Caveat: Borges Takes the TOEFL

My student was tasked with a typical "Type 1" TOEFL speaking question which prompted (roughly), "What is the most remarkable book you have read?"

He spoke coherently and in detail, for the allotted 45 seconds about a book entitled "The Diaries of Mr X." 

Apparently, this book is about a student who makes many mistakes. It sounded a bit picaresque, as he described it. It has a tragic ending (suicide), but it is also uplifting because it presents things humorously. My student said he learned a lot from the book about what sorts of mistakes a middle school student should avoid, during the difficult years of puberty.

The thing is, this "book" was invented by the student on the spot.

In fact, I have many times told my students that on an "opinion question" on the TOEFL Speaking section, it is probably quite okay to lie, if it is the easiest thing to do in the moment, as long as the lie is plausible. Clearly one shouldn't lie on the summary of facts presented in other types of questions – that would cost points – but when it's a matter of opinion, one should definitely take the path of least resistance.

Indeed, in discussing this issue, I have often given the example of the quite similar prompt, "What is is your favorite book?" I try to expalin that if I were taking the test, I would never answer my true favorite book (Persiles by Cervantes), because that book is not commonly known, it's not in English anyhow, and it would be hard to explain anything about it in 45 seconds allowed. Instead I would speak broadly and generically about some anodyne prototype that would be familiar to just about anyone, such as Harry Potter. But with respect to the issue of lying specifically, I say that if one is "stumped" in the moment, don't be afraid to fudge the facts of your beliefs and preferences. Fluency counts for more than "truth," anyway. There is no way a test evaluator can know if the book being spoken about is real or not – it's not as if that person is going to go search the internet and try to verify the book's existence or compare its plot to the one presented by the test taker. They are doing a job of evaluating your spoken English, and probably are on a tight schedule (I have heard less than 2 minutes allowed per question response scored).

My advanced students have always understood the point I'm trying to make, but most of them are uncomfortable with that kind of creative improvisation.

Until last night. Certainly, I never had a student use this strategy quite so skillfully. It was downright Borgesian, in a kind of stumbling, accented, Korean-middle-school way.

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

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