All right, so the goal is pretty simple here, to be able to identify each question type
in the TOEFL Listening with ease, and we're going to look at a lot of examples to help
help you do that. It's a real headache to try to remember all these question types, it
is really annoying, for me especially, I've been teaching this for a while and I still get confused.
So, I want to try to make it as simple as possible. You still might be a little bit
confused by the end, that's okay, but you should be a little bit more, you should understand more.
Let me give you a quick rundown of these question types. This is from our TOEFL Quick Guide.
Gist- content, gist-purpose, detail, understand the speaker's attitude, understand the function,
making inferences, understand organization, and connecting content. So, you may see those
question types and think, "I kind of get what some of them mean, some of them are a little confusing".
So, let's talk about that more. Rule number one, gist-content and gist-purpose questions
always come first. These are always the first question after the passage, conversation or lecture.
Gist-content is the most popular. They're almost always asked about after lectures, and about 50
percent of the time after conversations. And this always asks you, "What is the professor
mainly discussing? What is this about?" It's a main idea question. It's always the first question.
Sometimes you will have gist-purpose questions. These are asking you, "Why does the student go to
the career center?" This is usually in conversations, and it's asking you why the student went somewhere.
That could be different than the main idea. So, gist-purpose is asking you why the student went
somewhere, gist-content is asking you, "What does, what does the professor talk about? What does
the student talk about?" So, those, that's the big difference between the two, but they're always the
first question, and that's it. You'll only get one question per passage, that's either gist-content or
gist-purpose. Look, already making your life easier, I hope. Number two. Gist-purpose questions will ask
why, So again, they ask you, "Why does the student do this? Why does the student go to the career center?"
So, pretty simple. "What do the professor and student mainly discuss?" That is a gist-content question. So,
gist-purpose will always come after conversations. Sometimes you'll get a gist-content question,
what-question like this, sometimes you'll get a gist-purpose question
with why, but in lectures, it's almost always gist-content, "What is the lecture mainly about?"
Alright, so as you can see, this is a gist- purpose question, and the one below is a gist-content
question. I want to give you a lot of examples so you get an idea of what it looks like. Rule number
three. Detail questions are pretty straightforward and often use what. So, when you see the word "what",
a lot of times it's a detailed question, What does the professor say about shooting stars?
According to the lecture, what is an example of the effects of climate change?
This isn't always the case, but it's very common. Here you see where it begins, with which.
Which of the following is an indicator that you might suffer from sleep debt?
Even though it begins with which, it is still a detailed question. So, detailed
questions are pretty straightforward. They're asking you about information that you heard.
Again, "What is the professor mainly discussing?" This is a what-question but in this situation what
type of question is it? Not a detailed question, it's a gist-content question. Remember, number one,
the first question, is gist-content or gist-purpose, asking you about the main idea. So, hopefully, you
caught that. Alright, so here we see, "What does the professor say about shooting stars?" That is a gist,
I'm sorry that is a detailed question. Which of the following is an indicator that you might
suffer from sleep debt? That is a detailed question. What does the professor mainly discussing? So, we
see what, but in this situation, it's not a detail question but gist-content. So, just be aware of that.
Rule number four. Connecting content questions are often tables. Now, this is where the information
is going to get a little tricky, rule number four and rule number five. Let's start with
connecting content. A lot of times they look like this. Now, this is the part that always confused me
with listening question types is between connecting content and making inferences. After
doing a lot of research, teaching this for a long time, this is my conclusion. I see no significant
difference between connecting content and making inference questions outside of filling out a table.
In other words, connecting content questions are a table that's the only thing you have to worry
about. Now, why do I say this? I don't say this because it's my assumption, I say this because
these are the words from ETS, the company that makes the TOEFL. So, this is from their book, from
the TOEFL ETS book, and they show you the question wording of inference questions and
connecting content. Notice the parts highlighted in red. "What does the professor imply about x?" is
an inference question. Look at that, connecting content, same exact question, "What can be inferred
about x?" that's an inference, "What can be inferred about x?" same exact question. So, don't worry about
is it an inference question, is it a connecting content question, don't worry about that. If you
see a table, it's connecting content, that's all you need to know. And that leads me to number five.
Understanding the function, understanding the speaker's attitude, making inferences, they all
ask you to infer, imply, or ask you why. So, I was always confused about these question
types. I never could tell the difference between an inference, speaker's attitude a little bit, but an
inference, connecting content, and understanding the function, it was always confusing to me. So,
basically, bring them together, these are basically not asking you what you heard,
but instead, why the speaker said something, what do you think this means, they're asking
you to infer or imply, to take a guess. They're not asking you what. For the TOEFL listening
questions the most important thing to consider is whether the information was stated directly,
detail or gist-content, or if you have to make an inference, which is making inference, understanding
the function, speaker's attitude. Don't worry about identifying a specific question type. That's the
big secret here, don't worry about the question types in the Listening. All you have to worry about
is that is it asking you for a detail, a what, or is it asking you to make an inference. Why does
the person say this? What does the person imply when they say this? What do you think they suggest
here? That's all you have to worry about. What is the professor implying when she says this?
Okay, that's probably a function question, but you don't have to worry. All you have to know is
that you have to listen and you have to make an inference, a guess. What does the professor imply
about the sister theory? Again, not something directly stated but an inference that you're
going to have to guess. Why does the professor say this? Probably a function question here,
don't have to worry about it, just listen and then take a guess based on what you hear. What
do you think the student is most likely to do next? Again, this is an inference question, you
have to guess what the student will do based on the information. It's not stated directly.
Again, why does the student go to the career center? Here we have a why question
but this isn't a speaker's attitude or understand function. Do you remember what's this? Question
number one, this is a gist-purpose question. So, this isn't always the case. Sometimes you'll see why
and it's not an inference or function, but a lot of times it is. Just keep that in mind.
So, here we have some examples. What is the professor implying? What do you think the
student's going to do next? But be careful. Why does the student go to the career center? Why does
the student go to the career center? That's gist-purpose. So, don't worry about the question types,
where it's understanding the function, or speaker's attitude, or making inferences. All you have to know
is that you have to make an inference, you have to guess based on information that's not directly
stated. Okay, pro tip here. Answer the question. Don't worry about identifying the question type by name.
Don't worry about all that stuff, just be sure that you can tell the difference between something
directly stated and an inference. I said it five times already, I'm going to say it again. All you
have to worry about is telling the difference between something that is directly stated
and something where you have to make an inference, that's the most important thing.
So, those are the five rules. Gist-content and gist-purpose are always the first question.
Gist-purpose ask why, detail questions are straightforward and often use what,
connecting content often uses tables, and there's not a significant difference, in my opinion, between
understanding functions, speaker's attitude, and making inferences. Hope that's clear. I hope that
made things easier. Visit tstprep.com so you can download a free and complete TOEFL test so you
can actually practice this stuff and do some real listening. And that's it. Thank you guys so much
for watching, I hope you found that helpful and yep, make sure you hit the subscribe button. I never,
I never remember to do that, hit the subscribe button, and thank you guys so much for watching.