Time Management - Where to Use Your Time

I recently sent some of my students in Nice this breakdown of how the TOEIC Test works

LISTENING SECTION

1.       The Picture Section (10 Questions)

a.       In this section you see a picture and hear four descriptions of the picture. You must choose the one that best describes the picture. The only thing you see in the test book for this section is the picture.

2.       Question-Response (30 Questions)

a.       In this section you will hear one person ask a question or make a request. You then hear three responses. You must choose the best response. There is nothing written in the book for this section.

3.       Dialogues (30 Questions)

a.       You will hear two people having a conversation. You must answer questions about the conversation.

b.      The questions are written in the book and they are spoken on the CD

4.       Monologues (30 Questions)

a.       You will hear one person talking. You must answer questions about what he/she says.

b.      The questions are written in the book and they are spoken on the CD

The Listening section of the test comes first. It is done on a CD. It takes approximately 45 minutes. You have no control of the time or the order of the question, you must follow the CD.

READING SECTION

5.       Incomplete sentences (40 Questions)

a.       You are given a sentence with one word missing. You must choose the correct word to go in the gap. There are four options.

6.       Text Completion (12 Questions)

a.       Your are given a passage of writing with three short paragraphs. There is a word missing in each of the paragraphs and you must choose the best word.

7.       Reading Comprehension (48 Questions)

a.       You are given a passage of text (It can be an email, a report, an advert etc) and you must answer comprehension questions based on the text.

The Reading Test is different to the Listening as you have 75 minutes and the way you manage that time is up to you.

This made me think about the way we use time in a TOEIC exam. This is one of the most important parts of the TOEIC test - it is almost as important as the language involved. In the Listening section of the test, you do not have much freedom. The CD goes at one speed and you must answer the questions as they are presented to you. You have no choice here.

However, in the Reading section, things are different. The 75 minutes you have are yours to do with with as you want. You can break the time up in whichever way you choose. Therefore, it is important to use those minutes as well as you can. Therefore, we need to be prepared. The first thing to remember is that Section 7 takes much longer than sections 5 and 6. You need to be 100% aware of this fact. I have controlled many TOEIC exams and I regularly see students missing the last few questions because they run out of time. Therefore, I have put together some suggestions to help you.

1. Do not relax in sections 5 and 6. You need to answer these questions as quickly as possible.
2. If a question is difficult, do not spend 5 minutes thinking about. Give your best answer and move on.
3. Answer the easier questions first. Go through section 7 and answer the questions that you think you can get right. Leave the difficult ones until the end.

This third point is possibly the most important. if you spend a lot of time on the first 90 questions in the Reading section and cannot finish the last ten, that is 10 marks you definitely wont get. You will lose 5% of your possible score right there. It is possible you could have got eight or nine of those questions correct. But, if you spent too long on two or three difficult questions, you lost the marks. Remember, you can always come back to a question.

If you come to a difficult question, you have two choices:

1. Pick your best answer and move on as quickly as possible.
2. Leave it until the end of the test

You should never:

1. Spend four or five minutes thinking about it.