Tài liệu The official guide to the new toefl ibt part 20 pdf

Listening—contd Raw-Point-Total Scale Score Answer Explanations Questions 1-5 Listening Script Narrator Listen to a conversation between a student and a professor.. The last thing the

ANSWER KEY, LISTENING SCRIPTS, AND EXPLANATIONS

Answer Key and Self-Scoring Chart

Directions: Check your answers against the Answer Key below Write the number 1 on the line to the right of each question if you picked the correct answer (For questions worth more than one point, follow the directions given.) Total your points at the bot- tom of the chart

For question 21, write 2 if you placed three answer choices correctly Write | if you placed two choices correctly

No: Í

Project: 2

Below is a table that converts your Listening Practice section answers into a TOEFL iBT Scaled Score Take the number of correct answers from your Answer Key table and find that number in the left-hand column of the table On the right-hand side of the table is a range of TOEFL iBT Listening scores for that number of correct answers For example, if the total of points from your answer key is 27, the table says your estimated TOEFL iBT Listening section scaled score is in the range of 22 to 24 Your scaled score is given as a range instead of a single number for the following reasons:

» The estimates of scores are based on the performance of students who par- ticipated in a field study for these listening comprehension questions Those students took the test on computer You took your practice test by listening to

a CD and answering questions in a book Although the two experiences are comparable, the differences make it impossible to give an exact prediction of your score

» The students who participated in the field study were volunteers and may have differed in average ability from the actual TOEFL test-taking population

» The conversion of scores from the field study in which these questions were administered to the current TOEFL iBT scale involved two scale conversions Converting from one scale to another always involves some statistical error You should use your score estimate as a general guide only Your actual score on TOEFL iBT may be higher or lower than your score on the practice section A free practice version of TOEFL iBT, which you can take on computer, is available at www.toeflpractice.ets.org

Listening

Continued

186 THE OFFICIAL GUIDE TO THE NEW TOEFL iBT

Listening—contd

Raw-Point-Total Scale Score

Answer Explanations Questions 1-5

Listening Script Narrator

Listen to a conversation between a student and a professor

Professor Hey, Ellen How are you doing?

Student

Oh, pretty good, thanks How are you?

Professor

OK

Student Did you, um, have a chance to look at my grad school application purpose | wrote

Professor Well, yeah In fact, here itis | just read it

you know, the statement of

Student

Oh, great! What did you think?

Professor

Basically, it's good What you might actually do is take some of these different points here, and actually break them out into separate paragraphs So, um, one: your purpose for applying for graduate study; uh, why do you want to go to graduate school, and an area of specialty; and,

uh, why you want to do the area you're specifying; um, and what you want to do with your degree once you get it

Student

OK

Professor

So those are they’re pretty clear on those four points they want

Student

Right

Professor

So, you might just break them out into uh you know, separate paragraphs and expand on each point some But really what's critical with these is that, um, you’ve gotta let yourself come through See, you gotta let them see you in these statements Expand some more on what's happened in your own life and what shows your your motivation and interest in this area—in geology Let ‘em see what really, what what captures your imagination about this field

Student

OK So make it a little more personal? That's OK?

Professor

That's fine They look for that stuff You don’t wanna go overboard

Student

Right

Professor

but it's critical that that somebody sees what your passion is—your personal motivation for doing this

Student

OK

Professor

And that’s gotta come out in here Um, and let's see, uh, you might also give a little, un—since this is your only chance to do it, you might give a little more explanation about your unique undergraduate background So, you know, how you went through, you know, the music program; what you got from that; why you decided to change | mean, it’s kind of unusual to go from music to geology, right?

188 THE OFFICIAL GUIDE TO THE NEW TOEFL iBT

Student Yeah | was | was afraid that, you know, maybe the personal type stuff wouldn’t be what they wanted but

Professor

No, in fact it’s .um, give an example: | | had a friend, when | was an undergrad, um, went to medical school And he put on his med school application—and he could actually tell if somebody actually read it ‘cause, um, he had asthma and the reason that he wanted to go to med school was

he said he wanted to do sports medicine because he, you know, he had this real interest He was an athlete too, and and wanted to help athletes who had this physical problem And he could always tell if somebody actually read his letter because they would always ask him about that Student

Mmm so something unique

Professor Yeah So see, you know, that’s what’s good and and | think for you probably, you know, your music background’s the most unique thing that you’ve got in your record

Student Right

Professor .Mmm .s0 you see, you gotta make yourself stand out from a coupla hundred applications Does that help any?

Student Yeah, it does It gives me some good ideas

Professor And what you might also do too is, you know, uh, you might get a friend to proof it or something

at some point

Student

Oh, sure sure

Professor Also, think about presentation—how the application looks In a way you're actually showing some other skills here, like organization A lot of stuff that’s that they're not they're not formally asking for, they’re looking at So your presentation format, your grammar, all that stuff, they’re look- ing at in your materials at the same time

Studeni Right OK

Answers and Explanations

1 @ For Listening conversations that take place in a professor's office hours, it is very likely that the first question will be a Gist-Purpose question That is the case here This discussion is about how the woman should write her graduate school

TOEFL iBT LISTENING 189

application, not about an interview or whether or not she had been admitted The professor already has her application and has reviewed it, so the purpose can- not be for her to give him the application Thus choice 2 is the correct answer; she wants advice about the application

2 @ © When you are taking the TOEFL iBT on computer, whenever you see squares

in front of the question choices instead of ovals, you should recognize that the question calls for you to select two or more answers from among the choices In this case, the professor stresses the following two items that the woman needs to include in her application letter:

1 How her college career has made her interested in graduate school

2 How she stands out as an individual

Thus the correct answers are choices 1 and 3 She does not have a background in medicine (choice 2), and the professor does not mention her teachers (choice 4)

3 @ This is a Detail question The professor mentions twice that the woman's decision to go from studying music to geology is unusual

4 @ This is an Understanding the Function of What Is Said question Clearly the professor is illustrating his point that a good application should individualize the writer His friend who went to medical school is an example

5 @ This is a Making Inferences question The last thing the professor mentions to the student is that she should think about the format of her application and the statement of purpose He says that the format of the application can demonstrate her organizational skills and strongly implies that avoiding any writing errors shows thoroughness By making these points, he is implying that the readers

of the application will be influenced by its appearance, even if the influence is unconscious He says nothing about the readers’ expertise (choice 1); he implies that sometimes they may not read the application carefully, but he does not imply that this is what usually happens (choice 2); and he says the opposite of choice 4 The correct answer is choice 3

Questions 6-10 Listening Script Narrator

Listen to part of a conversation between two students The woman is helping the man review for a biology examination

Male student

OK, so what do you think we should go over next?

Female student How about if we go over this stuff about how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics

Male student

OK

Female student

Um, but first of all, though, how many pages do we have left? | told my roommate I'd meet her at the library at seven o'clock

Male student Ummm .There’s only a few pages left We should be finished in a few minutes

Female student

OK So, ummm

Male student About how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics

Female student

Oh yeah, OK So you know that some bacteria cells are able to resist the drugs we use against them, and that’s because they have these special genes that, like, protect them from the drugs Male student

Right If | remember correctly, | think the genes like weaken the antibiotics, or like stop the antibiotics from getting into the bacteria cell, something like that?

Female student Exactly So when bacteria have these genes, it’s very difficult for the antibiotics to kill the bacteria

Male student

Right

Female student

So, do you remember what those genes are called?

Male student

Umm

Female student Resistance genes

Male student Resistance genes Right Resistance genes OK

Female student And that makes sense, right? Because they heip the bacteria resist the antibiotics

Male student

Yeah, that makes sense OK

TOEFL iBT LISTENING 191

Female student

OK But the question is: how do bacteria get the resistance genes?

Male student How do they get the resistance genes? They just inherit them from the parent ceil, right?

Female student

OK, yeah, that’s true They can inherit them from the parent ceil, but that’s not what I’m talking about Male student

OK

Female student I'm talking about how they get resistance genes from other cells in their environment, you know, from the other cells around them

Male student

Oh, | see what you mean Umm, is that that stuff about “hopping genes,” or something like that? Female student

Right Although actually they're called “jumping genes,” not “hopping genes”

Male student

Oh, OK Jumping genes

Female student Yeah, but they have another name, too, that | can’t think of Umm lemme see if | can find it here

in the book

Male student

| think its probably on

Female student

Oh, OK Here it is Transposons That’s what they're cailed

Male student Lemme see OK Trans .po sons .trans .posons So “transposon” is another name for

a jumping gene?

Female student Right And these transposons are, you know, like, little bits of DNA that are abie to move from one ceil to another Thai's why they're called “jumping genes.” They kind of, you know, “jump” from one cell to another

Male student

OK

Female student

And these transposons are how resistance genes are able to get from one bacteria cell to another bacteria cell What happens is that a resistance gene from one cell attaches itself to a transposon and then, when the transposon jumps to another ceil

Male student

The other cell gets the resistance gene and

Female student

Right

Male student

That’s how it becomes resistant to antibiotics

Female student

Right

Male student

Wow That’s reaily cool So that’s how it happens

Female student

That’s how it happens

Answers and Explanations

This question set, from an early version of TOEFL iBT, does not exactly fit the rules for TOEFL conversations given earlier in this chapter Instead of being between a student and a university employee, it is between two students who are studying for an exam

We have included it here because it is good practice and it closely resembles an office hours conversation on an academic topic It has also been field-tested with actual test takers, providing data on the difficulty level of the items

6

@ This conversation is about academic content in the area of Life Science The man is trying to learn something for his biology test It makes sense, then, that the first question is a Gist-Content question: “What are the students mainly discussing?” The students discuss drugs, but they are drugs that fight bacteria, so choice 1 is eliminated They are not discussing how antibiotics are produced, but how they are resisted, so choice 2 is eliminated If all you heard was “jumping” and “hopping,” you might think they were discussing athletics, but that is not how those words are being used, so choice 3 is eliminated Choice 4 is the correct answer: the man is learning how some bacieria acquire genes that make them resistant to antibiotics

@ This replay item is an Understanding the Function of What Is Said question You are asked why the woman says the following:

“Um, but first of all, though, how many pages do we have left? ¡ told my roommate I'd meet her

at the library at seven o'ciock”

TOEFL iBT LISTENING 193

Her statement about meeting her roommate is part of the context in which the main discussion takes place The man is trying to learn about bacteria, but she

is saying they have only a limited amount of time to spend on the discussion The function of her statement is to tell the man that she must keep her appoint- ment with her roommate and therefore they must finish soon

8 @ This is a Detail question When you hear a new term defined, in either a lecture

or a conversation, you should note it Here the students spend a large part of the conversation discussing why the “transposons” are called “jumping genes.” The woman says twice that the reason is that the genes can migrate, or “jump” from one cell to another The correct answer is choice 1

9 @ @ This is another Detail question It asks you to identify two ways that bacte- ria acquire the resistance gene Both students mention that the gene can be inher- ited from a parent cell They then have a longer discussion about the “jumping gene” and how a “jumping gene” can carry the resistance gene to a new cell Nothing is mentioned about “white blood cells,” and “resistance genes being car- ried by antibiotics” is directly contradicted by the discussion The correct answers are choices are | and 3

10 @ The question uses the verb inferred, so you know this is a Making Inferences question The students say repeatedly that some bacteria resist “the drugs we use against them.” From this you can infer that an antibiotic is a medicine used against some bacteria The students say the resistance genes “weaken the antibi- otics” and “stop the antibiotics.” From these clues you should infer that choice 3,

“the resistance genes make the treatment of bacterial diseases more difficult,” is the correct answer

Questions 11-16

Listening Script

Narrator

Listen to part of a talk in an Environmental Science class

Professor

So, | wanted to discuss a few other terms here actually, some, uh some ideas about how we manage our resources

Let’s talk about what that what that means If we take a resource like water well, maybe

we should get a little bit more specific here—back up from the more general case—and talk about underground water in particular

So, hydrogeologists have tried to figure out how much water can you take out from under- ground sources? This has been an important question Let me ask you guys: how much water, based on what you know so far, could you take out of, say, an aquifer under the city?

Male student

As .as much as would get re-charged?