Social class matters a lot it used to.

    Ammie Reddick from East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, was only 18 months old when she had the accident that had scarred (留下创伤) her for life. The child reached up to get a hot bottle in the family kitchen and poured boiling water over her body.

    Her mother Ruby turned round and, seeing Ammie badly burnt, rushed her daughter to a nearby hospital. Twenty percent of Ammie's body had been burned and all of her burns were third-degree. There, doctors performed an operation that took about six hours to control her injuries. Over the next 16 years, Ammie received 12 more operations to repair her body.

    When she started school at Maxwelton Primary at age 4, other pupils said cruel words or simply wouldn't play with her. “I was the only burned child in the street, the class and the school,” she said, “some children refused to become friends because of that.”

    Today, aged 17, Ammie can only ever remember being a burned person with scars; pain is apermanentpart of her body. She still has to have two further operations. Yet she is a confident, outgoing teenager who offers hope to other young burns victims (受害者).

    She is a member of the Scottish Burned Children's Club. This month, Ammie will be joining the younger children at the Graffham Water Center in Cambridge for the first summer camp. “I'll show them how to get rid of unkind looking from others,” she says. Ammie loves wearing fashionable (时尚的) clothes, and she plans to show the youngsters at the summer camp that they can too. “I do not hide my burns scars,” she says, “I gave up wondering how other people would say years ago.”

    If you are interested in studying at an American university, you have to take the Test of English as a Foreign Language. The test is widely known as the TOEFL. It is the most widely used language exam for American universities.

    There are two major kinds of the TOEFL test. The first is the IBT，or Internet based Test. It is offered in most of the world and accepted by nearly every university and scholarship program in the United States. The other kind of the test is called the Paper­based Test or PBT. The PBT is less costly to take and does not require use of the Internet.

    But how to get started with TOEFL? Here are some tips.

    ⒈Plan ahead — It takes a long time to improve your TOEFL score. Do not expect a big lift in your test results after two weeks. You will have to spend a lot of time and energy.

    ⒉Master the basics first — You should have to be good at basic English before you take the test. If you score below 500 on the PBT or 70 on the IBT, study for a few months and come back to the TOEFL later.

    ⒊Get a study guide — It is easy to find study guides for the IBT. Pearson, Barron's, ETS, and Kaplan all produce quality materials, take a practice test once or twice a month. The best study guides will have explanations in the answer key.

    ⒋Use outside resources — Remember, you are learning a language, not a test. You can improve your TOEFL score by making English part of your daily life. Some simple ways are listening to English speakers, watching movies and reading newspapers. Some others are reading English textbooks, sending and reading text messages in English, and writing online in English.

    The best way to do well on the TOEFL is to know English well. The real goal of the test is to measure how well a student can communicate in English­speaking classroom.

    If you want to know more, please click here.