Chapter 7:

Lectures A: Humanities

Listening lectures test your ability to comprehend academic-level spoken English. You’ll listen to a short lecture (about 3 to 5 minutes long) from a professor. Occasionally, a student may also speak. You will only be able to listen to the lecture once. You will not be able to pause the recording or to replay any part of it (though some questions will replay a specific part of the lecture for you). You can take notes as you listen.

You will then answer six questions for that lecture. Most questions are multiple-choice with four options (select one from A, B, C, or D). Some questions may ask you to select more than one option or to fill in a table. You will have to answer the questions in order. You cannot return to a question once you have moved on to the next question.

Listening lectures test your understanding of main ideas, contrasts, the lecturer’s tone and degree of certainty about the information, and why the lecturer relates certain information or examples. They also test your understanding of the organization of the lecture and the relationship between different ideas. Finally, they test your ability to make inferences or draw conclusions.

How should you use this chapter? Here are some recommendations, according to the level you’ve reached in TOEFL Listening:

  1. Fundamentals. Start with a topic-focused chapter, such as this one. Start with a topic that is a “medium weakness”—not your worst area but not your best either. At first, listen to the lecture once, then work on the questions untimed and check the answer after each question. Review the solutions closely, think carefully about the principles at work, and articulate what you’ve learned. Redo questions as necessary. As you get better, time yourself and do all of the questions for a lecture at once, without stopping.
  2. Fixes. Do an entire lecture and its associated questions under timed conditions. Don’t replay any part of the lecture while you are still answering the questions! Examine the results, learn your lessons, then test yourself with another lecture and question set.
  3. Tweaks. Confirm your mastery by doing two or three lectures in a row under timed conditions. Work your way up to doing four lectures and two conversations in one sitting. Aim to improve the speed and ease of your process.

Good luck on Listening!