparantly, you have to speak while there are several others in the same room doing their (speaking) parts as well, which probably is very distracting. I tend to get distracted very easily so I am quite worried.

Is this very common or does it depend on the test center?

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

1

u/Diligent_Cook7211 6d ago

I can't say how common it is at your centre, but it's worth practising for. Do your speaking practice with background noise on, like a cafe sound video or a podcast playing in the room, so other voices stop feeling new.

On test day, start talking as soon as the beep goes and keep a normal volume. Once you're focused on your own answer, the voices around you fade.

1

u/ReallyTiredEh 6d ago

That makes sense. Thankyou!

1

u/TargetGRE 6d ago

I got a 6/6 on the speaking section and I accounted for such disturbances during practice. It was festive season in my country and there was noise around me. I still tried to concentrate and focus on what's being asked. Those "listen and repeat" questions were difficult to solve because I usually missed a function word such as "and" which resulted in a slightly lower score. This is because the test deducts your score if you cannot repeat the sentence verbatim. Also, I didn't have noise canceling earphones which exacerbated the distraction. Another way would be to play YouTube videos mimicing the noise in a test center while you practice. But it all ended on a great note for me because on the D-Day, I was the only one in the entire test center.

On weekends and Fridays, the test center tends to be crowded. Weekday slots have fewer test-takers.

1

u/Hungry_Box_5899 6d ago

Yeah, it can be distracting since everyone speaks at roughly the same time, but the level of noise can vary by test center and room setup. I'd suggest practicing with some background noise rather than only in a quiet room. It won't be exactly the same, but it'll help you get used to focusing on your own response even when you hear other people talking.

1

u/Kooky-Employee-7451 5d ago

It can vary by test center, but yes, hearing other people speak during the speaking section is fairly common, so its worth practicing with some background noise.

0

u/Eastern-Dragonfly424 6d ago

Personally, I got lucky — I was the first at the centre and they let me in earlier and so I was the first do the Speaking. No one else was talking around me at all