In this article, again, I’d like to share what I have learned from this book, “The Official Guide to the TOEFL Test,” the fourth edition. This time we will talk about listening section.
In the TOEFL iBT Listening section, you will listen to several lectures and conversations in allotted time, usually 60-90 minutes. Both are based on the actual speech that is used in North American colleges and universities. Therefore, a professor giving a lecture may digress somewhat from the main topic, interactions between students and the professor can be extensive, and explanations of content can be elaborate.
Here is the detail of listening material:
| Material | Number | Questions | Length | Topic |
| Lecture | 4-6 | 6 | 3-6 minutes | * Office Hours * Service encounters |
| Conversation | 2-3 | 5 | 5 minutes | * Arts * Life Science * Physical Science * Social Science |
The conversations are typical of those that occur on North American universities campuses. Office hours conversations are interactions that take place in a professor’s office. The content may be academic or related to course requirement. For example, in an office hour a student could request an extension on a due date, or a student could ask for clarification about the content of a lecture. Service encounters are interactions that take place on a university campus and have nonacademic content. Examples include inquiring about a payment for housing and registering for class.
Lectures represent the kind of language used when professors teach in a classroom. The lecture excerpt may include just a professor speaking, a student asking the professor a question, or the professor asking the students a question and calling on one student for a response. The content of the lectures reflects the content that is presented in introductory level academic settings. Lecture topics cover a broad range of subjects. You will not be expected to have any prior knowledge of the subject matter. All the information you need to answer the questions will be contained in the lecture.
Listening Questions include
* Traditional multiple-choice questions with single correct answer.
* Multiple-choice questions with more than one correct answer.
* Questions that require you to put in order events or steps in a process.
* Questions that require you to match objects or text categories in a table.
* Questions that replay a part of the tape for a multiple-choice question.
There are 8 types of questions in the Listening section. These type are divided into 3 categories as follows: basic comprehension questions, pragmatic understanding questions and connecting information questions.
Basic Comprehension questions
Understanding the gist of a lecture or conversation means understanding the general topic or main idea. This requires you to generalize or synthesize information from what you hear. However, some gist question focus on the purpose of the conversation or lecture rather than on the content. On the other hand, detail question require you to understand and remember explicit details or facts from a lecture or conversation. And in some cases you may be asked about some details of the digression.
| Types | Examples |
| Gist-content | * What problem does the man have? * What are the speakers mainly discussing? * What is the main topic of the lecture? * What is the lecture mainly about? * What aspect of X does the professor mainly discuss? |
| Gist-purpose | * Why does the student visit the professor? * Why does the student visit the registrar’s office? * Why did the professor ask to see the student? * Why does the professor explain X? |
| Detail | * According to the professor, How can X affect Y? * What is X? * What resulted from the invention of the X? * What is the main problem with the X theory? |
Pragmatic Understanding questions
Pragmatic understanding questions test understanding of certain features of spoken English that go beyond basic comprehension. In general, these types of questions test how well you understand the function of an utterance or the stance, or attitude, that the speaker expresses. Therefore, in most cases, what is directly stated-surface expression-will not be an exact match of the statement’s function or purpose. For example, speaker can use irony for a variety of purposes and listener must infer this both from clues provided in the context and from the speaker’s intonation. Some pragmatic understanding questions involve a replay of part of the lecture or conversation in order to focus your attention on the relevant portion.
| Types | Examples |
| What Is Said | * What does the professor imply when he say this? (replay) * Why does the student say this? (replay) * What does the professor mean when he say this? (replay) |
| Speaker’s Attitude |
* What can be inferred about the student? * What is the professor’s attitude toward X? * What is the professor’s opinion of X? * What does the man mean when he says this? (replay) |
Connecting Information questions
Connecting information questions require you to make connections between or among pieces of information in the lecture or conversation. Your ability to integrate information from different parts of the lecture or conversation, to make inferences, to draw conclusions, to form generalizations and to make predictions is tested.
In understanding organization questions, you may be asked about the overall organization of the lecture, or the relationship between two portions or what you heard. In connecting content questions, you may be ask to identify comparisons, cause and effect, or contradiction and agreement. Finally, in making inferences questions, you usually have to reach a conclusion based on facts presented in the lecture or conversation. In this case, most answers you choose will use vocabulary not found in the lecture or conversation.
| Types | Examples |
| Understanding Organization |
* How does the professor clarify the points he makes about Mexico? ---> By comparing Mexico to a neighboring country. * Why does the professor talk about steel? ---> To illustrate the function of fibers in a plant’s stem. * Why does the professor mention a tube? ---> To explain how some fibers are arranged in a plant |
| Connecting Content |
* What is the likely outcome of doing procedure X before Y? * What can be inferred about X? * What does the professor imply about the orbits of Triton and Nereid? ---> They might have been changed by some unusual event. |
| Making Inferences |
* What does the professor imply about X? * What will the student probably do next? * What can be inferred about X? * What does the professor imply when he says this? (replay) * What does the professor imply about the philosophy of the Dada movement? ---> It challenged people’s concept of what art is. |
Finally, in the end of this article, we like to list some strategies provided by the author such as taking notes, paying attention to the new words or concepts introduced by the professor, choosing the best answer. Also, since the listening is one of the most important skills necessary for success in academics, the best way to improve this is to listen frequently to many different types of material in various subject area, movies and TV shows. The Internet is really a great resource for listening material, definitely.
留言列表
專業學習 (8)
