The listening section can be very easy for you if you are habitual to listening to English conversations. However, you will need some good preparation to score more than 25 on the listening section.

Let’s start with the structure of TOEFL listening section and see, how you can nail this highly structured test.  

Structure of TOEFL Listening Structure

For the listening section you will have 2 conversations and 3 lecture recordings. You will be answering 28 MCQs in 36 minutes. Let’s first see the difference between a conversation and a lecture,

Conversation: A conversation is a dialogue between people. In the TOEFL listening test this conversation is usually held between two people. You are likely to come across conversations between friends, clients and employees, staff members and public and so on. These conversations revolve around a wide range of topics.

Lecture: A lecture is an academic discussion. The discussion s held inside a class room, and you can expect a teacher giving a lecture and a few students engaging in the discussion. But for the most part the teacher is speaking and the students are quiet. These topics can also variate. Some common topics include arts, science, history, and space related topics.

One thing that you must know is that every audio and supporting reading material will not judge you based on your general knowledge. You are not expected to know all about science and arts or every other academic subject that is discussed. The reading and listening materials will have all the background information you need to know. So, all you need is a good preparation strategy, knowledge of the question types, and tips to nail the MCQs.

TOEFL Listening Question Types

The TOEFL has 7 listening question types. The following table reflects them all,

How To Prepare TOEFL Listening Section?

Since we have broken down the question types and structures, it is time to understand, what kind of preparation you need. Let’s start,

1. Build a Habit to Listen to English Conversations

One of the best things you can do is to build a natural habit of listening to English conversations. This should not be a part of your targeted preparation a month or so before your test date. Instead, you should start doing this 6 months or an year before. This is  usually the time when you are planning your study abroad options and decide on going to an English speaking country.

Now you might be wondering how do I practice listening when no one around me holds conversations in English language? There is an even more fun way to do this. All you need to do is watch shows, films, and series, in a number of different dialects or accents. For example, you can watch American, British, Australian, and shows from other different English speaking countries. All you have to do is to listen to these shows. In the beginning you can watch them with sub titles, but after that is is recommended that you turn off sub titles.

2. Try to Understand Idioms

In numerous listening questions you will need to infer the meaning of dfferent things spoken by the speakers. For this purpose, you should understand some of the commonly used idioms of English language. For example, ‘throwing under the bus’ means ‘avoiding blame or throwing the blame on another person when used as an idiom. An understanding of such idioms will make you more confident and you may be able to answer some of the questions more swiftly and correctly.

3. Learn About the Expressions of Agreement and Disagreement

You will often come across conversations that look like this,

Man: This car is really cool

Woman: Isn’t it

Question: What does the woman mean?

1. The car is not cool to the woman
2. The woman finds the car cool (Correct Answer)
3. The woman is unsure
4. The woman finds the car interesting

According to the audio you will have to guess the woman’s emotions and the correct meaning of the word she used in the context of every day conversational English language.  

4. Learn to Understand the Context More than the Exact Meaning of Every Word

Many people tend to get nervous and remain hyper focused on the exact meaning of every word in the audio. This nervousness makes them too focused on some dialogues and they lose their attention from the broader context of the audios. So, while you practice make your mind trained to not be overly focused on every word, while also keeping an eye on rather complicated words and phrases used.

This way you will be able to answer almost all the question types more effectively.

5. Do Not Over Practice

The listening section can be very easy for some, and very complicated for others. Use online practice tests from ETS website. On the basis of your performance you should create a plan to practice listening. If you are performing average or above average, you need only a moth of dedicated performance to score more than 25/30 on the listening test.

6. Practise Note Taking

Before we talk about how you need to take notes, please understand that note taking is not mandatory, although it’s helpful. Some find it convenient taking notes, while others lose their focus as they take notes while listening to the recordings. So, you should identify the most convenient approach for yourself, well before the test date.

If you feel you will need to take notes, than you need to practice the correct way to do so. These audios are short, and you can easily lose track of what the speakers are saying as you take one liner notes. Let’s see how you can make your notes quick and compact,

Do not write full words. You can avoid the vowels and add in the consonants for different words. For example, write ‘prsnt’ instead of ‘present’ and ‘slp’ instead of ‘sleep’

Instead of writing full sentences write nouns, verbs and adjectives as clues for every important info you need

If you find any important factual info which can be a part of a one or two words answer, note it in a larger writing

Use symbols instead of words. You can use arrows, equal to sign, plus sign, and other symbols to denote different kind of information

Tips and Tricks for TOEFL Listening Test

Do you know there are easy ways to nail the difficult questions on the TOEFL listening exam. All you know is a few tips and tricks.

1. Do not leave an answer blank. If you don’t know an answer make the closest guess. Chances are you will have selected the correct answer.

2. Read all the options before selecting your answer

3. Use the elimination method. This means that cancel out the impossible options first.

4. Keep an eye on synonymous words used in the passages

5. Keep an eye on the actual problems being discussed in the passages

Make sure you can differ between the opinions or facts stated by each speaker in the recordings

So, what are you waiting for! Register for your test and start practicing now!

Also read
TOEFL: Types, Score, Structure, Registration, and Fee
How To Prepare for TOEFL Reading Section? 

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