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TOEFL Listening Overview
Whether you’re familiar with the exam or not. The following will explain every detail of the listening section and how to attack it.
When you finish the reading section, the listening section will follow. The instructions will appear on the screen for the section and they will be read out loud to you. Take this time to prepare yourself and make sure that you have a full set of 3 clean sheets of note-paper and your pencil is sharp and ready to write. If you don’t have any of these things, raise your hand and ask the proctor (the individual giving the exam) to provide you with whatever you are missing so that you’re fully prepared.
Attacking the TOEFL Listening
First and foremost, you must take good notes as you listen actively throughout the entire listening. Many students struggle with this. They take either no notes--so they miss important information--or too many notes--so they sacrifice understanding and comprehension. No matter what, take notes. Build the skill and you will improve.
Every now and then, a student will tell me that they score high and take no notes. They tell me that notes distract them. Immediately I think, well, you would score even higher if you did, but if your score is high enough, don’t change what works for you. However, if you’re reading this, then you want to get the best score that you can, so take notes.
If you find that notes distract you, experiment with your notes. It’s like saying that exercise makes you weaker. Yes, in the beginning it might, but over time it builds your strength immensely and you can’t be as strong as you can be without it. I hope that analogy makes sense.
Just as in the reading, the same question types will appear again and again in the listening section. The difference is that we don’t have a reading to refer to but only our notes and our memory. As a result, strategy for this question is not too intense but a general guide to aid in your choosing the correct answers. Below are the types.
Main Idea, Detail, Choose 2 or 3 detail, Inference, Attitude, Purpose
Read every answer choice and read each word carefully before choosing an answer. You are missing points because of this. Notice that there’s no modal there: may, might, could. It’s a fact: you are missing points because of this, so write that statement on your notes when you take the test and when you practice. Your score will improve if you remember this consistently and apply it for every single question.
Main Idea
This question is easy to spot. It’s usually the first question that you’ll find after the listening and it has the word “mainly” in it. Here are two examples
What does the lecture mainly discuss?
What is the main topic of the lecture?
This is often the easiest for students but it can be tricky. The listening will usually start by introducing the topic in the first few sentences and then discuss it for the rest of the lecture. The main idea here is easy: it’s the topic and described in the beginning of the lecture.
Detail
These questions ask you for the same information as the readings: facts from the information presented. Essentially, answering these correctly relies on your notes. The better your notes are, the better you’ll do. They ask you to identify facts in the reading and often begin with WH- questions. Here are two examples.
What is the major source of meteoric water?
What are the two reasons the woman doesn’t feel safe?
The best strategy is to identify the key word or words in the question. Find where they appear in your notes and choose an answer that contains key words in your notes that are closest to the topic. Wrong answers often come from words you heard in the lecture but appear distant from when the topic was discussed.
Inference & Listen again
Just as with the reading, these are tough. They ask you to make a small jump from the information that you heard, but instead of being able to refer to the information (as you can in the reading), you must remember it from your notes. As a result, these questions pose a strong challenge to students who have difficulty listening. They contain strong clue words: infer, imply, or suggest. Here are two examples.
What does the officer imply when he says this:
What does the professor imply about the importance of surface tension in water?
To improve, focus on the same strategy as with the detail question and remember that this requires a small jump in logic. Often times, it requires you to make a logical association. Let me give you an example. Let’s say you hear part of a lecture like this:
Tommy likes apples. Because he likes apples, he decided to go to the beach. When he was at the beach, he met his friend Billy.
An inference from this question would be:
Billy met Tommy because Tommy likes apples.
Even though you didn’t read this exactly; it came from making a small jump within the information given.
Attitude & Opinion
Similar to inference questions, these ask you to look at the way that information is presented to make a judgement on the person delivering the speech. Tone and inflection can be a guide, but it rarely leads to the correct answer. Instead, be aware of adjectives, adverbs, and the overall direction of the lecture or conversation. Here are a few examples of what these questions will look like.
What is the professor’s attitude toward those who take the existence of groundwater for granted?
What is the professor’s opinion about using pterosaur ancestors to learn more about pterosaurs themselves?
Answers will usually fall into one of three categories: criticism, neutrality, or support. As a way to ensure that you get these question right, take notes on words that indicate where the professor stands on what he’s discussing.
Purpose & Listen again
When dealing with these questions, you must know what the statement is doing in the logical flow of the lecture or conversation. Of course, this is easy to say and not so easy to do. These questions ask you to identify the purpose of a specific statement or reference made. Here are two examples:
Why does the professor mention the railroad industry’s intense competition and price wars?
Why does the professor mention New York City and Boston?
To answer these questions well, we must understand that the key words in the question served a purpose in the development of the topic. What kind of development?
Illustrate
Support
Oppose
Explain
Adverbs and surrounding content will help you identify the answer to these questions.
TOEFL Listening Answering Strategy
When answering, remember that you cannot return to a question later on. Once you answer a question, you will not be allowed to return to it. That’s why you must click on the answer, then click on next, then click on confirm before you are sent to the next question. They ask you to confirm your answer twice because that’s your last chance at it. Remember this and you’ll be fine.
As you practice, to stay close to the conditions of the exam, don’t review your answers to this section: once you’ve chosen, the question is finished and the answer cannot be changed. Remember that the more you create exam like conditions as you practice the more prepared you’ll be for success.With the basics of the listening section down, it’s time to learn how to sky-rocket our score by learning about powerful note-taking.
Active Listening Strategies
When you listen to someone in person, there are many things you can do to be a more active listener.You can make sure you give the speaker your undivided attention, looking only at the speaker instead of gazing around the room. You can use non-verbal feedback, such as nodding your head or leaning toward the speaker. You can focus on the speaker’s message rather than other elements that may be distracting, such as the speaker’sappearance.And you can interject questions and “affirmations,” such as “yes,”“I see,” and “really,” to acknowledge and help clarify the speaker’s message.
But on the TOEFL exam, you won’t be face to face with a speaker. Instead, you will be sitting at a table or study carrel, listening to an audiotape. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be an active listener. You can still:
1. Concentrate on the speaker.While you can’t look the speaker in the eye, you can still focus on what he or she is saying. Keep your concentration on the conversation or lecture. Don’t allow yourself to daydream or drift into other thoughts, such as what you need to get done later in the day. Avoid watching the clock or fiddling with objects.
2. Use non-verbal feedback. Even though the speaker can’t hear you, you can still nod your head and lean forward “toward” the speaker. These two physical actions may seem too minor to make a difference especially if the speaker can’t see you. But they help to engage your body and mind in the act of listening, and that helps you maintain your focus on the conversation. (And if you are worried about looking silly, don’t worry. If you were to look around the testing center, you would probably see many other test takers doing the same thing!)
3. Focus on the message, not the person delivering the message. You won’t see the speaker(s) face to face,but if you are taking the computer-based exam, you will see pictures of people on the computer screen at the beginning of each listening passage. These images are designed to help orient you to the conversation by giving you a sense of who is talking and the setting in which the conversation or lecture takes place. For example, at the beginning of a lecture, you might see a picture of a professor in a classroom.But these pictures can be distracting. Remember to focus on listening, not looking. Concentrate on the conversation, not the picture.If you are taking the paper-based exam, find something in the room upon which to concentrate during the reading of each passage—preferably something simple, such as a blank chalkboard, rather than a person in the room. If you focus on a person, you may find yourself thinking about the person’s appearance instead of listening to the conversation on the tape. If you find yourself too distracted,simply close your eyes during the reading of each passage.
4. Use visualization. Active listening means listening not just with our ears, but also with our other senses. You can use your mind’s eye to help you concentrate on the passage and better understand and remember what you hear.When a speaker describes something or someone, paint a mental picture of what you hear. For example, if the professor describes Frankenstein’s horror when he first brings his creature to life, in your mind, picture Frankenstein’s reaction.What does his face look like? How does he act?
