TOEFL Listening section
You’re given 60-90 minutes to perform TOEFL Listening. The tasks of the section (34-51) are aimed to evaluate your comprehension of the oral skills in English speech through the lectures and dialogues on the general topics.
The tasks include two dialogues on the general topics, two lectures, and two lectures with the student’s comments. In TOEFL Listening tasks you need to determine the subject purpose or attitude to the problem. You’re able to make notes during listening.
Useful tips for TOEFL Listening
- Accents.
During the test you can deal with the different accents (British, Australian, American), and we recommend you to practice in perception of these accents. You can hear the different accents on the special preparation disks which are part of the textbooks. We also recommend you to listen and watch BBC, CNN, Discovery, Animal Planet, America and other radio channels.
- Intonation.
You should understand the difference between the emotions of the people in their speech depending on the intonation. It will help you to answer the questions, even if you do not understand some words in the dialogue or monologue.
- Vocabulary, idioms, introductory words.
You have to replenish your vocabulary, learn new structures and idioms. It will be useful for you while listening to the records - you will easily understand the information.
- Recording.
In TOEFL Listening it’s not forbidden to make notes. So you should learn how to write only the key points: the names of the characters, their roles, their positions, facts, numbers, verbs.
- Details.
During the listening it’s primary important to catch the smallest details: phone number, number of the street, year. Train your ear to percept the numbers; it is really useful to you.
- Geography.
Often in the records the geographic objects are mentioned. You need to know the capitals of the states and provinces, cities and key European, Asian and American countries.
- Only information.
It’s not necessary to fantasize how the characters could develop their relationships. You have to pay attention only to the facts.
- Don’t get distracted and don’t dwell.
Don’t try to understand the meaning of the individual words; don’t try to remember the meaning of these forgotten words. Otherwise, you risk losing the aim of the discussion.
- Movies and music.
Test your listening skills when you watch the movies without subtitles and listen the songs without viewing the text.