yossup

As someone who learned english early, English seems like such an easy language. After all, it only has 25 letters in the alphabet. Compare this with Chinese. That being said, after observing many international students, I've come to realize that English is no easier that any other language. English may only have 25 letters but there are so many phrases or "ways of speaking/writing" that go against the official rules. Basically, there's a ton of exceptions which make it difficult for foreigners to learn English.

I loved the Bourne Identity series, especially the first one. It was a good mix of action, thriller, and drama. I've always wondered if there really are agents like Jason Bourne but we'll never know, would we? haha

George Carlin is my favorite English comedian. The reason is that he goes beyond petty jokes simply to draw a laugh from the crowd. His comedy routines always dealt with issues that were actually important and made you think when watching his skits. Of course, one didn't necessarily always agree with his points but without a doubt, his comedy had more gravitas too it despite being so funny.

I used to hate using dictionaries when they were in paper-format only because it just took so god damn long to find a word and learn it. Nowadays, learning new words have become so easy due to the advent of the internet. If you have a macbook, you'd know that you don't even need to look up a word now. Simply tap a word with three fingers and it'll automatically show the definition.

I don't know about you guys but if you're into self-improvement book, you guys should check out outliers. It's a book that talks about how success is made, not born. It really motivated me to work harder and to situate myself in an environment that helps me work harder. This book is where the whole 10,000 hours of practice quote came from.

Chinese is my next language I'd like to learn. It's too bad though that it just seems like such a difficult language to learn. Memorization is not my strong-suit but it seems like memorization is a big, big part of the language. I don't particularly like how the language sounds though; it's more for practical reasons.

I don't know your English background and what university you're referring to but the TOEIC sadly isn't very representative of good english. The english required to score well on the TOEIC can easily be learned; basically one can learn how to game the test. It's sad that the TOEIC is still so popular though.

You just need to focus on yourself. I know it's pretty annoying that they put us in a room with plenty others since it can be very distracting but just try to look at the test as a test of yourself. It's not just a knowledge test but how well you can concentrate and focus. You should do better next time simply by increasing your focus.

Keep in mind that the ACT has a science section so if you're not comfortable with science, it's probably to just do the SAT. That being said, the english section is much easier on the ACT. You don't have to know a bunch of hard vocabulary so if you're vocabulary isn't amazing, you already have an advantage with the ACT.

To everyone taking the sat in the future, keep in mind that the test is undergoing significant revisions. There will be much less emphasis on archaic vocabulary so if you're worried about ancient vocabulary showing up, don't worry about it too much. Gone are the days where you'll have to memorize random lists of words that nobody really uses anymore.