TOEFL Tips Part 1 of 4: Listening

Are you listening to me? The TOEFL is an arduous 4-hour exam that consists of 135 multiple choice questions. There are 4 major parts of the exam and I've broken these blog posts into the same format.

The listening section has 3 blocks of questions. Each set contains the following:

-(1) conversation: 4 mins between a man and a woman

-(1) lecture: 5 mins of a professor delivering a speech

-(1) discussional lecture: 5 mins of a professor interacting with students

Here is how the questions break down for each lisening:

conversation : 5 questions

lecture : 6 questions

discussion lecture: 6 questions

17 questions total. 10 mins of time to complete all questions.

Right after the listening section completes you will have one question appear on your screen. The question will be read out loud to you. Once the narrator finally finishes the question, then your timer will start. The occurs for each listening. Each question should take you 35 seconds to answer.

To practice, as you're listening to the radio or even other people's conversations take some notes. Try to find the subject, verb, and object of a sentence.

Also, try to listen for these 25 TOEFL test words below taken from the top 100 TOEFL words. All 100 words can be found here: https://quizlet.com/8680224/top-100-toefl-words-flash-cards/

1. Affable- polite and friendly, easy to talk to.

2. Affliction- distress, suffering.

3. Affluent- wealthy, abundant.

4. Agitate- move, shake, stir up.

5. Ambiguous- having more than one meaning.

6. Annex- take possession of.

7. Aqueous- of or like water.

8. Ardous- demanding great effort, strenuous.

9. Aroma- quality or surrounding atmosphere considered typical.

10.Atone- make repayment.

11. Calisthenics- exercises to develop strong bodies.

12. Captor- person who takes someone captive.

13. Concoct- invent, prepare by mixing together.

14. Dangle- hand or swing loosely.

15. Deprive- take away from, prevent from using.

16. Diligent- hard-working.

17. Disrobe- undress.

18. Docile- easily trained or controlled.

19. Doleful- dismal, mournful.

20. Drought- a long period of dry weather.

21. Tentative- uncertain, probable.

22. Torpid- dull and slow.

23. Treacherous- not to be trusted, perfidious.

24. Taciturn- unspoken, silent.

25. Tantalize- raise hoped that cannot be realized.