تکلیف پنجم - مکالمه گروهی

Task 5 - Conversation

The fifth speaking task on the TOEFL is another integrated task. But this time it’s a little different. It’s only listening. There will be no text, no reading. You will hear a recording and then you will answer a question about that recording and only the recording.

Task number five is a conversation. It can be between any two people at a university, maybe between two students, maybe a student and a professor, maybe between two professors, or other people at a university. Usually it’s two students. And as is true with all conversations that you listen to on the TOEFL it’s between a man and a woman.

One person has a problem. If there is a student it is usually the student who has the problem. There are two solutions to that problem, sometimes the other person gives the solutions, sometimes the person with the problem mentions the possible solutions.

Sometimes it’s one from each person. There is no specific way that you can recognize who is the important speaker in this question. Both speakers might be very important. The ideas, the solutions, are the more important part. After you hear the conversation you’ll have a very interesting, very different question from other TOEFL speaking topics.

You’re going to summarize, you’re going to describe the problem, that’s normal. You’re going explain the two solutions that you heard about or summarizing, that’s normal too, but here is where it changes. You’re going to choose the better solution. This question requires your opinion. No other speaking task that is integrated asks about your opinion.

Only the independent tasks ask about your opinion. This is the only time you will hear people speak and then you will give your opinion about their conversation. And of course anytime you do give an opinion you should explain your opinion, explain your choice. And what about the timing?

Question five is a bit similar to questions three and four. You listen, again with no clock, for one to two minutes. This is usually a little bit longer than the question three conversation. It’s usually over a minute 30, but it can be just a minute and five seconds, or a minute and ten seconds, possibly. After that, you’ll have some time to read the question which you’ll hear in your headphones too.

And then you’ll get 20 seconds to plan. This is less time than questions three and four, which give you 30 seconds. That’s because you have fewer notes. You are only looking at notes from the listening. Then you have 60 seconds to speak. All of the integrated tasks give you 60 seconds.

That’s all on this topic. Thank you.