by Nam Bo Yeol

Almost all students who come to the United States want to study in an American university to achieve their personal careers. To be admitted to undergraduate or graduate school, international students need a Test of English as a Foreign Language score. We have to get a score in all three parts of the TOEFL, and listening comprehension is the most difficult.

Although one of the most important factors in getting a high TOEFL score is the student’s degree of devotion to study for it, I think another important factor is the condition of the testing room. The TOEFL scores of students may vary according to the conditions of the testing room.

Advertisement

When we compare the testing room at SIUC with other schools, ours is extremely terrible. The surrounding walls of the room are made of tile, which is very good for reverberation. This makes students have a hard time understanding the tape recording of the listening comprehension part.

The room is so large that the sound may be scattered, making the students unable to focus on the tape recording. To give students better testing conditions, the wall of the room should be made of soundproof materials or at least the room should be small so that the sound of the tape recording will not echo.

The desks are so small that we cannot put the testing materials and the answer sheet together. This may seem a trifling thing, but shuffling papers takes time, and time is a crucial factor in taking this test.

The chairs are linked to each other in a row, so whenever a student moves or shakes his/her body, students in the same row have a hard time enduring the noisy sound and vibration.

When we take tests we should not be distracted by physical environments with unnecessary noise, disadvantageous sound systems and other distractions.

It is evident that students who take the test at SIUC cannot get higher scores than students who take the test in other testing centers.