LISTENING (1) CAMBRIDGE PREPARATION FOR THE TOEFL® IBT TEST

 

CAMBRIDGE PREPARATION FOR THE TOEFL® IBT TEST LISTENING (1)

 

The Listening section of the TOEFL iBT test measures your ability to understand spoken English. You will see photographs of students and professors speaking and hear parts of conversations and academic lectures lasting from three to five minutes. Some of the lectures include classroom discussions. Each listening passage is followed by five or six questions. Each listening passage begins with a spoken statement that sets the context. For example, you will hear, ‘Listen to part of a conversation between a student and an advisor.’ Strategies to Use for Building Listening Skills 1 Listen to spoken English as much as possible. 2 Listen to natural speech. 3 Listen to different accents. 4 Listen to authentic academic lectures. 5 Listen for stance. When you listen to lectures and conversations in English, practice listening for clues that will help you understand the speaker’s purpose, attitude, and degree of certainty. Look at the examples below:   Strategies to Use for the Listening Section of the TOEFL iBT Test Strategies for listening to the conversations or lectures 1 Take notes 2 Identify the main idea and the important details that support it. 3 Understand the purpose of the visual material There are three types of visual material that will appear on the screen in the Listening section of the TOEFL test. Each type has a different purpose, as described below: 4 Pay attention to stance Listening for clues help you understand the speaker’s stance. Stance refers to the speaker’s purpose, attitude, or degree of certainty. Being aware of these features will help you answer some of the questions on the test. Questions about stance often begin by repeating a short section of the passage. This repeated section gives the context for the question that follows. Read this conversation and the example of this question type that follows it:   Strategies for choosing answers 1 Be familiar with the types of questions on the test. 2 Listen to and read the question carefully. 3 Read the answer choices carefully 4 Pay attention to time 5 Check your answer before moving on to the next question. 6 Answer every question.