brought shame to his country. c. deserved to be removed from power. made the wrong choice.
Chapter 3
Structure
W
hen you communicate in writing, you make a per- manent impression. When you talk, you may abbre-
viate words, leave sentences unfinished, or use
informal words and phrases, but when you write, you must fol- low the grammatical constructions of formal English. Admis-
sions officers will want to know if you have the ability to express yourself clearly and correctly in written English—an essential skill
in college. The structure section of the TOEFL exam measures your knowledge of English grammar and style. It presents you
with sentences that you need to correct by filling in a blank or by identifying a grammatical error. The sentences will cover top-
ics similar to those in college courses like history, biology, soci- ology, and art. However, you do not need to have specific
knowledge of these topics to answer the questions in the struc- ture test.
49
50 TOEFL EXAM ESSENTIALS
QUESTION TYPES IN THE STRUCTURE SECTION
There are two basic kinds of questions on the structure section of both the computer-based and paper-based exams:
■
Sentence completion. This question type presents a sentence with a blank. From four possible answer
choices, you will select the one word or phrase that correctly completes the sentence. Here are some
examples: