Now that I've already applied to all of my desirable colleges, it's time to look back at my experiences, identify mistakes that I've made and new things that I've found out.I began my preparation for TOEFL long before, sometime after the summer of 2010. I used Longman's preparation book which is really extensive, but its main flaw is that it's unofficial and it doesn't even bearly represent the real hardness of the exam. Unfortunately, I found that out after I took the exam the first time in December. On the day of the exam, I entered an examination room with confidence, being quite sure that nothing could go wrong. I strove to at least a 100/120 result. However, texts in the exam were incomparably harder that those in my preparation book, and they were even longer. Also, many questions were ambiguous with a couple of nearly the same answers, so I had to guess answers to those questions. In the listening part I got the weakest score of all, which was totally unexpectable.
My final result of my first take was quite a disappointment for me (94/120) : Reading (25/30), Listening (21/30), Speaking (23/30), Writing (25/30).
So I decided to retake the test in January. In order to prepare myself better I lent an official study guide from ETS, used some time reading the passages, I worked on my speaking by speaking English in my non-English speaker family, which was rather awkward, but it was worth the effort. My second result was 9 points higher than the first one (103/120) which was very satisfying: Reading (26/30), Listening (27/30), Speaking (23/30), Writing (27/30).
To sum up, if I were to do it all over again, I wouldn't take so much time to prepare for the exam. I would take no more than a month and make an intense preparation, which has worked out for me on the second take of the exam. My advice is also to use that valuable time to prepare for the SAT, which certainly needs more time to prepare. Additionally, I would try to use an official study guide published by the ETS.
TOEFL is not a hard exam if you know how to prepare for it. Spending some money on the preparation courses isn't a bad idea at all. Taking a good, intense preparation course will surely be cost-effective, if you're not a fluent English speaker and if you need serious preparation. For example, in my case for taking the TOEFL twice, which is a result of bad and amateur preparation, I spent more than 450 $. Test fee is 180$, and additional reports to the colleges are 17$ each. A little bit of simple math and there's the cost. I hope that my experience is helpful.
L.