updated in June of 2018. The last time this test was updated was

back in 2007. A lot of you are familiar with that test. So we've got a few

changes coming up and we want to do a quick overview of what you need to

expect. First off the test is basically the same as far as vocabulary and

grammar structures and, you know, the basic business situations that are used

during the test. So all your preparation materials for the old test, the test from

2007, can be used for this new test. So it's not a huge difference in test just

a few little format changes. You will need to replace your practice test,

however, and we'll talk about that at the end of the slideshow. First of all,

there are not going to be any changes in the number of questions, still 200.

No changes in the combined score, you know, which is 10 to 990. Supposedly there are no

changes in the difficulty. I've pointed out a few places where I think the

changes have made it a bit more difficult but ETS, the testing

organization, says that the difficulty is the same. And also the

overall length, which is two grueling hours, that's the same. Now, if we start

off with the Listening Part 1 and the changes that you're going to see. I'm

sure you're familiar with this part. We've got the photograph and then the

four statements that best describe the photograph. The 2007 test had 10 photos

and they have reduced it to six. The test

before 2007, I believe had 20 photos. So this is definitely the easiest part of

the test and the reduction in photos will will hurt the lower levels.

Listening Part 2. This could be a difficult part of the test for some test

takers because the student just listens to the question and then (the question or

statement) and then he must decide on the best response. So he listens to three

responses and, you know, there's no support. There's nothing written for him.

You've just got your answer sheet in front of you and you just go through the

questions. So it's very easy to lose your place here; difficult to stay

concentrated. They have reduced the number of these questions from thirty

down to twenty-five so I think that's a good thing for most test takers in

general because this was long, you know, and you get a neck ache keeping your

head down focused on your answer sheet. So this is a good thing.

Part Number Three. Now this is where the students listen to a conversation and

then answer three questions concerning that conversation. It's more difficult

now they've increased the number of conversations. So we've got 13 total now

and they've also increased the number of people involved in the conversation, the

number of participants, so it could be as many as three. They're still using

accents from the US, Great Britain, Canada and Australia but you've got to keep up.

The test takers will have a little bit more difficulty because there are

shorter sentences, more exchanges, because there's more people involved in the

conversation. Another new addition is that the TOEIC is trying to be more

curvrent with the way we speak instead of so, you

know, scholarly and they're including "gonna" and "wanna" so

some of the test takers who prepare for the test with TV series will like this!

There will be questions with implied meaning in the conversation so that more

advanced students will really like that because they can kind of, you know, read

between the lines, listen between the lines and pick up on these implied

meanings. And then the last change is for the three questions per conversation.

There can be a small graphic so you've got a table of data that you've got to

compare with what you're hearing during during the conversation so that's

definitely increasing the difficulty. Listening Part Four. Now these are short

talks compared to the conversations in part three and these talks, you know, they

can be an radio advertisement or an announcement at a training session

it varies. And we're also including the three questions per talk with that

little graphic and there will also be implied meaning of the talk so, you know,

we're increasing the difficulty in the listening, I believe. Now we're going

to move onto the reading section, Reading Part Five. These are the famous

fill-in-the-blank grammar questions and in the older version in 2007 they had 40

grammar questions and it ranged from linking words, pronouns, word families so

for some students who are stronger in listening skills than grammar, they hated

this section. So those "grammar haters" will be happy to see the number of

questions reduced to 30. Reading Part Six. Now this is where, you

know, it's still fill in the blank with grammar and vocabulary but it's in a

context so it's in a text. They've increased the number of texts by 4 so

there are 16 texts with 3 or 4 questions for each text. I think, you know, when we

have to choose grammar or vocabulary, it's always easier in a in a context, in

a paragraph or short text than these, you know, one-line questions. So I'm happy to

see that they've increased the number of questions in context. So here's our final

reading part, Reading Part 7 and this part is pure reading comprehension so a

lot of students who can read quickly can do well in this this part of

the test. I sometimes even advise my students to start with section with part

7, you know, because the answers are there. It's just reading comprehension. It's not

guessing at grammar or vocabulary. So they have increased the number of

questions by 5 so that's a good thing: reducing the pure grammar and increasing

the reading comprehension. Now there could be as many as 3 different

documents that the test takers have to read before answering three questions.

It's still pretty heavy-duty and difficult but if if you like reading

comprehension, you'll be happy to know that you've got five more questions. As I

said earlier, it will be important for you as teachers, as preparation teachers,

to pick up some new practice tests and they're really hard to find.

I was looking mainly on Amazon and then of course on the ETS website, you know

the one who produces the TOEIC test. I did

find three different books. Here's the first one. I was not, it's called the

TOEIC primer, and I was not able to to flip through it. It says it has updated

tests. I noticed the publication date was 2017

but on the cover it has 2018 and 2019 so I'm really

hoping that these are really updated tests and, you know, I hope it's the good

book for you guys. Here's the next book I found this is referenced as

'official' from the ETS website. The publication company is Hachette which is

French so this book is in French but it's just, you know, it's just sample

tests, practice tests so, you know, if you read French or not it really doesn't

matter. And this book has two of the older version practice tests and then

two of the newer version so I'm positive that this will be a good book to pick up.

It's got the answers so, you know, this is a good book if you don't mind that the

language is French. And then the last book I found is Barron's TOEIC

Preparation. I've used Barron's before and they, in their preparation books, they

were a little bit dry but these are practice tests and it will be in in

English and they have promised that these tests are updated. I was not able

to to flip through this book on Amazon. All three of these books run around, you

know, thirty dollars, 30 euros but you need to jump on that and get those

ordered. So if you feel like you need more information, you can go to my

website www.BusinessEnglishAllure.com and you can read the full bog blog post with

all the details. and I've also got links to all the official

documents that ETS provides. they've got the official guide, test-takers guide and

there's also a mini sample test which is a really short version. Unfortunately,

there's no audio just the tape scripts but you might, you know, just give it a

try and see if you notice a big difference in "gonna" and "wanna"

and implied meanings. There's also in this blog post, there are some

dates coming up for workshops to explain the new updates and you can find

those dates on my website, as well. So I'm looking forward to seeing you sign up

for my newsletter and we'll see you on the website!