<p>Okay I was born in USA and lived there 7 years then moved to a non-english speaking country. Does that mean I'm a native speaker? coz I really cant afford the TOEFL!</p>
<p>You don't have to take the TOEFL, no matter what your situation. You're free to only take the SAT.</p>
<p>Testing requirements can be found at Matt's</a> blog.</p>
<p>Molliebatmit is right, you can always take the SAT. As far as I know, if you do <em>not</em> take the TOEFL, you have to do three SAT Subject Tests. Be aware of that.</p>
<p>English is not my first language and I don't speak it at home. However, I was born in the US and have lived in the US for all my life (other than a few vacations). In HS courses, I have always been placed in with non-international people. </p>
<p>According to the MIT site, I am recommended to take the TOEFL. (at least last time I checked). My scores on practice SATs have been in the high 600s. What should I do?</p>
<p>Usually, I've noticed that if you're not too confident with SAT I, take TOEFL instead. It's easier (I think).</p>
<p>Could I take both, send them in, and then let MIT decide which one is better?</p>
<p>On the application you have to specify which option you are using (Native (SAT) or Non-Native (TOEFL). But well, yeah just send both.</p>
<p>People can have more than one native language--that's pretty commonplace around the world. Most college applications I have seen have a place to explain such situations. </p>
<p>FWIW, the TOEFL shouldn't be hard for anyone who has spent most of his or her life in the United States.</p>
<p>I've always scored significantly lower on verbal parts of standarized tests. My Verbal SSAT was 66% while my average was 90%. On practice SATs my verbal is about 50-100 points lower than my math.</p>
<p>THank you ppl but you still havent answered my question "Am I considered a native speaker of English"?</p>
<p>I would think so. Still speaking English in the house?</p>
<p>The language(s) your parent(s) has/have spoken to you since early childhood should be your native language(s), whatever language(s) that is/those are. In my son's case, my wife spoke to him some in one language, I spoke to him when alone with him in English, and when we were both together with him we spoke in Mandarin Chinese. For the first several years of his life we were also living in the United States, so English is indisputably one of his native languages. Mandarin Chinese is also indisputably one of his native languages (and for a while we lived in Taiwan, where Mandarin is widely spoken). My wife's native language, conventionally called "Taiwanese," is more debatable as a native language for my son, because he hasn't heard a lot of it or gained much proficiency in speaking it. But two out of three ain't bad. </p>
<p>To those of you who desire to boost your performance on English-language verbal tests, I strongly recommend study of English etymology. Even native speakers of English with a lot of exposure to English reading can gain reading ability by studying word roots and derivations. A lot of good high schools have a specific course on English etymology, as does the LearningLinks</a> distance learning program. A good book for self-study of etymology is English</a> Words from Latin and Greek Elements by Donald Ayers and Thomas Worthen.</p>