There is good news for Indian students planning to study abroad. TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language), the test of English as a foreign language for Indians, will be two hours instead of three this year. If the exam duration is less than one hour then the questions without marks will also be removed from the exam.
The remarkable thing is that the students will also get the facility of a helpline 24 hours. On Tuesday, the Educational Testing Service, a US-based firm that conducts English proficiency tests for admission to foreign educational institutions, announced several changes in the test format.
The exam will now last two hours instead of three, have a shorter reading section and its free writing component will be replaced by a new task 'Writing for Academic Discussion'. This means TOEFL is now being simplified. These changes will come into effect from July 26 this year. Indian examinees will now have a dedicated customer care helpline to answer their queries.
TOEFL will now have a new, more modern 'Writing for an Academic Discussion' task, which will replace the previous independent writing task. The reading section has also been shortened and all unscored test questions have also been removed. Candidates will be able to see their official score release date after the completion of the test, in order to receive real-time notifications regarding the changes to their score status.
