hello everyone and welcome to this toefl ibt listening video today we're talking about
organization questions organization questions ask you about how a listening is structured
typical phrasing that you'll see in this type of question is why does the professor discuss
x or how does the professor organize or structure her presentation organization questions often ask
you about specific examples in the listening let's get started now on organization questions
in this video i'll describe the question type i'll talk about a method to answer
this sort of question we'll look at a sample do some practice and talk about skill building
at the end organization questions method step one take notes as you listen as organization questions
ask you about how the listening is structured then listen out for lists in the audio so you're
listening for sequencing for logical lists for orders for chronology and also for transition
words like firstly next furthermore we're going to listen now to an audio about kangaroos so get
your paper and pan out ready let's go listening lecture one there are four types of kangaroos the
eastern gray and red kangaroos are the larger type approximately two meters in height however the red
kangaroo is the heaviest kangaroo of approximately 90 kilos average weight this kangaroo lives in a
very arid habitat in new south wales whereas the eastern grey is found in queensland and victoria
the smallest and lightest kangaroo is the antelopine which weighs about 38 kilos we
find this animal in northern australia where it enjoys grassy plains and woodlands it is about one
meter in height the western gray kangaroo slightly larger at 1.2 meters is found in the darlene river
basin as it prefers a forested and coastal habitat the western grey kangaroo is 54 kilos in weight
okay so how did you get on with the listening did you scribble down some notes i scrolled some notes
pretty quickly let's take a look i just wrote down what i could hear kangaroos red 90 kilos
arid new south wales eastern grey kangaroo queensland victoria anti-police 38 kilos one meter
grass and woods western gray forest coast 1.2 meters 54 kilos step 2 read the question
and answer choices carefully how does the speaker organize information about kangaroos so we can
see this is a typical organization question because we see the phrase how does the speaker
organize our answer choices a thematically b from heaviest to lightest c from smallest to largest
d chronologically what do these words mean well thematically means by the theme or by the subject
and chronologically means by date or time so we need to decide is the presentation of kangaroos
presented by subject matter by the theme or from heaviest to lightest
from the smallest to the largest kangaroo or chronologically that means by date or time
step three check your notes to observe the structure of the listening so if we look back
at our notes we can see we started with the red kangaroo which was actually the heaviest it was
90 kilos then the eastern gray the anti-police which was the smallest at 38 kilos 1 meter
and then the western gray which was slightly larger at 1.2 meters 54 kilos
step four eliminate the wrong answers and select the right answer if you remember from the notes
we just talked about we can now rule out answer b because the last kangaroo was neither the heaviest
nor the lightest and the same with answer c the first kangaroo the red was the largest and the
heaviest so b and c don't work chronologically relates to date and time so we can rule that out
there are no dates in this listening our answer is a thematically the kangaroo information is based
on the types of kangaroo on the subject matter great so now you know what organization questions
are how they appear in toefl ibt a little technique to answer them now let's talk
about skill building to help you prepare for this type of question as you listen to audios
as you practice listen out for those transition words words like firstly secondly
next furthermore and then other types of linkers like of course for example for instance
finally as a result all of these transition words signal the process and order the sequence thank
you for watching everyone good luck in total ibt listening we'll see you in the next video bye
you