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Originally Posted by metalgeek
To a large extent IETLS/TOEFL and the like have become a bit of a joke, since students are now being taught exactly how to pass it, even if they have rudimentry English skills at best.
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Woah there! I'm gonna have to disagree on that, metalgeek. At my school, any student that wants to take TOEFL or TOEIC has to have advanced grammar, skills (reading / writing / vocab) and conversation levels.
TOEFL is made for students who want to study at an English university (in Montreal, that means McGill or Concordia), and is designed to make them ready to tackle a wide variety of subjects.
TOEIC is more for students who need English certification for jobs (mostly in Asia), and focusses on grammar and listening skills, rather than oral fluency.
In both tests, questions are changed constantly and nobody gets the same one twice. It is therefore impossible to train a student on how to answer specific questions. Classes are designed to give students the ability to understand and adapt to each exam (some people take the tests more than once just to be exposed to different questions).
My school doesn't offer classes on IETLS preparation, so I can't comment on that one. However, as I've taught classes on TOEIC and TOEFL, let me assure that rudimentary English skills are NOT enough to pass!