Comments on: Sitting for the TOEFL

By: Vincent

Vincent — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 21:31:38 +0000

Your story reminds me of a time when I took a German language examination in some of the worst test-taking conditions I’ve ever had.

It was when I was in graduate school in Chicago, and the building we had the test in was right next to a busy intersection. On the day of the test, the intersection controls weren’t working, so drivers had to be really careful about right-of-way, lest they get into an accident. One driver, unfortunately, was not careful, and plowed into a municipal bus (no one was hurt, thankfully!). After the accident, the car’s horn started honking on its own, and wouldn’t stop! *HONK* *HONK* *HONK*

The horn, in fact, did not stop honking until about 45 minutes into the test.

Added to this was the fact that it had been raining all night and someone had left the window to our classroom open the night before. By sheer coincidence, someone had also left a sweatshirt on top of the heater in the classroom…. which was right beneath the window, so it was soaked through and through. The carpet under the window was also waterlogged. Of course, the heater had been turned up to about 80 degrees Fahrenheit, just to top it all off.

So in addition to the honking noise coming from outside, the classroom itself was very hot and humid, since both the rain-soaked sweatshirt on top of the heater and the nearby carpet were evaporating water into the air all night long. Of course the wet carpet smelled… well, like old wet carpets tend to smell.

It seems to me that there may have been some other kind of minor misfortune that we had to deal with during that test, but I can’t remember it at the moment.

Needless to say, it was one of the most unpleasant tests I’ve ever taken (and I’m no real fan of foreign language tests to begin with!), although I somehow managed to get a pretty good grade. :)

By: Tololy

Tololy — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 08:20:47 +0000

But Firas, the instructions clearly say that if I think I will have trouble concentrating due to the noise around me, I should keep my headphones on all the time. I did keep them on, but I still got distracted thanks to the noisy hulk next to me.

By: Firas

Firas — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 21:19:19 +0000

I guess you were a little bit nervous, and that’s pretty normal considering an achiever like you. Anyways, I think you should have complained verbally to the admin. during and after the test, then wrote a complain, I’m sure they would have offered you another exam for free.

I’m sure you’ve done great :-)

Haven’t done the IELTS , but had some tests, and it’s way harder because it’s has lots of BRITISH, very bad.

By: Bashar

Bashar — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 18:00:47 +0000

I am sure you did well; you sbeak English very best and good :)

Well, I wanted to show off and brag a bit about my IELTS score last month, but I think Rua (Previous comment) did not leave the chance for me to do so :)

By: rua

rua — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 10:31:54 +0000

It happened to me too.. i had to sit for Toefl about five years ago and it was computer based and the person sitting next to me had her headphones very loud that i could hear everything she was hearing.. i hope u did better than i did!!! from experience IELTS is heaps easier