头脑风暴：全英文探秘新托福口语朗阁托福考试研究中心The question II of TOEFL iBT is about Personal Preference. It asks you to express your preference from a given pair of choices. In this task, the questions mostly ask you to express an opinion and support it. Some other questions let you take a position and defend it.When responding to this question, you are to give some details and examples as well as reasons to rationalize your answer. A candidate will be given a preparation time of 15 seconds and have to make a response for 45 seconds.As a test taker, it is most important to have good skills before taking the test. And you should practice every day in order to improve yourselves. Moreover, it will be the key to success in this English proficiency test. Imagine that if a test taker review and study TOEFL iBT regularly, the more skillful test takers become, the more test takers can concentrate to do efforts and do their best work the better result you will have. The following are questions in TOEFL iBT and its answers.PeopleWho do you want to spend your time with? Explain why you would to spend the day with him or her?In this question you should tell about a person who you would want to spend time with, like your family members, classmates, neighbors and friends. And you can say the reason why you want to spend the time with them. Themost common thing you can talk about are the things that you have in common such as going shopping, going to the park, bar or restaurant hopping, going to massage in a spa. And explain why you want to do these things with them. For example, Me and my classmate likes to go bar hopping in downtown because we can drink all kinds of alcohol from beer to vodka and likes the feeling of being drunk. And also, you can also use some adjectives about their characters and personalities like charming, reserved, generous, pessimistic to describe them.Example answer:I would like to spend my time with my family members especially my cousin Jamie. She is working in a Mobile company as a sales representative. We usually spend a lot of time together because we both like going to spa every weekend to have a whole body massage to refresh ourselves from an exhausting whole –week- job. The work we have is really very stressful so it is necessary for us to find a way to unwind ourselves. Being very generous is one trait that I really like about her. She always treats me every time we go to the spa and never nag about it. So I can save some money and at the same time enjoy a relaxing massage. However, she would still save some money and be able to invest some money even if she is very generous to me.Describe an important person that is your role model. Please give your explanation and details.Test takers should talk about a specific reason why this person becomes his/her role model. Talented, Diligent, Heroic are usually the common reasons why we admire a person and becomes our role model. Excellent in singing or dancing, can memorize a hundred words in a minute or excel in cooking are good examples of talents that can be used in this question. Sleepinglate doing homework, non-stop working can describe a diligent role model or helping out in saving people during disasters, such as typhoons and earthquake can best describe heroic deeds.Example answer:An important person I want to talk about is Henry Li who is the most heroic person I really admire and I really look up to as a role model. He saved hundreds of survivors from the earthquake in Japan last year. After the disaster, he was courageous enough to save people although it was really dark and dirty. Most of the people would prefer giving donations or offer prayres from their houses but he really took the courage to go out in the actual field to help. A role model is really someone who can do extraordinary things like what he did ,and I hope one day I can do something heroic things too like Henry LI and become a role model for other people.Describe a person whom you’d like to talk with. Explain why you would like to talk with this person and what topic do you usually talk about?There are variety of topics in question II such as personal life, society and things and school. Below are examples of personal life topics:Personal Life1.Some people go straight to their destination when they travel. Other peoplevisit the nearby sights as they go to their destination. Which kind of traveling do you prefer to do and why?2.Some people work at home by themselves. Other people work at a companywith coworkers. Which method of work do you prefer and why?3.Is it better to have friends with different interests that oneself. Do you agreeor disagree?4.Some people enjoy eating familiar food. Others like to try new kinds of food.Which kind of food do you prefer and why?5.Some people lead relaxed lives. Others lead active and busy lives. Whichkind of life do you prefer to lead and Why?Example TOEFL questionSome people prefer to make many friends. Others prefer to have a small number of close friends. Which approach do you think is better and why? Use specific reasons and examples to support your preference.Reasons for making many friends:1.Some people would want to make many friends simply because they like tosocialize and mingle with other people.2.All people have different personalities. When you are friends with manydifferent kinds of people, new personality traits emerge, and you decide whether you like yourself with a certain type of people or not.3.Interacting with friends can help them gain variety of knowledges andinformations about different fields, places and things.4.Many friends can help them fulfill their ambitions and dreams since theycould receive help from them especially if they have friends working in the government or people who has high social status.5.They like to build sport teams such as basketball team, volleyball team orfrisbee that needs many people on it so they can invite their friends to join.6.When you have many friends you can share your passion around andpersuade them to like it too. For example, passion in playing on-line games, passion in teaching, passion in singing and dancing.7.If you have many friends you can compare or share your collection with themor they can help you to collect you collections such as stamps, shoes, coins.8.People with many friends can feel that they belong to the society, they canadapt to different characters, habits and thinking and at the same time learning from them.9.Some people think they are famous or feel very popular when they havemany friends because wherever they go they would meet people they know and that makes them feel good.10.W hen you have a large group of friends, you don't have to stifle yourcreativity as much because of everyone's differences in opinion. Learning how to make friends is an important skill, and one should be friends with a person because they are interesting and make one feel good, whether they have the exact same interests as you or not.11.T rue friendships are important to everyone. People hang out with theirfriends when they feel bored, they have fun together, they share each other's joys and triumphs, and confide to them.12.I t is nice to always have a shoulder to cry on, and having more friends meansthat you will be able to receive more interesting perspectives on things. 13.H aving a large group of friends will ensure that you have a life full of plans,fascinating conversations, and situations. It will help mold you as a person, teach you social skills, and expand your mind.14.S ome people want to have a huge circle of friends because they want to builda networking company.Reasons for having small number of friends:1.Having a small group of friends is maybe better because you focus moreeasily on them. Throughout your life you have different kinds of friendship as well as different stages. Those who claim that they have a large group of friends are deluding themselves. They have a lot of acquaintances but real friends are few.2.You concentrate more easily with them. You have more quality time to spendwith them. You always have time for them.3.Your friendships are more intense, honest and beautiful because you havetime for each one of them. Juggling among large group of friends is difficult 4.When you have small group of friends, you get to know your friend graduallyand through spending your time together in many situations. Thus, it is important to have friends who are unique and there for you.5. The concept of friendship is more recognized and appreciated through asmall circle of friends. A large group is more superficial. You simply cannot have time for all of them if you want to have a real and loving friendship.6. If you have small number of friends, you can remember their faces, smiles,words. And this is absolutely charming! To have them all in your heart! And knowing that they really love you and accept you!7. Size does not matter and that less is more! Sometimes small group is moreintimate and tight.Sample ResponseMy preference is to have many different friends. For starters, I have many different interests. By maintaining a large group of friends, I can maintain all of them. For example, I can watch movies with some friends, visit museums with others, and hang out at home with even more friends. If I only had a small circle of friends, I probably w ouldn’t be able to engage in as many activities as I do now. Another important thing is that I love meeting all kinds of people. My friends all have different personalities. This means I get to associate with people who are completely different from one another. So, depending upon my mood, I can choose which of my friends I’ll talk to or go out with that day.What kind of topic you talk about with this person should be tackled in this question. Subjects like magazine/newspaper articles, Stories of movieswatched or information heard are usually talked about in the society. For magazine and newspaper articles test takers can give details like sports articles, love articles, educational articles. Romantic ending or sad endings c an be affiliated with stories of movies watched. Information such as rising electric/ phone bill or decreasing water resources can be used to explain the information heard that you will talk about with the person you want to talk to.Example answer:Francis is a person I would really like to talk to because we have a lot of topics that we can talk about. Francis and me always chat in the phone or in a coffee shop until the wee hours of the morning. We usually talk about the articles that we read in the magazine about our basketball idol Kobe Bryant. In those articles we have learned about his basketball skills, lifestyle and his ambition in life. We often exchange information about him. I really enjoy talking with this guy because he is amazingly witty. He will not only tell me news about Kobe but he would also express his opinions and ideas about him. By talking with him, I think that not only I can know information about our idol but also learn from his knowledge.Which characteristic is the most important for a student to succeed? High-motivated, hardworking, intelligent?In this question,test takers should choose between high-motivated, hardworking and intelligent.High motivated students usually want to have a high score and to have a perfect score in all exams. He/she would do their homework very well and aim for the best. Hardworking students would always go to libraries to find different reference for their researches, essays or thesis. Maybe they are not very clever but they can achieve excellent marksthrough hard work. Intelligent students are those born with good brains, they may not do a lot or work but they will naturally have an ideal grades in school.Example answer:Of course, being an intelligent student is the most important characteristic a student should have to succeed. If a student is born clever, he/she would not need to excel a lot of effort to achieve an ideal mark in school. Intelligent students do not have to depend on books or teachers to learn because they can find a way to gain information and knowledge by themselves. And also, they can think of ways to solve questions or task in academics such as Mathematics or Science. Most of the intelligent students can also think of better ideas, give opinions and have their own way in solving academic task.What kind of qualities should a good leader possess? Please state your opinion and give specific details and examples in your explanation?Special characteristic should be said in this question because you have to talk about a leader. First, you have to talk about what kind of leader you want talk about. It can be a government leader, a community leader or a religion group leader. Whatever leader you choose you should be able to talk about why they can lead this group or this place. For example, being powerful, loyal, and knowledgeable can best describe leaders. Plus , test takers can also say special traits about them that can allow them to be a leader such us being keen in leading ,have strong principles or being very religious They can also state if they think he/she is a good leader or not.Example answer:A good leader should principled and disciplined person like my father Jimmy whois the leader of our community here in Xiamen. He has principles that he would want people who live in our community to follow to let us have a better place to live in. My father believes that the cleanliness and safety of our community depends on the discipline of the people who lives in it. He leads us to donate some money to be able to hire a cleaner to clean the community and also buy some garbage cans so that people would not throw anywhere. And also have some money to hire a security guard for our safety during day in and day out. I think he was a very successful leader because all the people in our community donated a fare amount of money and the money was really wisely used to obtain a better environment.（本文来自朗阁教育SAT培训教研组，供广大考生学习使用，转载请注明出处）。