TOEFL Listening

Tune in, because it's time to prepare for the TOEFL Listening!

If you're going in order , you've just completed the TOEFL Reading Section.

If you're looking for the Speaking Section, it's here.

Let's inspect this part, you'll see that the content is quite similar to the reading portion of the exam.

1st) The listening part of the test is 60-90 minutes long in total, and is comprised of 4-6 academic lectures on scientific topics as well as 2-3 conversational audios between a student and either a teacher, secretary, another student, or other person found on campus

TIP The academic lectures will use very specific vocabulary that you probably haven't heard before, but will be explained during the listening. Listen to more advanced or scientifically focused podcasts to prepare for this. Regarding the conversational audios, they employ much more informal, everyday language (they are scripted, and therefore spoken slower than natural speech).

2nd) There are 3 groups of questions. 1st, basic comprehension questions. This includes detail questions, where you answer a question about a specific fact heard in the audio, as well as main idea questions, where you give the purpose of the conversation. 2nd, we have pragmatic understanding questions. Such as function questions, where you choose why someone used a type of language, and attitude questions, where you describe the speaker's attitude and emotion. 3rd, connecting information questions. This consists of making inferences questions, where you are asked about something not directly mentioned in the listening, organization questions, where you are asked about the organization of the conversation, and connecting content/category questions, where you have to group details into their relevant categories.

TIP Take notes while listening, they are key to doing well on the TOEFL listening. You don't want to take too many notes or too few notes, so practice (I've included some videos below to help you with this). Taking notes also helps you concentrate better while listening to the dialogues.