TOEFL Listening Section: Common Mistakes

Knowledge of a field can be sharpened and excelled on the basis of perfection by means of measuring & considering the common mistakes regarding the field. TOEFL listening section is a vital section to score and ascend the test score. One needs to be good at cracking the common mistakes so that he/she can get the desired score. The knowledge of the common mistakes of TOEFL listening section always aids a test taker to drive through the path avoiding the pitfall of mistake with a view to saving the score smartly and strategically.

 

Get distracted by the surroundings

• The only thing one should look at during the test is the screen of the computer and the scrap paper to take notes.
• Everything else in the room will be a distraction.
• So one should make his / her desk as the entire world for the whole time of exam.
• As the timer is always going on without giving any pause, one should not look here and there due to any kind of noise or curiosity remembering every single second is important in the exam.
• The headphone should be attached to the whole listening section to ear and the sight should be work only on the computer screen, while the pen and paper aid anyone to collect the notes.

 

Forget/avoid taking notes

• It is really a great mistake in listening section of TOEFL if anyone avoids or forgets to take notes and listen simultaneously.
• One takes notes that give an impetus to concentrate on the listening section holistically. When you have a job to do, in this case, it’s to take notes, you are more likely to pay attention so you can do your job well.  Here’s a link to a useful video about note-taking strategy in the listening section.

 

  Unexplored main Idea

• One needs to explore and perceive the main ideas during listening to a conversation or an academic lecture otherwise mistakes can be happened easily.
• One can expect that the first question of after almost every listening passage is the main idea question. They are very popular and there’s at least one per passage.
• Inattentive listening with a scattered concentration can make anyone lost his /her time and may lead missing essential information.
• In order to develop reading skills during the listening session, one needs to practice a lot to come out of mistakes.

 

Tendency to skip questions during answering

• The time to answer the questions comes immediately after the listening and taking notes.
• The questions in the listening section must be answered in the order they are presented.
• One should guess on the basis of perception if he/she has no idea what the answer is.
• There is no negative marking process in TOEFL. If the questions are left unanswered or skipped then it will be marked as wrong answer and one has to lose mark.
• So it is better to guess and answer to increase the probability to score positively.

 

Disorganized management of time

• The time should be utilized sincerely in listening otherwise it can cost a lot in the overall mark.
• The way of listening, reading and writing together should be practiced on a regular basis.
• One will listen to recordings with 34-51 questions for 60-90 minutes where the task is to listen to speakers and lectures, classroom discussions, conversations, academics, dialogues and then write the answers to a series of questions.
• He / She should not take more than two minutes to answer a question except for questions that are worth two points or more
• One should read questions carefully and eliminate obviously wrong answers as one takes the exam. One needs to be concerned and avoid taking too long time to answer each question or you will run out of time at the end.

 

Try to write every word one can Listen

• It is a great mistake trying to write each and every word one can listen to by means of the audio.
• It will lead to a note which will lack important information or which has only partial information.
• One should note the listening lectures and conversation by applying strategy, using signs, columns, utilizing the craft of concision.
• It is very important to sustain the concentration towards a focused flow with a view to getting the cue-words and key facts to note them down strategically without being distracted.

 

 Listen blindly to the audio lectures

• If the test taker listens blindly to the audio lectures without any perception and without thinking about why one is listening or what information one needs to listen for.
• On will have to make sense and visualization of everything in order to explore the answers and so he/she has to sustain ample attention during the exam time.
• The clues & cue-words in the instructions and any text or visuals given are to be found out keenly to use the auditory sense in a smart way of utilizing vocabulary and language.
• The speaker’s voice, pitch, and attitude in the audios are to be observed by the sense of listening with a view to exploring the correct answers.

 

Wrong application of tense, spelling, and grammar

• The wrong application of Tense, spelling, and grammar may lead anyone to the route of mistakes in answering the questions.
• The correct form of tense, spelling and grammatical structure of the speech of speaker should be observed with the proper sense of attention and curiosity of concentration.

 

Listening section of TOEFL is the zone in where one can make a great turn to get a good total score. The knowledge of common mistakes can structure the zone without pitfalls to have a journey by listening that will result in a smart and desired score.