TOEFL IBT LISTENING SECTION

toefl ibt listening section

This section measures students' abilities to understand spoken English in academic or everyday settings. In order to succeed in an academic environment, students must be able to listen to lectures and conversation and, most importantly, to understand the information provided orally. In TOEFL the academic listening is done for three main purposes:

Listening for basic comprehension

Students are tested whether they are able to comprehend the main idea of the lecture/conversation, the main points and important details related to the main idea but it is not required all the details to be comprehended

Listening for pragmatic understanding

The students are tested whether they can understand the degree to which the speaker is certain or uncertain
To recognize what is the speaker's purpose

To connect and combine the information flow coming from two or more sources

To understand the organization of the provided oral information
To find the relationship between the presented ideas - compare/contrast, cause/effect, steps in a process
To draw conclusions and make inferences on what is implied in the lecture/conversation
To connect different pieces of information presented
To recognize introductions and conclusions in the lecture or change of topic

TOEFL iBT Listening Section Organization

TOEFL iBT Listening Section Organization
The Listening section measures the candidate's ability to understand conversations and lectures in English. The section is divided into separately timed parts (2 or 3). Each part consists of 1 long conversation and two lectures. The test takers hear each lecture or conversation only once. Lectures and conversations are 3-5 minutes long. While listening the time is not running. The allotted time of 10 minutes for each section is only for answering the questions.
Academic lectures represent the kind of listening during university classes. Some of the lectures are entirely done by the professor, while in others students are engaged in the discussion by asking or answering questions.
The conversations in TOEFL iBT may occur between students and professor or teaching advisor or between students and university officials.
After each lecture or conversation, candidates have to answer some questions related to the lecture/conversation. The questions typically ask for the main idea, supporting details, and speaker's purpose or attitude.

Type of questions

Type of questions
In the Listening section four question formats occur:

Multiple-choice format with four question choices provided and only one correct answer
Multiple-choice questions with 2 answers out of 4 possible choices
Questions that ask test takers to order events or steps in a process
Chart questions - require test takers to match objects or text to pre-set categories.

In some questions part of the lecture/conversation is repeated and the question is refers to this particular part of the lecture/conversation.

remember

You are allowed to take notes during all parts of the TOEFL iBT. You can use your notes when answering the questions.
Test takers are not expected to be familiar with the topics presented in the lectures. Finding the correct answer is not related with previous knowledge about the topics, rather with the information provided during the lecture/conversation.
During the listening the time is stopped. Then the time should not bother you. Time is running only when answering the questions.

cracking the listening section

Are you ready to crack the TOEFL iBT Listening section? Here are the steps:
1. Actively listen to the selection, noting the main idea or purpose, structure and tone.
2. Attack the question. There is no skipping in the Listening section, so you will have to do each question as it appears.
3. Use process of elimination aggressively using your understanding of the main idea, previous questions and any notes you've taken to help you.

Learn everything you need to know about TOEFL iBT® Listening section. Video includes how to recognize the question type, sample questions and skill building tips.