When you apply to college in an English-speaking country such as the U.S., the U.K. or Australia, you may have to prove that you speak English well enough to keep up with coursework. Taking the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) is a great way to do that. But– what is the TOEFL and what’s a good TOEFL score?

What is the TOEFL?

The TOEFL iBT (internet based test) tests English proficiency through listening, reading, speaking, and writing… keep reading

What is the score range?

TOEFL iBT scores range from 0 to 120.
There are four sections (listening, reading, speaking, and writing) and you can score… keep reading

What is a good TOEFL score?

Last year, 52% of English-language school applicants scored an 80 or above on the TOEFL iBT. Only 15% scored over 100. Therefore, if you can get over an 80 then you are doing pretty well. If you can get over 100, well, that’s excellent.

Of course, a good TOEFL score is… keep reading

See full article for a table of percentile ranks for TOEFL scores

What if my score is really low?

Some schools offer “conditional acceptance,” which allows you to take intensive English lessons before starting regular university classes. For example… keep reading

How often can I take it?

How much does it cost and where do I register?

The registration fee… keep reading

Maija Wallace is a freelance writer for college admissions blogs. Her website is located at www.travelinglang.us

The PSAT is the qualifying test for the National Merit Scholarship. Unfortunately, National Merit is only awarded to students who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents. That’s why taking the PSAT as an international student may not seem obvious. After all, why does the PSAT matter if you aren’t going to get National Merit?

It turns our that, even if you are not a U.S. citizen, it might still be a good idea to take the PSAT. Here’s why:

1. Get courted by universities

When you take the PSAT as an international student, you can opt-in to the Student Search Service. This is a free program that lets you look up colleges and scholarship opportunities.

It also gives certain colleges and scholarships information about you. That means that… keep reading

2. Discover your weaknesses

Taking the PSAT is a great way to predict how you will do on the SAT — and start paying more attention to those areas where you are weak.

“PSAT scores can give students a good indication of how they might score on the SAT if they were to take the test with no additional practice or preparation.”
— Dan Edmonds, Forbes Magazine

You normally take the PSAT as a sophomore or a junior in high school. That means that you will have one or two years after taking it before you need to take the real SAT and apply to colleges. If you find…

Keep reading this article where it was originally published, at college.edu.sg

Dabiq is the magazine put out by the Islamic State.

Out of curiosity, I read what they have to say about Muslim mourning for women. This is what I learned.

In a strictly academic sense, I found the information in Dabiq to be quite interesting. It hints at a culture that I have never experienced. A culture that is almost completely at odds with my ideas of human rights and female empowerment.

According to the magazine, Muslim mourning for women involves dressing in black and avoiding jewelry and perfume for 4 months and 10 days after the death of her husband.

Or until a baby is born if she is pregnant.

This did not immediately strike me as odd considering that mourning is a tradition in many countries and cultures. I assume that the exact specification of 4 months and 10 days comes from the Qu’ran, and it is probably meant to help a woman steer clear of sexual relations with another partner until she is sure that she isn’t carrying her dead husband’s child. This advice seems outdated in a world where pregnancy tests exist and dressing up doesn’t mean that you will have sex, but I can see where it came from.

Yet, here is one particularity about the mourning process that caught my attention:

It says that a woman should use a small amount of perfume “over the area where there was blood” to “mask the smell” at the end of her period each month.

To me, this seems like not only a bad idea (would that not give you an infection?) but also rather insulting. After all, it suggests that menstrual blood smells so bad that it calls for the one case where you should to break your mourning! Talk about insulting a heart-broken woman.

Personally, I don’t think that menstrual blood really smells. I also think I would be quite angry with anyone who tried to tell me otherwise.

Furthermore, women must mourn in the house where they lived with their husband.

Barring that, they should stay in the house where they learned of his death (as long as affordable, etc). They must also sleep at home and be home by midnight. In fact, they should stay at home whenever possible and let others do errands for them, leaving only “occasionally and only for good reasons.” They shouldn’t even go to weddings or leave the house if they are pregnant.

Although I am not a psychologist, the isolation that would come with never leaving the house seems a terrible idea for a grief stricken individual.

Here is another interesting fact:

Man can’t give widows direct marriage proposals during mourning. But they can insinuate such proposals– even if a woman cannot promise to marry him until after the mourning is over.

I can get behind the moral guidance of suggesting a man not propose to a women while in mourning. Whether dictated by religion or society, it seems like doing otherwise would be disrespectful. However, suggesting that it is okay to insinuate a marriage proposal begs many questions. How would such insinuation play out? What if the woman doesn’t want a man to insinuate anything? In the eyes of ISIS, does she have the right to tell him to shut up and leave her alone?

The last interesting thing I learned was that the women is not supposed to drag out mourning or “exaggerate” it.

She is supposed to get through her 4 months and 10 days. Then, make herself eligible for marriage again.

But what if she needs to mourn for longer? I don’t believe that grief can be controlled.

It seems like these rules could make for a mentally very unhealthy situation: a grief-stricken woman is expected to “get over” the death of her husband in a specific amount of time, all while being isolated from others, told she smells bad, and flirted with by unwanted men.

Having lived in Senegal for a short time, I know that Islam does not have to repress females. But it would seem that the rules for Muslim mourning described here comes from a version of Islam that truly is not favorable for women.