TOEFL Essentials vs TOEFL iBT, the Listening section. So, if you are watching this video, you
probably are thinking about taking the Essentials Test or you have to take the iBT test and you are
not sure which one is better for you, what are the similarities and the differences. So, we are
going to talk about that right now. So, by the end of this video, you will know exactly what to expect
in the iBT Listening and the Essentials Listening, and we will also say which one is easier as well.
So, a really quick rundown of what we are going to do is that we're going to do a
walkthrough of the iBT Listening, a walkthrough of the Essentials Listening, so basically, talk about
the question types, and we will review the question types for each test, and then we will
look at examples of the new TOEFL Essentials question types, there is a couple of new ones,
and then talk about which tests you should take. Now, some people might be wondering if your school
or institution takes the Essentials test. The answer is I don't know, every school is different,
ask uncle Google, he will know more than I do about your particular school. Here we are going to talk
about the Essentials test and the iBT and what they look like. All right, so let's get into it
right now. So, the iBT first of all has two parts, there are five passages in the Listening section
and there are 28 questions in total, two conversations, and three lectures. It looks something
like this. You will see a picture, the listening will start to play, and you have to take notes. You don't
see the questions until after the listening, and then the questions come up one at a time.
And it is the same for lectures. They are pretty long lectures, about five minutes long,
they have just a word that is kind of difficult, and the question will play and you have to take notes
while you listen, and questions come up one at a time, so it is very similar, most of the question
types and the passages, couple conversations, couple lectures. A couple other things about the iBT is
that there are 28 academic English questions, so all of the questions are about academic English. The
conversations ask you some things that are more general, but for the most part, it is all academic.
There are eight different question types and it is not adaptive. Adaptive means that the test changes
based on your level. So, there are some tests like the Essentials Test, which we will talk about, that when
you start to take the test, the level is the same for everybody, but as you answer the questions, if
you are getting them correct or incorrect, the test will change, it will get easier or more difficult.
So, that is adaptive. All right, now let's talk about the Essentials Test. So, in the Listening section
there are two parts, same as iBT, but there are 18 passages, so a lot more passages, and about the same
a number of questions, 30 questions. So, there are a lot more passages, so that sounds a little scary, but
it is a lot easier. There are 14 conversations instead of two, but they are all less than 30 seconds long.
There are two campus announcements which are, again, about 30 seconds, and there are two lectures which
are about 90 seconds. So, as you can see, the length of the passages are much shorter in the Essentials
Test, which is actually really important because it is hard to listen for five minutes straight
to anybody. If you listen to me for five minutes straight, congratulations. It's not, it's not an easy
thing to do, to listen to somebody for five minutes straight, all right. So, this is what the Essentials
Test looks like. This is a pretty simple thing. This is considered a passage, but really it is just
a question, the person will ask a question and the question might be something like, "Who is your
favorite singer?" and then you have to pick the best answer. There are 10 of these, really, really simple.
There's a conversation like, "Are you going to go to the barbecue? Yeah, I'm going to go.
Do you want to bring anything? No. Okay, see you on Sunday, bye." Maybe, not exactly like that,
but something pretty similar. It is very short, less than 30 seconds. and it is about something
general and again. It Is followed by a couple questions, two questions after each conversation.
There is an announcement, this announcement is about 30-45 seconds, something like that, and after the
announcement, you have a couple questions also, two questions I believe, I'll double check that.
The most difficult part of the Essentials Test is the podcast. A podcast is just a lecture, I
don't know, maybe they want to be more hip and cool and say, "Hey, it is a podcast, it is not a lecture,"
which is fine, but it is the same exact thing, it is 90 seconds of somebody speaking about an academic
topic. And then, after they finish speaking, you have four questions and this lovely lady will be there
next to the questions or man. By the way, I did not choose this animation, this is the exact animation
on the Essentials Test. If I were making this, I would choose something slightly more appealing,
Anyway, so, okay, now there are 30 questions, 18 of them are general English questions and 12 of
them are academic English questions. So, you have a lot more questions that are general and basic.
There are, to my count, five different question types, this is me talking, not ETS, I'll explain
what these question types are in a bit. And this test is adaptive. It changes based on your answers,
especially this section, the Listening section. Look, I know you guys want to do something else
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to finish your TOEFL as fast as possible, check out tstprep.com, we have everything you need. Okay, let's
do just a quick review of what we just learned about the Essentials Test. So, there are five passages
for one part, there are five passages followed by a single question, it looks like this. So, you will see
five of these simple questions, then you choose the best response, and then after that, you will listen to
conversations. There will be two conversations, less than 30 seconds, followed by two questions, and then
after that, you will hear an announcement. There will just be one announcement, it will be about 30 seconds,
and it is followed by two questions, it looks something like this. And then finally, you have to listen to
an academic talk or podcast and that is about 90 seconds, and you have four questions after,
it looks something like this. And again, it will be in two parts, so they will repeat this same
structure again in the second part. That is the Essentials Test for the Listening section.
All right, so something to keep in mind is that there is a large variety of questions and passages
on the TOEFL Essentials test, but the content is easier than the TOEFL iBT. So, again the passages
are really short, there are only a few questions after each one, only one or two besides the last
passage, so that makes it a lot easier than the iBT. The iBT you have to listen to lectures for like
five minutes, you have to listen to conversations for three or four minutes, that is a long time, and
you have to take a lot of notes. The Essentials content is much easier in my opinion than the
iBT just because of the length of the passages and the type of questions you get asked after.
Okay, now let's talk about question types a little bit. You don't have to worry too much about these
question types necessarily, especially for the Essentials Test. I have another video where I
talk about listening question types, I'll put a link in the description below so you don't
have to worry about this too much, but I just want to review the differences between the two tests.
The iBT had something called gist -purpose which is like, "Why does the student go to see the professor?"
You don't have to worry about that anymore, it is not here, but they do ask you gist - content which
is basically the main idea, what is this about, and they do ask you detail questions which is pretty
much like factual information questions, they just ask you about something from the passage, it is very
simple. So, for example here, when you are listening to the iBT, you have to take a lot of notes. Here
for the Essentials Test, you have to answer a kind of detail, for example, "What does the
professor say about shrimp?" and hopefully, you remembered something that she said about shrimp.
"What should the men bring to the party?" This is a conversation, that is pretty basic,
and so it just asks you a detail, so just simple detail questions. So, two other question types,
speaker's attitude which is on the ibt asking about the professor's opinion is not here in the
Essentials and understanding the function, "What does the professor mean when he says this?" or
"Why does the speaker say this?" that does come up. So, that is kind of like making an inference, guessing,
why a speaker said something. So, for example, "Why does the professor talk about shrimp?" Right here
in the Essentials test, it is pretty similar to something that they would ask in the iBT, this
can also come up in the conversations as well. When I say, so an inference, I have a whole video
about inferences, there is a lot of different ways to make an inference, I won't talk about it here,
but they do show up in the Essentials Test as well, so be aware of that. In the iBT it will be in
a lecture, you have to listen, and then here's an example of a question from the Essentials,
something like, "What would the speaker probably discuss next?" So, they don't say it directly, you
have to figure out what you think is the best answer, that is an inference, and that is still
on the Essentials Test. And it also comes up in conversations. What does a man imply when he says,
"I will stop by when I finish work'". So, it is pretty simple, but you have to guess what this means,
okay, you have to guess what the inference is. Two questions that do not show up on the Essentials
Test is organization and connecting content, these are only on the iBT. So, the last question
type, question reply, is on the TOEFL Listening Essentials, but not the iBT, which is pretty
simple, it is the one that we talked about already. They ask a simple question like for example, "Don't
you want to hear that song again?" and then you have to answer it with the best one. Really easy, really
simple. So, which test should you take? If you have a choice between the Essentials and the iBT, I would
recommend the Essentials because it is easier. If you want to challenge yourself, take the iBT,
but the Essentials Test is easier and the big reason is because the passages are much shorter
in the Essentials Test, and that makes this easier than the iBT. And one more thing, it is very
important, please hit subscribe, like, wherever it is somewhere down here, touch it, hit it, smash it,
some people say. You don't really have to smash it, you can do just kind of just a little touch,
touch, it really helps me out a lot. All right, I hope that was helpful and next week I will give you the
same for the Reading section, iBT vs Essentials. Alright guys, I'll see in the next one, take care.