We’ve been focusing on a lot of important ideas for essay writing lately. From editing to grammar, your average TOEFL preparations and practices contain a lot of the skills necessary for your future English academic and professional career.
From here it might be good to look into some ways you can shift your focus to writing your college application essay, something that may very likely come up before or after your TOEFL exam.
First Steps Taken From TOEFL Tips
As we move into college admissions, one of the first stops is the College Board, makers of the SAT. This is one of the major standardized test used by American students in their preparations for entrance to local and national universities.
As mentioned on their site, similar to our essay planning discussed earlier, brainstorming is an important place to start. Think of your personality traits, strengths and unique experiences. Recommendations are to focus on what makes you unique and interesting.
Be careful not to fall into the trap of writing what you think others what to hear, or using the same rehashed phrases to capture the evaluator’s eye. What you really need to catch their eye, is a new perspective and that can only come from sometime original and personal.
Let it Flow and Let it Go
Other tips that we see from our work on the TOEFL essay are to let your first draft flow without trying to deal with grammar or spelling. Get the ideas out and save the proofreading for another time, or preferably, another person.
As in our TOEFL prep tips, once you’ve written your masterpiece, and edited it to perfection, then it is the time to try to find that friend or teacher who can help take a look at your essay.
Getting a second set of eyes, with a good grasp of English of course, will help find the mistakes that are harder to find from your perspective, and the typos spell check can’t see.
Narrate Your Own Story
Part of the task in making your story unique is making it believable, and personal for the person reading it. One thing mentioned in a few places, such as the College Board article mentioned above is to “Show, don’t tell” your story. This could mean including a descriptive anecdote which, when done well, can be an especially inviting opening paragraph.
When describing other traits, or interests be sure to give specific examples, and when possible, with specific people or places mentioned. How did these people, experiences and moments affect you? What did you learn from them and how did they add to your life?
We’ve been focusing on a lot of skills for the TOEFL exam, and while it’s great to get high marks on a test, it’s even better to learn a skill for life.
There are many similarities that we can use in our experiences in our TOEFL test prep to start to work on our college application. Be sure to use them in this next step in your education, and in your life.
