Minggu, 09 Juni 2013

pengertian dan contoh soal toefl

Pengertian toefl

Toefl merupakan proficiency test, maksudnya tes yang baru digunakan untuk mengukur kemampuan bahasa inggris seseorang tanpa dikaitkan secara langsung dengan proses belajar mengajar. Toefl sendiri berbedadengan achievement test, yaitu tes yang lingkup ujinya terbatas pada bahan yang telah dipelajari siswa dalam satu kelas bahasa inggris. Toefl mencakup empat aspek yaitu (1) Listening Comprehension, (2) Structure and Written Expression, (3) Reading Comprehension, dan yang terakhir yaitu (4) Test of Written English (TWE).

      Dalam Toefl ada 3 macam tes yaitu International Toefl Test, Institutional Toefl Test, dan Toefl Like Test. Perbedaannya adalah bahwa soal International Toefl selalu dalam bentuk baru dalam setiap pelaksanaan tesnya, sedangkan soal Institutional Test dan Toefl Like Test bersumber pada soal-soal beberapa tahun sebelumnya dari International Toefl Test.

       Masa berlaku suatu tes Toefl berbeda-beda. Untuk International Toefl Test,dua tahun yang dapat diterima di seluruh universitas di dunia. Hasil ini juga dapat digunakan untuk melamar beasiswa ke luar negeri. Bagi Institutional Toefl Test, masa berlakuknya hanya enam bulan, biayanya jauh lebih rendah dan murah, tidak dapat digunakan untuk mendaftar ke universitas di luar negeri tetapi ada kalanya dapat dipakai untuk melamar beasiswa ke luar negeri. Toefl Like Test digunakan untuk mendaftar ke universitas luar negeri, namun dapat memenuhi persyaratan universitas tertentu di indonesia.











In the middle of the night, as most of New York slept, something big and bright lit up the Manhattan skyline for just seconds—a tightly kept secret to all but a handful of people.
It was a tiny test for the huge public surprise four days later: the flipping of a switch at the Empire State Building to turn on its dancing new LED lights. They burst from the skyscraper while synchronized with R&B star Alicia Keys singing "Empire State of Mind" on nationwide radio.
The LED system has "16.7 million color possibilities, in digital combinations of ripples, sparkles, sweeps and strobes," says Phil O'Donnell, of Burlington, Mass.-based Philips Color Kinetics that's responsible for the system and worked with a resident lighting designer. "It's the sum of all possibilities — a huge palette."
The old lights came in only 10 colors.
From Manhattan and the Bronx to Staten Island and even New Jersey, "there were hundreds of thousands of people on the streets looking up, filming and videoing, clustered on street corners," when the new lights came on, said Anthony Malkin, whose family controls the iconic Art Deco building.
In an interview with The Associated Press at his office, he glowed with pleasure describing Monday night's inaugural light show.
Keys also sang "Girl On Fire" from her new CD.
After all, the 102-story skyscraper "has always been a symbol of what's possible in New York, and all the dreams that can come true in this city that never sleeps," Keys, a New York native, said before her performance, which was ready on tracks while she watched from a Manhattan studio.
Malkin and his technical team wanted to test the new lighting system with as few people noticing as possible and chose early Thanksgiving morning.
Good luck, in the middle of Manhattan, with people walking around even at 2:30 a.m.
That seemed the best moment, after most bars close and before dawn.
"We decided to do it facing west, in very short bursts between 2:30 a.m. and 3 a.m., because we knew we didn't have a camera trained on us from there," Malkin said.
Apparently, the secret test worked. No images of the Empire State Building alight that night appeared anywhere, as far as Malkin knows.
To stage the show, he worked with Clear Channel radio, which has 239 million monthly listeners in the United States.
The lights are part of a larger effort to modernize the 81-year-old edifice that is undergoing a more than half a billion-dollar renovation that includes making it "green." The computerized LED system will cut energy consumption by more than half, while delivering light and vibrancy superior to the old floodlights, which have huge timpani drum-size lenses that had to be changed every so often, O'Donnell said.
They may still have nostalgic value to some who watched them light up New York City for every special occasion from Christmas to the Fourth of July.
They were part of "the grande dame of the New York skyline, now state-of-the-art, but still stately," says Malkin, adding that the light show was "a gift we gave to the world, these lights. We don't get paid for this."
On a sunny Wednesday afternoon, with a spectacular view of the new World Trade Center and New York Harbor, a vacant space under reconstruction on the building's 72nd floor was filled with the retired floodlights, sitting side by side in long lines, veterans of years of New York weather. What will be done with them is also a secret — for now.
One old light will not be discarded in favor of a 21st century novelty: a red beacon — "half the size of a Volkswagen Beetle," as Malkin puts it — that serves as a warning signal for aircraft constantly flying over New York City.


1. What is the primary purpose of the first sentence of the article? 
A) To explain that New Yorkers are commonly asleep in the middle of the night.
B) To mislead readers into thinking the light flash was some sort of attack
C) To build suspense and curiosity so that the reader wants to know more”
D) To suggest that there is a secret organization working late at night at the Empire State Building

2. The phrase “huge palette” in Paragraph 3 is most likely
A) A metaphor for the scope and range of combinations the new LED lights have
B) A literal explanation of the shape of the new lights, which form an artist’s palette
C) An extreme over exaggeration meant to draw more onlookers to the new display
D) A way to emphasize the amount of lights, since 16.7 could never fit onto a palette

3. What does Alicia Keys suggest the Empire State building is a symbol of?
A) A way for Americans to have a landmark similar to other major global cities
B) The iconic American capacity to push boundaries and break new ground in art and architecture.
C) Lights that are always on due to the number of New Yorkers who work night shifts
D) That any person can use the new lights as a way to make a wish, as people do with other world landmarks.

4. To help keep the new lights secret during their initial test, all precautions were taken EXCEPT:
A) Conducting the test in the middle of the night
B) Conducting the test facing west, away from cameras
C) Conducting the test in short bursts, so that there was no sustained lighting
D) Conducting the test with additional sound effects to distract anyone who might be on the street

5. What was the primary reason Malkin and his team choose to test the new LED lights in the middle of the night?
A) Because the lights are impossible to see in the daylight
B) So that no spies would be awake to steal the new lighting design
C) Because his team only works at night, to enhance their creativity
D) So that when they made the formal reveal to the city and world, it would be a true surprise

6. How does the new LED display contribute to the Empire State Building’s efforts to become more “green”?
A) The lights will be bright enough to reflect into the building, allowing less lighting to be used indoors
B) The new lighting will consume almost half the amount of energy the old lights did
C) The lights can become green in color, to cover the entire building
D) The lights will be solar-powered, generating their own electricity.

7. The article suggests that some older people might miss the old lights. Why is this?
A) The elderly who have poorer eyesight have an easier time seeing the old lights
B) The older generation might not understand the technology behind the new LED lighting
C) Those who used to work in the Empire State Building will no longer be able to recognize it without the old, larger lights
D) The old lights represented momentous occasions in American history, and may still have nostalgic value 8. In the second-to-last paragraph, the old floodlights are described as “veterans.” What is the most suitable explanation for this word in context?
A) The old lights have worked through the years, despite harsh weather conditions and continual use for special occassions
B) The old lights have been up through many previous wars, making them literal veterans
C) The old lights were dedicated to the Empire State Building to memorialize war heroes
D) The old lights were only used before to celebrate Veteran’s Day

9. Currently, how many of the former lights are set to be preserved for a specific purpose? 
A) All, to replace other major lights around the city
B) None, they are all set to be discarded entirely
C) Five, spaced across Central Park for more light and better security
D) One, to serve as a warning beacon for aircraft

10. Why might it be important for the Empire State’s global image to replace its lighting?
A) To represent that it is both environmentally conscious as well as technologically advanced
B) To prove that other world landmarks are not as spectacular
C) To suggest that despite its being decades-old, the Empire State Building is still relevant
D) To provide New Yorkers and visitors with better entertainment

Language diversity has always been part of the national demographic landscape of the United States. At the time of the first census in 1790, about 25% of the population spoke languages other than English (Lepore, 2002). Thus, there was a diverse pool of native speakers of other languages at the time of the founding of the republic. Today, nationwide, school districts have reported more than 400 languages spoken by language-minority students classified as limited English proficient (LEP) students (Kindler, 2002). Between 1991 and 2002, total K-12 student enrollment rose only 12%, whereas LEP student enrollment increased 95% during this same time period (National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition, 2002b). This rapid increase and changing demographics has intensified the long debate over the best way to educate language-minority students.
Historically, many groups attempted to maintain their native languages even as they learned English, and for a time, some were able to do so with relatively little resistance until a wave of xenophobia swept the country during World War 1 (Kloss, 1977/1998). Other groups, Africans, and Native Americans encountered repressive politics much earlier. During the 1960s, a more tolerant policy climate emerged. However, for the past two decades there has been a steady undertow of resistance to bilingualism and bilingual education. This article provides historical background and analyzes contemporary trends in language-minority education within the context of the recent national push for accountability, which typically takes the form of high-stakes testing.
The origins of persistent themes regarding the popular antagonisms toward bilingual education and the prescribed panaceas of “English immersion” and high-stakes testing in English need to be scrutinized. As background to the contemporary context, we briefly discuss the history of language politics in the United States and the ideological underpinnings of the dominant monolingual English ideology. We analyze the recent attacks on bilingual education for what this attack represents for educational policy within a multilingual society such as the United States. We emphasize multilingual because most discussions of language policy are framed as if monolingualism were part of our heritage from which we are now drifting. Framing the language policy issues in this way masks both the historical and contemporary reality and positions non-English language diversity as an abnormality that must be cured. Contrary to the steady flow of disinformation, we begin with the premise that even as English has historically been the dominant language in the United States since the colonial era, language diversity has always been a fact of life. Thus, efforts to deny that reality represent a “malady of mind” (Blaut, 1993) that has resulted in either restrictionist or repressive language policies for minorities.
As more states ponder imposing restrictions on languages of instruction other than English—as California, Arizona, and Massachusetts have recently done—it is useful to highlight several questions related to the history of language politics and language planning in the United States. Educational language planning is frequently portrayed as an attempt to solve the language problems of the minority. Nevertheless, the historical record indicates that schools have generally failed to meet the needs of language-minority students (Deschenes, Cuban, & Tyack, 2001) and that the endeavor to plan language behavior by forcing a rapid shift to English has often been a source of language problems that has resulted in the denial of language rights and hindered linguistic access to educational, social, economic, and political benefits even as the promoters of English immersion claim the opposite.
The dominance of English was established under the British during the colonial period, not by official decree but through language status achievement, that is, through “the legitimization of a government’s decisions regarding acceptable language for those who are to carry out the political, economic, and social affairs of the political process” (Heath, 1976, p.51). English achieved dominance as a result of the political and socioeconomic trade between England and colonial administrators, colonists, and traders. Other languages coexisted with English in the colonies with notable exceptions. Enslaved Africans were prohibited from using their native tongues for fear that it would facilitate resistance or rebellion. From the 1740s forward, southern colonies simultaneously institutionalized “compulsory ignorance” laws that prohibited those enslaved from acquiring English literacy for similar reasons. These restrictive slave codes were carried forward as the former southern colonies became states of the newly United States and remained in force until the end of the Civil War in 1865 (Weinberg, 1977/1995). Thus, the very first formal language policies were restrictive with the explicit purpose of promoting social control.
Top of Form
1. What is the primary purpose of including the statistic from the 1790 census in the introductory paragraph?
A) To explain how colonizing the US eradicated language diversity
B) To show concrete evidence that language diversity in the US is not a new phenomenon
C) To note that before that time, there was no measure of language diversity in the US
D) To demonstrate that census data can be inaccurate


2. The article compares two sets of statistics from the years 1991-2002, increases in K-12 enrollment and increases in LEP students, to highlight.
A) That the two numbers, while often cited in research, are insignificant
B) That while many people with school-age children immigrated to the US during this time, an equal amount left the country as well
C) That language diversity had no impact on US student enrollment during this time
D) That while the total amount of students enrolled in US schools may have grown slowly, the amount of those students who were LEP increased dramatically


3. According to the second paragraph, many groups maintained their native languages without resistance into the 20th century EXCEPT
A) Native Americans and African Americans
B) Irish Americans and African Americans
C) Mexican Americans and Native Americas
D) Native Americans and Dutch Americans


4. Why is the word “undertow” emphasized in the second paragraph?
A) To explain how certain groups continued to carry their native languages with them despite the opposition from those against language diversity
B) To show the secretive and sneaky nature of those opposed to language diversity
C) To call attention to the ebb and flow of language resistance during the 20th century, experiencing periods of both rest and extremism
D) To explain that, while many groups tried to maintain their native languages, many gave in to social and political pressure to use only English


5. What is the best way to describe the function of the third paragraph in this excerpt?.
A) The paragraph provides its primary thesis as well an outline of the article’s main points
B) The paragraph is an unnecessary and irrelevant inclusion
C) The paragraph serves to reveal the conclusions of the article before detailing the data
D) The paragraph firmly establishes the article’s stance against language diversity


6. What is the best summary of why the phrase “multilingualism” is emphasized in the third paragraph?
A) Language repression stems from the US’s unwillingness to recognize the languages of its foreign allies
B) Because language is constantly changing and often goes through multiple phases over time
C) The authors firmly believe that speaking more than one language gives students a substantial benefit in higher education.
D) Language policy discussions often assumes that the US has a monolinguistic history, which is untrue and poses language diversity as threatening


7. Phrases such as “prescribed panaceas” and “malady of the mind” are used in the third paragraph to
A) Defend the point that the US must standardize its language education or there will be severe results
B) Point out that language is as much a physical process as an intellectual one
C) Illustrate how certain opponents of language diversity equate multilingual education with a kind of national disease
D) Demonstrate how the stress of learning multiple languages can make students ill


8. According to the fourth paragraph, all of the following are potential negatives of rapid English immersion EXCEPT:
A) It can lead to a denial of language rights for particular groups
B) Students become more familiar with conversational expressions and dialect
C) It can prevent access to certain benefits that are always available to fluent speakers
D) It can promote feelings of alienation among groups that are already in a minority status


9. The best alternate definition of “language status achievement” is 
A) When enough scholarly work has been produced in a language, it is officially recognized
B) Those who are in power socially and economically determine the status of a language
C) Languages fall into a hierarchy depending upon the numbers of populations that speak them
D) The position of a language in which no others may coexist with it


10. From the context of the final paragraph, what does “compulsory ignorance” mean?
A) Populations at the time were required only to obtain a certain low level of education
B) Slave populations were compelled to only speak in their native languages and not learn English
C) That slaves were forcibly prevented from developing their native language skills out of fear that they would gain power
D) Slave owners would not punish slaves who did not wish to learn and speak only English
Bottom of Form

Language diversity has always been part of the national demographic landscape of the United States. At the time of the first census in 1790, about 25% of the population spoke languages other than English (Lepore, 2002). Thus, there was a diverse pool of native speakers of other languages at the time of the founding of the republic. Today, nationwide, school districts have reported more than 400 languages spoken by language-minority students classified as limited English proficient (LEP) students (Kindler, 2002). Between 1991 and 2002, total K-12 student enrollment rose only 12%, whereas LEP student enrollment increased 95% during this same time period (National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition, 2002b). This rapid increase and changing demographics has intensified the long debate over the best way to educate language-minority students.
Historically, many groups attempted to maintain their native languages even as they learned English, and for a time, some were able to do so with relatively little resistance until a wave of xenophobia swept the country during World War 1 (Kloss, 1977/1998). Other groups, Africans, and Native Americans encountered repressive politics much earlier. During the 1960s, a more tolerant policy climate emerged. However, for the past two decades there has been a steady undertow of resistance to bilingualism and bilingual education. This article provides historical background and analyzes contemporary trends in language-minority education within the context of the recent national push for accountability, which typically takes the form of high-stakes testing.
The origins of persistent themes regarding the popular antagonisms toward bilingual education and the prescribed panaceas of “English immersion” and high-stakes testing in English need to be scrutinized. As background to the contemporary context, we briefly discuss the history of language politics in the United States and the ideological underpinnings of the dominant monolingual English ideology. We analyze the recent attacks on bilingual education for what this attack represents for educational policy within a multilingual society such as the United States. We emphasize multilingual because most discussions of language policy are framed as if monolingualism were part of our heritage from which we are now drifting. Framing the language policy issues in this way masks both the historical and contemporary reality and positions non-English language diversity as an abnormality that must be cured. Contrary to the steady flow of disinformation, we begin with the premise that even as English has historically been the dominant language in the United States since the colonial era, language diversity has always been a fact of life. Thus, efforts to deny that reality represent a “malady of mind” (Blaut, 1993) that has resulted in either restrictionist or repressive language policies for minorities.
As more states ponder imposing restrictions on languages of instruction other than English—as California, Arizona, and Massachusetts have recently done—it is useful to highlight several questions related to the history of language politics and language planning in the United States. Educational language planning is frequently portrayed as an attempt to solve the language problems of the minority. Nevertheless, the historical record indicates that schools have generally failed to meet the needs of language-minority students (Deschenes, Cuban, & Tyack, 2001) and that the endeavor to plan language behavior by forcing a rapid shift to English has often been a source of language problems that has resulted in the denial of language rights and hindered linguistic access to educational, social, economic, and political benefits even as the promoters of English immersion claim the opposite.
The dominance of English was established under the British during the colonial period, not by official decree but through language status achievement, that is, through “the legitimization of a government’s decisions regarding acceptable language for those who are to carry out the political, economic, and social affairs of the political process” (Heath, 1976, p.51). English achieved dominance as a result of the political and socioeconomic trade between England and colonial administrators, colonists, and traders. Other languages coexisted with English in the colonies with notable exceptions. Enslaved Africans were prohibited from using their native tongues for fear that it would facilitate resistance or rebellion. From the 1740s forward, southern colonies simultaneously institutionalized “compulsory ignorance” laws that prohibited those enslaved from acquiring English literacy for similar reasons. These restrictive slave codes were carried forward as the former southern colonies became states of the newly United States and remained in force until the end of the Civil War in 1865 (Weinberg, 1977/1995). Thus, the very first formal language policies were restrictive with the explicit purpose of promoting social control.
Top of Form
1. What is the primary purpose of including the statistic from the 1790 census in the introductory paragraph?
A) To explain how colonizing the US eradicated language diversity
B) To show concrete evidence that language diversity in the US is not a new phenomenon
C) To note that before that time, there was no measure of language diversity in the US
D) To demonstrate that census data can be inaccurate


2. The article compares two sets of statistics from the years 1991-2002, increases in K-12 enrollment and increases in LEP students, to highlight.
A) That the two numbers, while often cited in research, are insignificant
B) That while many people with school-age children immigrated to the US during this time, an equal amount left the country as well
C) That language diversity had no impact on US student enrollment during this time
D) That while the total amount of students enrolled in US schools may have grown slowly, the amount of those students who were LEP increased dramatically


3. According to the second paragraph, many groups maintained their native languages without resistance into the 20th century EXCEPT
A) Native Americans and African Americans
B) Irish Americans and African Americans
C) Mexican Americans and Native Americas
D) Native Americans and Dutch Americans


4. Why is the word “undertow” emphasized in the second paragraph?
A) To explain how certain groups continued to carry their native languages with them despite the opposition from those against language diversity
B) To show the secretive and sneaky nature of those opposed to language diversity
C) To call attention to the ebb and flow of language resistance during the 20th century, experiencing periods of both rest and extremism
D) To explain that, while many groups tried to maintain their native languages, many gave in to social and political pressure to use only English


5. What is the best way to describe the function of the third paragraph in this excerpt?.
A) The paragraph provides its primary thesis as well an outline of the article’s main points
B) The paragraph is an unnecessary and irrelevant inclusion
C) The paragraph serves to reveal the conclusions of the article before detailing the data
D) The paragraph firmly establishes the article’s stance against language diversity


6. What is the best summary of why the phrase “multilingualism” is emphasized in the third paragraph?
A) Language repression stems from the US’s unwillingness to recognize the languages of its foreign allies
B) Because language is constantly changing and often goes through multiple phases over time
C) The authors firmly believe that speaking more than one language gives students a substantial benefit in higher education.
D) Language policy discussions often assumes that the US has a monolinguistic history, which is untrue and poses language diversity as threatening


7. Phrases such as “prescribed panaceas” and “malady of the mind” are used in the third paragraph to
A) Defend the point that the US must standardize its language education or there will be severe results
B) Point out that language is as much a physical process as an intellectual one
C) Illustrate how certain opponents of language diversity equate multilingual education with a kind of national disease
D) Demonstrate how the stress of learning multiple languages can make students ill


8. According to the fourth paragraph, all of the following are potential negatives of rapid English immersion EXCEPT:
A) It can lead to a denial of language rights for particular groups
B) Students become more familiar with conversational expressions and dialect
C) It can prevent access to certain benefits that are always available to fluent speakers
D) It can promote feelings of alienation among groups that are already in a minority status


9. The best alternate definition of “language status achievement” is 
A) When enough scholarly work has been produced in a language, it is officially recognized
B) Those who are in power socially and economically determine the status of a language
C) Languages fall into a hierarchy depending upon the numbers of populations that speak them
D) The position of a language in which no others may coexist with it


10. From the context of the final paragraph, what does “compulsory ignorance” mean?
A) Populations at the time were required only to obtain a certain low level of education
B) Slave populations were compelled to only speak in their native languages and not learn English
C) That slaves were forcibly prevented from developing their native language skills out of fear that they would gain power
D) Slave owners would not punish slaves who did not wish to learn and speak only English
Bottom of Form