2019-12-13 TOEFL: listening sim, reading strategies

Greg Malivuk
gmalivuk@staffordhouse.com
http://www.pastebin.com/u/gmalivuk - notes from all classes
---
Timed listening practice (ETS Guide test 2)
When you finish, review your answers to understand why you got them wrong.
---
- Before the speaking section, the TOEFL program will calibrate your microphone while you speak about the city that you live in. (Don’t only repeat, “Describe the city you live in.”)
- You shouldn’t touch or move your microphone during the speaking section, if possible.
---
Sentence insertion (ETS G.2)
passage 1
“The sequence in which they migrate correlates with their body size.”
- “they” refers to animals, so before this new sentence must be a sentence about some animals. (no A)
- This also talks about sequence and body size. The sentence before D talks about a “set order” and the sentence after D talks about “larger”, “smaller”, and “smallest” species.
- General information (they “migrate...in a set order”) comes before specific information (“the sequence...correlates with...size”). (Also “correlates with...size” comes before information about the direction of that correlation: larger to smaller.)
passage 2
- “she” doesn’t help you because the whole paragraph is about the same woman
- The new sentence introduces the idea of newly emerging media, and only the final sentence of the paragraph talks about something other than dance (film), so the new sentence should go just before this final sentence.
passage 3
- The first two sentences of the second paragraph are about the two options: optical illusions vs. something in the ice.
- The last sentence of the first paragraph is the first mention of green icebergs. (Typically we would mention the existence of something before discussing how to explain it.)
---
Summary Questions
- Often you simply have to check each answer against the passage to see if it’s correct and important.
For summary questions, you get 2 points for all three correct choices, 1 point for just two correct choices, and 0 points if you made two or more mistakes.
If you don’t answer it, you’ll get exactly 0 points on this question.
If you randomly guess, you’ll get an average of 0.55 points on this question.
If you can (correctly) eliminate one answer, you’ll get an average of 0.8 points.
If you can eliminate two answers, you’ll get an average of 1.25 points.
(If you can eliminate three answers, then you get everything correct for 2 points.)
---
Paraphrase Questions
- The sentences usually have two or three clauses, that need to be included in the paraphrase.
	(You can first try to paraphrase each clause.)
- Then make sure the connections between ideas are the same.
	(cause, effect, reason, contrast, condition, etc. AND who does what to whom)
- Remember that the correct answer choice often uses synonyms of key words in the original.
- Sometimes the correct answer choice leaves out one or more specific examples, but it’s still correct because it has the correct connections between the main ideas.
---
Negative Fact Questions
- Typically you can answer these by looking through the paragraph to find all the answer choices. The one that you can’t find is the correct answer.
- Answer choices often use different words to describe the things from the text.
- Sometimes the wrong answer is also mentioned in the text, with a negative word like “reject”. If you find mentions of all four, check more closely to see which one is negative.
- Some questions, especially negative questions near the end, require you to skim/scan the complete passage to find the answers.
- If you think you’ve already identified the answer (e.g. because the text clearly says the opposite of the answer choice), it might be good to save time by not reading the other answer choices.
---
Purpose Questions
- Does the highlighted word come after a preposition or a sentence transition? Then its purpose is probably related to something that was introduced before it.
---
In general, you don’t need to know exactly what everything means (in a reading or a listening), as long as you can see how different ideas fit together.