In this question, you’ll listen to a lecture and be asked to summarize the points made within it.
Graders are trained to assign each of your answers either a 1, 2, 3, or 4 depending on the quality and strength of your answer.
A 1 is uncommunicative; students who earn this score may have survival English but nothing more.
A 2 is limited; this is for students who can survive comfortably with English but cannot express themselves very well.
A 3 is communicative; students with this score are comfortable with English and have next to no limitation with the language.
A 4 is nearly fluent; this is awarded to students who display a fluent command of the language.
Outline
1st: you will hear a 1-½ to 2-½ minute lecture
2nd: you will be asked a question about the lecture
3rd: you will be given 20 seconds to prepare your response
4th: you will then have 60 seconds to record your response
5th: the computer will save your response and go to the writing section
Lecture is just a three-paragraph essay being read out loud to you and each paragraph has a purpose:
1st paragraph: introduces a general topic (that can be divided into two subtopics) and defines or explains it.
2nd paragraph: introduces the first subtopic, defines or explains it, and provides an example to illustrate it.
3rd paragraph: introduces the second subtopic, defines or explains it, and provides an example to illustrate it
The question that you hear will always ask you to identify the topic and explain the two subtopics you heard using the examples provided in the lecture.
In this post anyone can post your response to the questions.
And anyone can make any suggestions/advice to the responses of other student.
Feel free to discuss anything regarding TOEFL SPEAKING Q6.
Transcript:
The professor discusses major factors of product quality.
She explains two factors.
First reliability, a product is reliable when it works the way it is expected to work. A reliable product is very durable and it often gives no problem to its user. It requires no repairing for a long time. But, because of the high manufacturing quality, reliability of product these days are pretty much the same.
So people rely more on features to buy a product. The professor gives examples of cars and says today cars has many features such as sun roof, AC, and stereo.
And, these are the major factors described by the professor of a product quality.
Please check and rate my response according to the TOEFL standards. Thanks
Transcript:
The professor discusses the different between a language and a dialect.
He says that it is very difficult art to differentiate them. The professor says, a dialect is one form of language that can be used to understand different form of language. He gives example of a person who is from Jamaica and a person from India and says that they can easily communicate with each other, but a person from southern China and a person from Beijing cannot understand each other, despite the fact that they speak different languages. On the other hand a person from Danish and a person from Norwegian can easily communicate with each other are even though they speak different languages. And that’s why professor says it is very hard to explain them.
Please check and rate my response according to the TOEFL standards. Thanks
Transcript:
The professor discusses a form of retaining that is supermarket.
The professor says that before 1950s the market was filled with small grocery stores. But it disappeared completely after the introduction of supermarket. Supermarket is better because it provided low cost to the people there because of the economy of scale. The second reason is it provide low personal cost because most customers serve for themselves. The third reason is, it has many product varieties for food and magazine, health and automobile. But now supermarket is also facing competition after the introduction of megamart, which is cheaper and cheaper pride and high variety that supermarket.
Please check and rate my response according to the TOEFL standards. Thanks
Transcript:
The professor discusses different types of star.
First yellow dwarf. He said that our Earth is an example of yellow dwarf because it is a huge spear of exploding gasses. Our Sun explodes because of the force that push it apart and the force that pull it together. The professor says after 5 million years from now our Sun will be called red giant because of the high rate of explosion it will increase its size till the orbit of Mercury which is the closest planet from the Sun and after that because there will be no fuel left in son, it will shrink and then it will be called black dwarf. And, if at the time Earth still exist, it will be a cold and dark place and it will be are not a good place to spend a vacation.
Please check and rate my response according to the TOEFL standards. Thanks
Transcript:
The professor discusses the beginning and current situation of television.
He says before people often used radio and went to movies. And when television was introduced it was predicted that it will obsolete all this technologies because who will like to go outside to watch movies when they can see movies at their house and who will like to listen if they can see. But all this technologies still exist and people found ways to use them separately. For example people use radio when they’re driving and when they are at work and people still like to go to movies, and see action movies on a big screen. And with all this, we can say that a new technology can still exist along with the old technologies.
Please check and rate my response according to the TOEFL standards. Thanks
Transcript:
The professor discusses about a devastating event called Great Dying which happened about 250 million years ago. Because of this event about 90% of ocean and 75% of land species died. Scientists found molecules at the rocks of Japan and Antarctica which came from a meteor. So, it is said that probably a meteor hit Earth at the time. There is also evidence of huge volcanic eruption because of which sunlight was cut off from Earth and which resulted in reduction of oxygen and which ultimately killed most of the species present on Earth.
Please check and rate my response according to the TOEFL standards. Thanks
Transcript:
The professor discusses a form of depression called seasonal affective disorder or SAD. This disorder appears mainly from Autumn to December or January mostly in northern Hemisphere. Because of the reduction of light, brain chemistry is affected which result in this disorder. This disorder also have different symptoms like fatigue or weight gain and head ache. It found mostly in female in their early 20s. The treatment of this disorder is simple. Patient are disposed in bright light which is like Sun or they can also go to a trip to the tropics.
Please check and rate my response according to the TOEFL standards. Thanks
Hi, you had some errors in your transcript that were correct in your actual response, like “art”, so not sure what happened there. You got a pretty key statement about the Chinese language wrong and you had a couple of other errors, but not too bad.
Hi Vahi, I don’t think you captured the balance of the forces very clearly, but the latter part of your response is better. I added the white dwarf part below, but maybe you would not have enough time to include everything, which is ok. You are still having trouble with your articles - a lot of missing "a"s.
Thanks for your vocal comments. Maybe someday, I will start speaking like that after I come to the USA.
I am having a hard time dealing with this type of question.
This is because there is no template that can is suitable for all question.
At first I was following a template, but I was not able to complete my responses.
So, I decided not to use them, except for the first line.
And, I am pausing a lot because I have to search for words to say in my notes at the same time.
I don’t know what to do about it.
About that erroneous transcript - at first I use to type it myself completely, but it is an arduous job. So I use a transcriber software now. However, it is not 100% accurate. That’s why, I have to edit it a little, and sometime I miss some errors.
Hi Vahi, I thought this was your best answer so far for this question type. Now I remember this question type, I think the problem is that you are getting bogged down in the introductory paragraph of the lecture. The key is in the final sentence of the introductory paragraph - just like an essay, that is where the thesis statement is. In this lecture it starts at 50 seconds: “what did change {with the introduction of tv} was the way audiences used the old media” So always restate this thesis statement and say how the two examples illustrate it.
So here is a sample answer. "The professor talks about the introduction of tv and how people were afraid it would eliminate the older media. The old media survived though, but peoples way of using them changed. He then gives two examples, radio and movies, to illustrate this. People used to gather around the radio in the evening and listen to programs together, but after tv now people listen to music and news on the radio, when they can’t give their full attention to it, like when they are in their cars or at work. Movies are still around, but instead of going four times a week or more like before tv, people might go see a movie on special occasions to see films as part of an audience on a big screen. So these two examples show how new media does not always eliminate new media, but just changes how it is used.
Hi Vahi, I thought this one was pretty good, I would just add the thesis statement, like I explained earlier, and also a summing up statement would be good. This question is all about taking good notes and being able to summarize them quickly. I think you will have to have fewer pauses to be able to fit in a few more sentences in your answer to get a top score on this question type.
Well, to me this question did not fit the standard format. I didn’t really hear a thesis statement at all, the lecturer just sort of rambled along So in this case, you did an excellent job of capturing her main points. I think you might get a top score of 4 for this answer.
I took my TOEFL on 28/November/2015, and received the scores on 5/December/2015.
I got 26 on the speaking section, which is more that the requirement of my dream grad school. In fact, my overall score is 101, and English requirement cannot stop me from entering any grad school.
I want to thank [color=blue]Luschen. I don’t think this would have been possible without him.
So in this case, you did an excellent job of capturing her main points. I think you might get a top score of 4 for this answer.