2019-12-05 TOEFL: listening practice

Greg Malivuk
[email protected]
http://www.pastebin.com/u/gmalivuk - notes from all classes
---
Homework: finish the questions on p. 406-407 about the placebo effect
1 c (The placebo effect is a certain result of something, it’s not the medical treatment itself.)
2 b
3 c
4 a
5 d
6 b
7 b (a and c are both wrong because they say the companies don’t do all the clinical trials they should do. There is no information about this in the text. The text says there is data about the clinical trials, which means the trials were done for the six major antidepressants. Nothing in the text implies they didn’t also do clinical trials on all the other drugs they sell.)
8 c
9 a
10 a
11 c
12 a
13 a e f (The text talks about pain relief and Parkinson’s as two separate examples, with depression as the third, in which brain imaging has helped understand the placebo effect.)
	e = paragraph 1
	f = paragraphs 2-4
	a = paragraphs 5-6
- If information in an answer choice is only mentioned in one or two sentences, it’s not a correct answer for a summary question.
- Usually, correct answer choices can be matched with a complete paragraph or more from the text.
- Incorrect answer choices can be minor details (only discussed in 1-2 sentences) or infromation that is not in the passage (either because it’s false or because it’s irrelevant).
- If one or more answers fit “inside” another answer choice, the “bigger” choice is correct.
	(b and c are separately about the research grouped together in f)
---
ETS 1.1 cave art
- The introductory sentence for the summary question summarizes paragraph 1.
- You can skim paragraph 3 (especially for transition signals like “another explanation”) to see how it’s organized and what (more specifically) it’s about: Paragraph 3 includes several explanations for the focus on animals.
---
p. 343 has an outline for how to answer summary questions (your book has a similar outline for every question type on each section)
---
Cengage exercise 1.1 - Identify the sentences where you can find the answers to each fact question.
(For negative fact questions, find the sentence that probably contains the incorrect answer choices. On the test, the correct answer would then be whichever choice isn’t mentioned in this sentence.)
---
BREAK
---
Listening Section

There are three different types of listening passage, which the TOEFL treats like two:
- conversations: 5 questions each
- lessons (lecture - only professor; discussion - professor and student(s)): 6 questions each
The timing on the listening section is broken into sets.
- long set = 1 conversation, 2 lessons; 10 minutes to choose answers
- short set = 1 conversation, 1 lesson; 6.5 minutes to choose answers
The total listening section will have 1 long set and 1 or 2 short sets. (5 or 7 listenings total)

Conversations are usually between a student and an employee of the university. Some conversations are between two students.
Conversations are (almost?) always between a man and a woman.
Conversations can be about any university-related topic.

Lessons can be simple lectures, with just a professor speaking, or can be discussions, with a professor and one or more students speaking. (Usually the students will speak less, and only ask or answer simple questions, but there are exceptions.)
Like reading passages, lessons can be about any academic topic.

Listening passages always include people with native accents, and most of them have American accents. You might hear one or two people with British or Australian accents.
---
For reading, publications like Smithsonian Magazine and National Geographic can be good practice.
For listening, sources such as TED-Ed can be useful for the format and range of topics.
---
Attitude, purpose, and function questions check your understanding of how people communicate in English. You have to identify things like tone of voice and the overall structure of a lesson or conversation, and probably won’t find the answers to these questions in your notes.
---
ETS 1.2 - Listen to the conversation and take notes. Then answer the questions.
1 - main idea - C
2 - purpose - A
3 - inference - B
4 - detail - C D
5 - inference - D
12 - main idea (purpose) - B
13 - inference - D (It was unlike previous satellites that only flew over the equator.)
14 - purpose - B
15 - detail -
---
Homework: answer the rest of these listening questions