TOEFL Listening conversations put a student in front of an adviser, a professor or a member of university staff, and the questions follow a predictable arc: why the student came, what was suggested, what was rejected, what was agreed. The language is administrative rather than academic, and the last question usually depends on the last thirty seconds. These 40 items drill that arc.
Small talk comes first; the real reason for the visit follows it. Write the problem in five words at the top of your notes.
Student on the left, staff member on the right. Who suggested what is exactly what the later questions turn on.
Most conversations raise two or three possible solutions. Number them as they arrive and mark each one accepted or rejected.
The useful half of the sentence is usually the second: ‘but what I can do is …’. That is where the agreed solution lives.
Offers come with strings: hand in the bibliography now, sign up by Friday, come back at four. The condition is a standard detail answer.
The final question asks what the student will do next, and the answer is in the closing lines, which is where most candidates have already put their pen down.
A suggestion that was raised and turned down is the most common wrong option on the last question. Your notes should show which one that was.
Weather, weekends and lost umbrellas set the scene. Let them pass and save your attention for the turn into the problem.
Not thisAnswering the last question with the first solution mentioned.
ThisAnswering with the one the student agreed to.
Conversations work by elimination, so the opening suggestion is usually the one that gets ruled out.
Not thisWriting the problem and then stopping.
ThisNoting the options and the agreement too.
Half the questions in the set come from the second half of the conversation.
Not thisMissing the condition on an offer.
ThisWriting ‘extension IF biblio today’.
The condition is the detail the item is built on, and it is delivered in a single subordinate clause.
Not thisTreating ‘I’d rather not wait until summer’ as undecided.
ThisTreating it as a rejection.
Students decline politely; a preference expressed negatively is a refusal of that option.
Not thisIgnoring the staff member’s turns.
ThisTracking both speakers.
The solution, the rule and the exception are all in the staff member’s speech, not the student’s.
Not thisGuessing meanings of campus terms from context alone.
ThisLearning them beforehand.
Words such as override, on reserve and prerequisite carry a lot of the plot and are hard to recover if they are new.
40 original questions. The first 10 are open to everyone. Answers are checked in your browser and never sent to us, so you can share this page with a class as it is.
2Complete with one noun beginning with p.
5Complete with one plural noun beginning with o.
7Complete with one noun beginning with a.
8In one sentence, say what a “what will the student probably do next” question is really testing.
One good answer
It tests whether you followed the conversation to its resolution: which of the options discussed the student actually accepted, rather than which one was raised first.
10Complete with one plural noun beginning with c.
11Complete with one noun beginning with c.
14Complete with one noun beginning with a.
16Write the question you would expect after a conversation in which three solutions are discussed and one is accepted.
One good answer
What will the student most likely do next?
17Complete with one noun beginning with d.
19Complete with one noun beginning with p.
21Complete with one noun beginning with s.
25Complete with one noun beginning with i.
27Complete with one noun beginning with s.
29Complete with one noun beginning with p.
30Based on Conversation 3, write what the student will probably do next.
One good answer
Put his name on the waiting list for a room change and use the quiet study lounge in the evenings until a place comes free.
33Complete with one noun beginning with p.
35Complete with one noun beginning with p.
37Complete with one noun beginning with m.
39Complete with one question word beginning with w.
40Give one reason candidates lose the final question of a conversation set.
One good answer
They stop taking notes once the problem is clear, so the closing agreement — the condition, the deadline or the next step — is never written down.
Note
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Fewer than the lectures, but they carry the same weight per question, and they are usually the fastest points in the section because the language is everyday rather than technical.
A little helps. Learn the words around enrolment, deadlines, libraries and housing, because the plot of most conversations turns on one of them.
Keep listening. The staff member almost always restates it — ‘So you need the course this term and it’s closed’ — within the first minute.
The vocabulary is easier; the tracking is not. Two speakers, several options and a change of mind mean the questions test whether you followed a small argument to its end.
Short. Problem, two or three numbered options with a tick or a cross, and the final agreement with its condition. That fits on a third of a page and answers every question in the set.