CALL@Chorus Review: TOEFL Mastery

TOEFL M	Chorus « CALL

*TOEFL Mastery*
by Lauren Goldenberg School of Education New York University

TOEFL Mastery

TOEFL Preparation, i.e. Practice

What do students studying for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) want? To master the test, of course: higher scores, with a minimum of pain and suffering. How do they want it? Practice, practice, and more practice in the hopes that practicing the items types for this standardized test--as opposed to learning general academic English--will be the key to unlocking as high a score as possible. Familiarity with the test format is indeed a contributing factor to a higher test score and that, more or less, is what TOEFL Mastery provides. The exact quantity of 'more' versus 'less' depends on your expectations.

The program is divided into three sections: exercises, section tests, and practice TOEFL tests. A tutorial provides an overview of the features and functions of the program, and a recommended strategy for utilizing the software. Students might benefit from having a sequence recommended to them by their teacher. How many students will actually get through the tutorial? Not only is the language fairly dense, there is also an inherent "let's get on with it" attitude about software that will deter many teachers and students from getting the most out of the tutorial.

Each of the sections mirrors the actual pen-and-paper TOEFL test, with a listening section its sub-sections of short dialogues, longer conversations, and talks; a structure and written expression section and, finally, a reading comprehension sections. The subtitle of this software program is "TOEFL Preparation Software" but it is in fact TOEFL practice software.

I pretended to be one of my students, and followed the sequence I (the teacher) would recommend.

Practice TOEFL Tests

I started with the first of the two practice TOEFL tests but didn't get very far at first because of a software bug: the program closed every time I tried to enter this area. Technical support was very helpful in resolving the problem (see "other comments", below, for more details). The theory is to do a practice test, then pay special attention to one's weaker points in the exercises and section tests. However, this can be done on a global (section or sub-section) level only as the items themselves are not classified into different types.

Section Tests

The items themselves are of good quality, on par with what one finds in the better TOEFL practice books. The synchronization in the listening section between the questions and the spoken words may be powerful for language learners, and if your computer's speakers are decent then the sound quality will be excellent. The timer feature is helpful for students to get used to strict time limits, like the real thing. However, the question presents itself: why practice on the computer when the actual test is pen and paper?

Exercises

The exercises are set up similar to the section tests. In fact, some of the items are exactly the same. This is because, if I am interpreting the software's promotional material at http://www.ala-usa.com/software/toefl2.htm correctly, the exercises and section tests share the same data bank of items.

Features and Functions

TOEFL Mastery is not flashy, but flash is not needed to do the job. No one expects TOEFL practice to be too far removed from the actual test. The interface design is solid and intuitive, and fairly text-heavy, but the screens are, for the most part, well-organized. The only exception is in the Reading Comprehension section, where there are scroll bars for both the text and the question; if the box for the questions could have been slightly bigger, there wouldn't have been a need for a scroll bar.

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Publisher:
American Language Academy
1401 Rockville Pike, Suite 550
Rockville, MD 20852
Phone: +1 301.309.1400
or in the U.S. 800.346.3469
Fax: +1 301.309.0202
Email: software@ala-usa.com or amerlangcall@mcimail.com
Web Page: http://www.ala-usa.com/software/

System Requirements:
IBM compatible PC 386 or higher,
4MB RAM minimum,
10MB free on hard disk,
Windows 3.1 (or later) or Windows 95,
VGA card and color monitor,
CD-ROM drive,
100% Sound Blaster-compatible sound card,
and headphones or speakers.

Version Reviewed:
3.1

Price Info: $159.95 is the list price from the publisher for the single-user version reviewed here, with price breaks available for multiple copies of the single-user and multi-user version.

Availability:
Commercial software available from the publisher.

Quick Summary:
TOEFL Mastery is a basic TOEFL practice program akin to its textbook cousins. The novelty of TOEFL Mastery may be enough to get some students to practice more. N.B. Although the program comes on CD-ROM, it is designed for practice for the regular pen-and-paper TOEFL and not the new computer adaptive version.

Screen Capture:
(Click for larger image)

Section 2: Structure (12K gif)