Знаете ли вы про тест на знание английского языка TOEFL? Если да, то вот что я думаю по поводу его сдачи, через которую имел "удовольствие" пройти в минувшую пятницу:

I’m not a pro in blogging, but there’s one thing I start to enjoy about it: the relatively good accessibility of my opinion to the public AND the ability to express my opinion on some tricky questions with few risks to be penalized or sued.

Talking about TOEFL is the very case when it’s hard for me to stay prudent. The test has evolutionized greatly since I took it 7 or 9 years ago; now it’s all about interactivity and Internet. But, as it turned out, the proud abbreviation iBT (Internet-Based Test) conceals the whole bunch of problems for test-takers around the globe.

Consider the first step: registration for the test. The ETS website which administers the program seems to be overloaded half of the time! My first attempts to register on-line failed, as the memorable and disappointing "too many users right now" message appeared. Only on the second day did my efforts pay back. Why, guys, if you’re so tough you’re making a web-based test, and take more than a hundred bucks for it, couldn’t you simply upgrade your servers to meet the user account needs? It’s so convenient to stay there, on the other end of the line, protected by foreign lawyers and safely written terms of use, isn’t it? And your motto "Communicate with confidence" is just a nice slogan…

If you think that the problems end here, you’re wrong. TOEFL itself has evolved into a test that aims to expose you to a whole bunch of tricky tasks which even a native English speaker can get confused about. Consider this one for instance: you are asked to pick a synonym to a word in bold in the text you read. I clutched my head a couple of times during the test, because not a single, but a couple of synonyms to choose from were relevant in the context, and you had to "think TOEFL checkers" to pick the right one! The "independent speaking" section seems to bring you closer to misery, too. At least that was what I felt when I was given 15 seconds to prepare a logically-structured answer to an analytical question, and only 40 or 60 seconds to answer to it.  And you really need to take down shorthand the text you’re listening to in "Listening" section not to skip minor details you’ll be asked about later.

You can take a TOEFL preparation course(often for an additional payment), no problem with that, but it can’t help you overcome all the difficulties mentioned above if you’re not really language-savvy and scientifically–heeled.

Being tough on TOEFL-takers is so convenient and easy: they don’t have any choice, anyway. They can run, but they can’t hide: in two year’s time TOEFL should be re-taken, for the same price and with new surprises to come. This might happen even earlier, though, because they might want to earn a higher score than the one they received…