Which is harder, TOEFL or GRE Verbal?

[Catria]

I am in the process of preparing for the TOEFL (since I'm unsure as to whether U Toronto or York requires the TOEFL, knowing McGill does not) but is it a good idea to use the GRE Verbal sample tests to prepare for the TOEFL?

Also, which is harder to write, TOEFL or GRE Verbal?

[johnhero2010]

from an international student perspective whose native is not English at all:
TOEFL is the easiest exam, it just need practice and i can give u a site who guarantees very height scores(of curse it is not free), but i used the free materials on it and improved a lot
GRE verbal is something much much harder and require that u memory a lot of weird words and phrases ,study roots and etc.
also what i can summary is: the practice in studying the TOEFL is a well spent time bcz every thing u study contribute to ur score. On the other hand, in GRE Verbal, there is no guarantee that if u studied alot, u will answer well. It is rather a matter of linguistic skills and pretty much i can say, luck with the ease of questions.

[Lavabug]

(caveat: I have always been bilingual, but since my university is not in an English-speaking country I still need to take the TOEFL).

I took the TOEFL with no preparation 2 weeks ago and scored 107/120. Nearly full scores in all sections except reading(22/30) because I was not wary of the time constraints, this is IMO the hardest part of the exam if you're not familiar with the format (all 4 articles and 56 questions given to you for 1:20Hrs, and you can flip back and forth(I didn't know this until I got to the 2nd article).

The speaking part is what most people seem to have trouble with on the iBT since you're basically recording yourself, with the added distraction that there are other people in the room doing the same. Try to think/write down at least 2-3 complete sentences in the 20 seconds you get to "prepare" for each of the speaking sections, content does not matter. As long as you speak clearly and coherently with no grammar or pronunciation mistakes, you won't have a problem. I got nervous and was really brief in one of the speaking sections, I REALLY thought I screwed up but I ended up with a 29/30, so that leads me to believe they're looking for proper pronunciation and coherent statements, not content at all. I should warn you though, with my accent I have always passed for an American, which may have caused the grader to be more lenient, so take that with a grain of salt.

I have not studied much for the verbal gre, but from the exercises in my official prep book it does seem a bit challenging.

[quizivex]

is it a good idea to use the GRE Verbal sample tests to prepare for the TOEFL?

There is a ton of preparation material geared specifically towards the TOEFL. Therefore, I do not think it is worth using the GRE verbal prep material in addition. Since the main goal of the TOEFL is to test basic competence with English, I doubt there is such a strong emphasis on exotic vocabulary words that dominates the verbal GRE. Did anyone here ever have to know the definition of curmudgeon, vituperative or conflagration to answer a TOEFL question? Probably not, though I must note that I've never taken the TOEFL and never seen the test. Maybe someone else can discuss whether there is significant overlap or not.

Also, which is harder to write, TOEFL or GRE Verbal?

Probably the GRE verbal because even native English speakers have a very difficult time with it.

[Catria]

I don't think the TOEFL should be an issue for me.

My sister described her first university's English placement test (Laval University) as eerily similar to a mixture of past TOEFLs.

But is the TOEFL rife with reading comprehension questions? Because I had to face multiple passages of that sort in the GRE Verbal prep material.