2019-02-07 TOEFL: speaking 6

Speaking Section: third section, after the break; 20 minutes total, 5.5 minutes speaking, 6 tasks
1 independent, open-ended - 15 seconds to prepare / 45 seconds to speak
2 independent, choice question - 15/45
3 integrated reading/listening/speaking, campus announcement and conversation - 30/60
4 integrated R/L/S, academic text and lecture - 30/60
5 integrated L/S, conversation about a problem and solutions - 20/60
6 integrated L/S, academic lecture - 20/60
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Handout (Oxford outlines) - Note the suggestion to balance variety of grammar and vocabulary with familiar grammar and vocabulary.
- For task 3, the reasons the speaker gives usually (but not always) correspond to the reasons in the announcement.
- The main difference between 4 and 6 is that in 4 the general concept is explained in the reading and in 6 it’s the first part of the lecture you hear.
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Speaking Task 6 - Listen and take notes about ETS 2.2 (baby empathy)
Your response would start the same way as usual: explain what empathy is.
Then summarize the experiment (with a lead-in like, “The professor describes an experiment with babies.”)
- The key result of the experiment was that babies don’t cry when they hear (recordings of) their own crying, but they do cry when they hear other babies crying. Therefore it can’t just be the noise that bothers them.
(The lecture gives the information in a different order, but it’s better to summarize the most important information as soon as possible, so you don’t run out of time.)
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Important points in experiments are:
- methods (what did the experimenters do?)
- results (what happened as a consequence?)
- conclusions (what does this mean?)
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2.4 question 4 is also an experiment
method: people saw a very brief image of a boy with a cake while watching TV, in one image he was happy and in the other he was angry; then they described the boy’s personality with a neutral picture
results: people who saw the happy boy used positive words to describe him, people who saw the angry boy used negative words
conclusion: even though they didn’t consciously remember seeing the first picture, it affected their beliefs about the boy, so subliminal perception can affect our attitudes
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BREAK
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Record your responses to the ETS Guide questions.
repetition/reputation - make sure to pronounce these differently
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For integrated speaking and writing, an incorrect explanation isn’t any worse than a missing one.
It can’t hurt you to make something up if you didn’t catch what the lecture said.
Remember that a summary doesn’t need to include specific details.
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1 open question
2 choice question
3 campus situation
4 academic R/L
5 problem/solution
6 academic lecture
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When you calibrate your microphone, the ‘question’ they ask is, “Describe the city you live in.”
- You should actually answer the question, because that will be better calibration than just repeating it.
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https://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-one-journalist-risked-her-life-to-hold-murderers-accountable-christina-greer