The document provides information about the Listening section of the TOEFL test. It states there will be 4-6 lectures and 2-3 conversations on the test, with 6 questions per lecture and 5 questions per conversation. Test takers will have 60-90 minutes total to answer all the listening questions. The document also describes the different types of questions, focusing on three main categories: basic comprehension, pragmatic understanding, and connecting information.

1. o There are four to six lectures and
two to three conversations.
oThere will be six questions per
lecture and five questions per
conversation
oTest taker will have a total of 60 to
90 minutes to answer all of the
Listening questions

2.  CONVERSATIONS
There are two types:
 Office hours: interactions that take place in
a professor’s office. The topic may be
academic or related to course requirements.
 Service encounters: interactions that take
place on a university campus and have non-
academic content, e.g. inquiring about a
payment for housing or registering for class

3.  LECTURES
o They represent the kind of language used when
teachers teach in a classroom. The lecture excerpt
may be just a teacher speaking, a student asking the
teacher a question, or the teacher asking the
students a question.
o The content of lectures reflects the content that is
presented in introductory-level academic settings.
o You will not be expected to have any prior
knowledge of the subject matter.
o All the information you need to answer the questions
will be contained in the listening passage.

4.  They are divided into major categories:
- Arts (architecture, literature, music history,
etc)
- Life Science (viruses, medical techniques,
animal communication)
- Physical Science (weather and atmosphere,
electromagnetic radiation, seismology)
- Social Science (education, child
development, anthropology of non-
industrialized civilizations)

5.  There are some types of questions
 Multiple choice questions with more than one
answer
 Questions that require you to put in order events
or steps in a process
 Questions that require you to match objects or
text to categories in a table
Replay questions: you will hear a portion of the
lecture and
then you will be asked a question.

6. There are nine types of questions, but they are divided into three categories:
Basic Comprehension Questions
1. Gist-content
2. Gist-purpose
3. Detail
Pragmatic Understanding Questions
4. Understanding the Function of what is said
5. Understanding the Speaker’s attitude
Connecting Information Questions
6. Understanding Organization
7. Connecting content
8. Making Inferences

7.  Understanding the gist means understanding
the general topic or main idea.
 The gist may be expressed explicitly or
implicitly.
 This type of question may require you to
generalize or synthesize information in what
you hear.

8. They are typically phrased as follows:
- 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?

9.  Gist-content questions ask about the overall
content of the listening. Eliminate choices
that refer to only small portions of the
listening passage
 Use your notes. Decide what overall theme
ties the details in your notes together.
Choose the answer that comes closest to
describing this overall theme

10. GO TO PAGE 143

11.  Some gist questions focus on the purpose of
the conversation rather than on the content.
 They will more likely occur with
conversations, but they may also
occasionally be found with lectures.

12.  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?

13.  Listen for the unifying theme of the
conversation.
For example, during a professor’s office hours, a student asks the
professor for help with a paper on glaciers. Their conversation
includes facts about glaciers, but the unifying theme of the
conversation is that the student needs help writing his paper. In
this conversation the speakers are not attempting to convey a
main idea about glaciers.
 In Service Encounter conversations, the student
is often trying to solve a problem. Understanding
what the student’s problem is and how it will be
solved will help you answer the Gist- Purpose
question

14. GO TO PAGE 145

15.  Require you to understand and remember
explicit details or facts from a lecture or
conversation
 Details are typically related, directly or
indirectly, to the gist of the text, by providing
elaboration, examples or other support.
 When there is a long digression, you may be
asked about some details of this.
DIGRESSION: an act or instance of departing from
the central topic or line of argument while
speaking or writing, usually temporarily

16. They are phrases as follows:
- According to the professor, what is one way
that X can affect Y?
- What are X?
- What resulted from the invention of the X?
- According to the professor, what is the main
problem with the X theory?

17. Refer to your notes as you answer
Remember you will not be asked about minor
points. Your notes should contain the major
details from the conversation or lecture.
Do not choose an answer only because it contains
some of the words that were used in the
conversation or lecture. Incorrect responses will
contain words from the listening
If you aren’t sure, decide which one of the
choices is most consistent with the main idea of
the conversation or lecture

18. GO TO PAGE 146

19.  Test understanding of certain features of spoken
English that go beyond basic comprehension.
 Test how well you understand the function of an
utterance or the stance (attitude of the speaker
toward something) that the speaker expresses.
 Test parts of the conversation or lecture where a
speaker’s purpose or stance is not expressed
directly.
 What people say is often intended to be
understood on a level that lies beyond or
beneath the surface expression.

20. It sure is cold in here
MEANING:
- Literally as the temperature of
the room
- Suggesting someone to close an
open window

21. Directing
Recommending
Complaining
Accepting
Agreeing
Narrating
Questioning

22.  It is critical where the speaker’s stance is
involved.
 Is a given statement intended to be taken as fact
or opinion?
 How certain is the speaker of the information
she is reporting?
 Is the speaker conveying certain feelings or
attitudes about some person or thing or event?
THESE FEELINGS OR ATTITUDES MAY LIE BENEATH
THE SURFACE EXPRESSION.
THEY CAN GO UNRECOGNIZED OR BE
MISUNDERSTOOD BY NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS

23.  Involve a replay of a small portion of the
listening passage in order to focus your
attention on the relevant portion
TWO TYPES OF QUESTIONS:
 Understanding the function of what is said
questions
 Understanding the Speaker’s attitude
questions

24.  Test whether you can understand
the FUNCTION of what is said.
 Involve replaying a portion of the
listening passage.

25. They are phrased as follows:
 What does the professor imply when he says
this? (replay)
 What can be inferred from the professor’s
response to the students?
 What is the purpose of the woman’s
response?
 Why does the student say this:..

26.  The function of what is said may
not match what the speaker
directly states.

27. GO TO PAGE 148

28.  Test whether you understand a speaker’s
attitude or opinion.
 You may be asked a question about the
speaker’s feelings, likes, dislikes, or reason
for anxiety or amusement, speaker’s degree
of certainty
Is the speaker referencing a source or giving a
personal opinion?

29.  What can be inferred about the student?
 What is the professor’s attitude toward X?
 What is the professor’s opinion of X?
 What can be inferred about the student
when she says this: (replay)
 What does the woman mean when she says
this: (replay)

30.  Pay attention to the speaker’s tone
of voice (paralinguistic cues)
Does the speaker sound apologetic?
confused?

31. GO TO PAGE 149

32.  Require you to make connections between or
among pieces of information in the text.
 Test your ability to:
 integrate information from different parts of the
listening passage
 make inferences
 draw conclusions
 form generalizations
 make predictions
HOW TO CHOOSE THE CORRECT ANSWER?
Identify and explain relationships among ideas and
details in a text. These relationships may be explicit or
implicit

33.  Understanding Organization questions
 Connecting Content Questions
 Making Inferences Questions

34.  You may be asked about the overall
organization of the listening passage or the
relationship between two portions of the
listening passage.
Examples:
1. How does the professor organize the
information that she presents to the class?
In the order in which the events occurred
2. How does the professor clarify the points he
makes about Mexico?
By comparing Mexico to the neighboring
country.

35.  The first question asks about the overall
organization of information, testing
understanding of connections throughout the
whole listening passage.
 The second asks about a portion of the
passage, testing understanding of the
relationship between two different ideas.

36.  These questions may ask you to identify or
recognize how one statement functions in
respect to surrounding text.
FUNCTIONS
- Indicating or signaling a topic shift
- Connecting a main topic to a subtopic
- Providing an introduction or a conclusion
- Giving an example
- Starting a digression or even making a joke

37. GO TO PAGE 150

38.  They are typically phrased as follows:
- How does the professor organize the
information about X that he presents to the
class?
- How is the discussion organized?
- Why does the professor discuss X?
- Why does the professor mention X?

39.  Questions that ask about the overall
organization of the passage are more likely
to be found after lectures than after
conversations (refer to your notes to answer
them)
It may not be clear from the start that the
professor organized the information
chronologically, or from the least to most
complex or in some other way.
 Pay attention to comparisons

40. GO TO PAGE 152

41.  Measure your understanding of the relationships
among ideas in a text. They may be explicitly stated
or you may have to infer.
 Ask you to organize information in a different way
from the way it was presented in the listening
passage.
 You may be asked to
 identify comparisons
 cause and effect
 contradiction
 agreement
 classify items in categories
 identify a sequence of events or steps in a process
 specify relationships among objects along some
dimension EXAMPLE – page 152

42.  What is the likely outcome of doing
procedure X before procedure Y?
 What can be inferred about X?
 What does the professor imply about X?

43.  Require you to fill in a chart or table or put
events in order
- pay attention to the way you format your
notes.
- identify terms and their definitions as well
as the steps in a process

44. GO TO PAGE 154

45.  You have to reach a conclusion based on
facts presented in the listening passage.

46.  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)

47.  Add up details from the passage to reach a
conclusion
 The professor may imply something without
directly stating it
 The answer you choose will use vocabulary
not found in the listening passage

48. GO TO PAGE 155

49.  Take notes while you listen
 Pay attention to the new words or concepts
introduced by the professor
 Pay attention to the way the lecture is
structured and the way the ideas in the
lecture are connected
 You cannot go back to an answer once you
mark an answer

50. BASIC COMPREHENSION
- Increase your vocabulary knowledge
- Focus on the content and flow of material.
Don’t be distracted by the speaker’s style
and delivery
- Anticipate what the speaker is going to say
- Stay active by asking yourself questions
about the main ideas, detail, etc.
- Copy the words main idea, major points,
important details on the paper.
- Write a brief summary

51. PRAGMATIC UNDERSTANDING
- Think about what each speaker hopes to
accomplish (purpose of the speech or
conversation) Is the speaker apologizing,
making suggestions, complaining?
- Notice the way the speaker talks (formal,
casual, voice: calm, emotional)
- Notice the degree of certainty of the speaker
- Listen for changes in topic or side comments
in which the speaker briefly moves away

52. CONNECT IDEAS
- Think about how the lecture is organized
- Identify relationships between ideas in the
information being discussed (cause-effect,
compare and contrast, steps in a process)
- Listen for words that show connections and
relationships between ideas
- Create an outline of the information
discussed