تکلیف سوم - مکالمه و مطالعه متن

Task 3 - Conversation & Reading

Okay. Speaking Task Three is your first integrated task on the TOEFL. It is the first time when you will have to read and listen before responding. First, you’re going to read. You’ll have a very short text. That text is an announcement, news.

You’ll have 45 or 50 seconds to read this. It’s only a few sentences. One or maybe two paragraphs. Usually, you’ll have 45 seconds. Sometimes, if it’s a little bit long, you’ll have 50 seconds. But it’s easier to remember 45 seconds, so let’s focus on 45 and remember that.

As I said, it’s college news. It’s about university life. If you are a student living at a university and studying, then this would be news that’s important for you. It might be, for example, that they are building a new dormitory, where students live.

Maybe that there are going to be some new science classes this spring. Maybe the meal plan will be more expensive starting next month, so you have to pay more for college food. Maybe a professor is leaving suddenly and will be replaced by another professor. No matter what, you’re going to get two important details in that announcement. It would be nice if the details were some simple structure, like first and second, but usually, that’s not true.

Usually, it’s a little bit more difficult to see than that. With enough practice though, you can find the important details and know beforehand what you will hear in the recording. Now, the recording will be two students speaking about the news which you read about. And there’s going to be one student who has a very strong opinion.

They’re going to either think that it’s good news or think that it’s bad news, and give reasons why they think that. They’re going to respond to those two details from the text. Now, let’s say for example, that the professor is leaving. It’s the middle of the semester, so classes are still happening, and the semester is going to continue, and the class is going to continue after the professor leaves.

That’s one important detail you might see in the text. Also, the professor will be replaced by another professor, there’s another important detail. Now, the student in the conversation is going to have opinions about those two things. They might say it’s terrible that the professor is leaving in the middle of the semester, because it will interrupt everybody’s studies and make it more difficult to learn and the new professor might not know the material.

And then, they might also have an opinion about the new professor. They might say, oh well, Professor Brown is a really awful teacher. I had him in another class, and he was, he was a miserable, terrible teacher. Now, sometimes they’re not so strong, terrible, miserable, awful. Those are really really strong words. But it’s a very clear opinion, always.

And again, they bring up those two topics, the two main details from the text. That’s what you want to listen for. The other student is not so important. They react and ask questions. They are just there to make the listening smoother, more comfortable, easier to listen to, more natural.

They have no strong opinion. They say a lot of things like oh, really, and that’s a good point, and I never thought about that. Just simple conversational nothing. They’re usually the first person to speak. They will bring up the news.

They will say, hey, did you hear about the news? And the student with the strong opinion will say, yeah, and it’s terrible or yeah, and it’s great, or something much more advanced than more natural, but with the same general positive or negative idea. Sometimes the strong opinion student is the first to speak, but it’s usually the student with the weak opinion, or no opinion.

The clock is always an issue. You’re going to have 45 seconds to read, as we talked about. You might have 50 seconds, but let’s just think about 45. Then you’ll listen. There’s no clock during the listening, but the conversation will be one to two minutes.

It’s usually between one minute and a minute and 30 seconds, but sometimes it can be longer than that. Then you’ll read the question. Again, there’s no clock here. You’ll also hear it in your headphones. Finally, you have your opportunity to plan.

You will be able to take some notes. You’re going to get 30 seconds to plan. So those will be some very short notes. And after that 30 seconds is finished, you’ll hear another beep and you’ll have 60 seconds to speak. And when that’s finished, you’re done with speaking task three.

Thank you