How Important Is The TOEFL Score?

Test of English as a Foreign Language is basically an English exam that tests your basic knowledge of spoken and written English. It is accepted by more than 9000 institutions all over the world.

The reading and listening sections are marked on a scale of 0-30 whereas the writing and speaking sections are graded on a scale of 0-4. The latter 2 sections are also converted to a 30-point scale, post verification. The overall score is converted to a scale between 0-120.

Depends on who you’re asking. Most universities settle for scores near 100, and 80 points are the least you should get in order to get accepted into good graduate schools. TOEFL usually acts as a cutoff, rather than a selector, i.e. a score below a given university’s cutoff region hurts your chances, but a score significantly north of the cutoff doesn’t improve your chances significantly.

For the writing section, if you earn 24-30 marks, then you’ve got good enough marks for this particular section. The ranges for excellent scores in the reading or listening section and the speaking section are 22-30 marks and 26-30 marks respectively.

Read more about: What is a Good TOEFL Score?

If you’ reapplying for a teaching assistantship, that is, part-time teaching at the graduate school where you’ll be pursuing your graduate degree, then TOEFL scores need to be higher. The most stressed upon a section of the TOEFL is the speaking section for this particular job. The minimum score must be 28 for good universities for them to accept your assistantship’s application.

The TOEFL test examines the comfort with which you speak and comprehend English, so the speaking and listening sections hold great importance.