TOEFL IBT Listening Practice Test 10 From Delta’s Key TOEFL Test Solution & Explanation
1. D
The student’s purpose is to learn if he still has required courses to take. The student says …I wanted to check with you to see if there are any courses I still need before I transfer. I think I ve filled all the requirements, but I, uh, just wanted to make sure before I register. (2.3)
2. B
The adviser’s purpose is to let the student know that she will have to leave soon. The student asks the adviser if she is busy, and she tells him about a meeting at two-thirty. She says that she has a few minutes before she must leave for the meeting. (2.3)
3. B
The student says …I hope to transfer to the university next year. (2.2)
4. B, D
The student must take a course in natural science: You ’re required to have at least one more natural science course before you can transfer. He must also take a course in physical education: …it looks like you also need two credits in physical education; You ’re required to have four credits, and you’ve only got two so far. (2.2)
5. C
The student implies that he would like to know more about golf. He says I’ve only played a couple of times, but I need to do better than that. My boss plays golf and he’s always talking about it. It would be nice to know what he’s talking about! (2.4)
6. C
The professor mainly discusses a severe type of immune response called anaphylaxis. The professor says A massive allergic reaction to a sting is known as anaphylaxis; Anaphylaxis is actually a disease, a severe form of allergic over-response by the immune system when it s suddenly faced with a foreign substance. (2.1)
7. B, C
Bee venom can initiate anaphylaxis: One type of immune response has to do with bees…; But stings and bites usually aren V dangerous… unless you have an allergic reaction to the venom. Peanuts can initiate anaphylaxis: No one who was with her at the time knew she was allergic to peanuts, so they didn’t know why she suddenly went into respiratory distress. The reason, of course, was anaphylaxis. (2.2)
8. D
The professor’s purpose is to stress the serious effects of an allergy. The professor says …that’s what happened last year to a little girl who ate a peanut cookie at a birthday party. No one who was with her at the time knew she was allergic to peanuts, so they didn’t know why she suddenly went into respiratory distress. The reason, of course, was anaphylaxis. But by the time the medics got there, it was too late, and the girl died. (2.3)
9. A
The professor’s purpose is to stress the mysterious nature of severe immune responses. Scientists do not understand why some immune systems go crazy, or overreact to an offending substance, while other immune systems do not. (2.3)
10.
Yes: The chest feels tight and breathing is difficult:The chest feels tight, and the person has trouble breathing…./
Yes: The face and throat begin to swell: The tissues of the face and throat may swell up./
No: Fatty particles attach to the walls of blood vessels: Not supported by the information in the lecture.
Yes: The body releases histamine into the bloodstream: This sets off a whole series of reactions involving the release of histamine into the bloodstream.
No: The blood pressure rises dangerously high: The blood pressure drops dangerously low. (2.6)
11. C
The professor says With anaphylaxis, a few minutes can make the difference between life and death, so the keys to survival are being prepared and acting quickly. You can infer that survival depends on immediate medical treatment. (2.4)
12. D
The professor mainly discusses the effects of mail-order catalogs on rural America. The professor says Farm families were isolated, often with limited funds, and few could afford the time or the expense of shopping in the city. But all of this changed with the introduction of the mail-order catalog; TheSears catalog sold food, clothing, machinery, tools, stoves—anything and everything a farm family might need. (2.1)
13. A
The professor says In 1872, a Chicago merchant named Montgomery Ward began sending copies of a catalog to thousands of farmers in the Midwest;This is how Montgomery Ward and Company became the nation s first mail-order company. (2.2)
14. C
The professor’s purpose is to explain how these services helped the mail-order business. The professor says The mail-order business spread rapidly, largely because of improvements in postal services. The post office established Rural FreeDelivery… and Parcel Post…; These new services greatly contributed to the success of mail-order houses. (2.3)
15. A, B
The mass production of goods and the wide distribution of catalogs led to the similarity of goods available nationwide: The wide distribution of the Sears catalog had another interesting effect. The Sears catalog had a lotto do with the similarity of goods available nationwide. Of course, this was also due to the mass-production of goods; The two factors working together—mass production and nationwide distribution—tended to minimize regional differences in clothing styles. (2.2)
16. C
The professor means that the Sears catalog taught immigrants about American culture. The purpose of a textbook is to teach, and the Sears catalog was like a textbook because it taught immigrants how to dress, how to furnish their homes, and…how to cook American food. (2.4)
17.
Disagree: Nineteenth-century farm families had the same cultural opportunities as city residents: .. farm families felt that they weren’t keeping up with the urban population, which had electric lights, telephones, and access to the latest goods in department stores. Farm families were isolated, often with limited funds, and few could afford the time or the expense of shopping in the city,
Agree: Mail-order companies changed the lives of farm families across the country: This contact with the outside world broke their isolation and changed the outlook of rural America. Thanks to the mail-order houses of Montgomery Ward and Sears and Roebuck, no farm was too isolated to be aware of the latest clothing, furniture, farm equipment, music, and literature
Disagree: Clothing ordered from mail-order catalogs was more fashionable than clothing bought in department stores: Sears didn’t pretend to be a leader in fashion, but it did try to provide what average Americans wanted,
Agree: The Sears catalog provided an important illustration of American life: And for immigrants who wanted to become Americans, the Sears catalog was a textbook. Here they learned how to dress, how to furnish their homes, and… how to cook American food. (2.4)
18. B
The speakers mainly discuss factors that affect the color of water. The student asks …why is water blue, like blue glass? The tutor says It’s because water transmits light of every color, but it’s clearest for colors with shorter wavelengths; Well, there are actually lots of factors that affect the color of water.(2.1)
19. A
The student means that she does not believe that water is colorless. She was taught that water doesn’t have a color, but her own eyes tell her otherwise.Her eyes tell her that water does have a color. (2.4)
20. D
The student’s purpose is to check her understanding of what the tutor said. She says So, that means….Then she repeats the tutor’s explanation in her own words to check whether she understands correctly.(2.3)
21. B, C
One factor that influences the color of water is its depth: …there are actually lots of factors that affect the color of water; Such as. ..how deep the water is?; Right. Another factor is sediments in the water: That’s another factor that affects the color of water—sediments. Even the cleanest, purest mountain lake contains a lot of tiny particles that scatter light. (2.2)
22. C
The tutor says Lakes fed by glaciers get their colors from the fine, suspended silt in the water…; Some water is green and some is brown, depending on the mineral content. You can infer that a lake with brown water contains suspended particles. (2.4)
23. D
The professor says Throughout most of human history, a society s culture was defined and communicated primarily through the family; Parents and grandparents had the job of passing on the culture’s history and traditions. (2.2)
24. B
By “cultural narrator,” the professor means the medium that conveys a culture’s values and beliefs.The professor says The cultural narrator helped to sustain the society through the preservation of vital cultural information. Until the mid-twentieth century, the family was the medium by which culture was passed along. (2.4)
25. A
The professor says He couldn’t figure out their interests and values, why they spoke and acted and felt the way they did. So, he set out to learn more about the values of his students by studying their popular culture…. (2.2)
26. D
The professor’s opinion is that The Medium is theMessage will influence how the students think about communication. The professor says It’s a book—and an idea—that you ’ll come back to over and over again, and reading it will probably change your view of how we communicate. (2.3)
27. B
The professor’s purpose is to explain an important theory of communications, specifically the meaning of McLuhan’s theory that the medium is the message. (2.3)
28. C
The professor implies that the media’s effects are of widespread interest and concern. The professor says that researchers are interested in the effects of television on human behavior. He says …there area growing number of issues and new questions that require study of the relationship of the media to human development. (2.4)
29. B
The professor mainly discusses how farm products are supplied to consumers. The professor saysMarketing is supplying people with goods and services—what people want, in the form they want it, and when they want it; Marketing links the producer with the consumer; The focus of agricultural marketing technology is on meeting consumer demand. (2.1)
30. D
The professor’s purpose is to explain why agricultural marketing technology is necessary.Agricultural marketing technology meets consumer demand by getting farm products ready for consumers and delivering the products in the form and quantities that consumers want, when consumers want them. (2.3)
31. A, D
Picking cotton and milking cows are examples of the marketing function of harvesting:Harvesting includes a wide variety of activities—for example, .. .picking cotton, … milking cows…. (2.2)
32. A
The professor says A very important function that comes after harvesting is assembling; Assembling is gathering large quantities together to make marketing more efficient. Marketing professionals want to deal with large volumes, and some farms don’t have large enough volumes, so they have to combine their product with the product of other farms. (2.2)
33. B
The professor says Another function is grading, which is sorting products for uniformity; When people buy eggs, they kind of want a uniform size—not a mixture of small, medium, and large eggs.(2.2)
34. B
The professor’s purpose is to illustrate the function of transporting, moving the product from one place to another. (2.3)
TOEFL IBT Listening Practice Test 10 From Delta’s Key TOEFL Test Solution & Transcripts
Questions 1 through 5.
Listen to a conversation between a student and his academic adviser.
M: Hi! Are you busy right now?
W: Oh, hi, Sean. There’s a meeting at two–thirty, but I have a few minutes. What can I do for you?
M: Well, I wanted to talk with you before I went to register for next semester. That’ll be my last term here ’cause I hope to transfer to the university next year.
W: Great! Have you applied to the university yet?
M: Not yet. The deadline’s not till March 1.
W: Right.
M: But I was, uh, I wanted to check with you to see if there are any other courses. I still need before I transfer. I think I’ve filled all the requirements, but I, uh, just wanted to make sure before I register.
W: All right. Let me pull up your record. Let’s see now … Sean Howard. Here we are. Hmm. All right, it looks like you’ve got all of your English and math credits, so you’re OK there, as well as your humanities and, uh, social sciences. But for natural science … hmm … you took biology in your first year, but I don’t see anything after that. You’re required to have at least one more natural science course before you can transfer.
M: Oh, really? I thought I needed only one science course.
W: No, sorry, you need at least eight credits in natural science, and that means two courses.
M: I didn’t know that. OK. Then I wonder which course I should take. What do you recommend?
W: Next semester … let’s see … it looks like astronomy, botany, and ecology are all being offered. There’s also a course in meteorology for non–science majors.
M: Meteorology? Do you mean, like, the weather?
W: That’s right.
M: Hey, that might be kind of interesting. 1 always wanted to know how they forecast the weather.
W:Then that’s the right course for you. Oh, and, Sean, it looks like you also need two credits in physical education.
M:Phys. ed!
W:Right. You’re required to have four credits, and you’ve only got two so far.
M:Oh, boy. Well, OK, that shouldn’t be too hard. Maybe I should take golf that is offered in the spring, right?
W:Golf? Uh … yes, it is. Do you play?
M:Not very well, no. I’ve only played a couple of times, but 1 need to do better than that. My boss plays golf and he’s always talking about it. It would be nice to know what he’s talking about!
W:Then you’d better take golf. You’ve got to play golf with your boss!
M:OK, OK, you talked me into it! Hey, thanks for your time. I appreciate your help, and I’ll get out of your way now.
W:Glad to help, Sean. Good luck with registration!
Questions 6 through 11.
Listen to part of a lecture in a biology class.
M: One type of immune response has to do with bees actually any insect of that class, including hornets and fire ants. If you’ve ever been stung or bitten, you know how painful it is. But stings and bites usually aren’t dangerous, unless you have lots of them at the same time, or unless you have an allergic reaction to the venom. A massive allergic reaction to a sting is known as anaphylaxis. The term anaphylaxis is Greek for “a lack of protection.” But the name is sort of inaccurate. Anaphylaxis is actually a disease, a severe form of allergic, um, over–response by the immune system when it’s suddenly faced with a foreign substance. That foreign substance is the bee’s venom, or in some cases it’s certain foods, like nuts, eggs, and shellfish … or drugs, especially antibiotics like penicillin. Anaphylaxis or anaphylactic shock is one of those true emergencies where minutes can make the difference between life and death. It can start within seconds, although sometimes it has a delay of thirty minutes or more.
W: Excuse me, Professor Watson, but how do you recognize it? I mean, there’s a difference between a few seconds and thirty minutes. So how do you … like, how do you know when a person’s in anaphylactic shock? .
M: Sometimes it’s hard to identify the real reason why someone is in trouble. Unfortunately, that’s what happened last year to a little girl who ate a peanut cookie at a birthday party. No one who was with her at the time knew she was allergic to peanuts, so they didn’t know why she suddenly went into respiratory distress. The reason, of course, was anaphylaxis. But by the time the medics got there, it was too late, and the girl died.
So, how do we identify anaphylactic shock? The first sign is the victim becomes very weak and feels sick. There may be an itchy rash near the site of the sting, if it’s a bee sting, or a tingling in the mouth, if it’s a food allergy. The tissues of the face and throat may swell up. The chest feels tight, and the person has trouble breathing this is when every minute, every second matters. The blood pressure drops dangerously low. Finally, the person may lose consciousness and stop breathing. When this happens, the person’s life is in danger. Anaphylactic shock, as you can see, can be life threatening in some cases.
What happens to the immune system? First, it has to be exposed previously to the offending substance the bee venom, the peanuts, or whatever. People don’t get anaphylaxis from their first bee sting. The immune cells that produce antibodies … they … uh … they have to be sensitized to the offending substance at least once before they overreact to it the second or third time. We don’t understand why some unlucky immune systems go crazy the next time they encounter the same substance. But some immune systems do sort of go crazy. The cells pour out far more antibody than they need. This sets off a whole series of reactions involving the release of histamine into the bloodstream. Histamine makes the blood vessels dilate and get “leaky,” and the liquid part of the blood leaks out into the tissues. This is what causes the skin rash, the potentially fatal swelling, the narrowing of the airways, and the drop in blood pressure. The worst part is all of this happens within minutes.
W: Because this can happen so fast I mean, going into shock how do we prevent I mean, is there a way we can stop somebody from dying of this?
M: With anaphylaxis, a few minutes can make the difference between life and death, so the keys to survival are being prepared and acting quickly. The most important tool to have is called an epi-pen basically an automatic syringe that lets you self-administer the drug epinephrine into your body, a drug that helps combat the effects of anaphylaxis.
Questions 12 through 17.
Listen to part of a talk in a United States history class.
In the early years of the twentieth century, 60 percent of the American population was rural, and half of the nation’s towns and cities had fewer than ten thousand people. Up until that time, life on the farm was lonely, and farm families felt that they weren’t keeping up with the urban population, which had electric lights, telephones, and access to the latest goods in department stores. Farm families were isolated, often with limited funds, and few could afford the time or the expense of shopping in the city. But all of this changed with the introduction of the mail-order catalog.
In 1872, a Chicago merchant named Montgomery Ward began sending copies of a catalog to thousands of farmers in the Midwest. The catalog was 280 pages long and offered farm families the opportunity to order any of the goods listed in it by mail. This is how Montgomery Ward and Company became the nation’s first mail-order company. Ward had discovered something entirely new and profitable, a new method of conducting business. After that, the terms “mail-order house” and “mail-order catalog” were added to our vocabulary.
The most successful mail-order house was Sears and Roebuck, which entered the mail-order business in 1895. Just as Montgomery Ward had done with his catalog, Richard Sears advertised his products in catalogs that were sent to farm families. The Sears catalog sold food, clothing, machinery, tools, stoves—anything and everything a farm family might need.
The mail-order business spread rapidly, largely because of improvements in postal services. The post office established Rural Free Delivery in 1902 and Parcel Post in 1913. These new services meant that catalogs and goods would be delivered directly to the farm, so farmers didn’t have to drive several miles into town to pick up packages. These new services greatly contributed to the success of mail-order houses.
Rural Free Delivery also had great benefit for farm families. Families that had previously been isolated could now receive newspapers, magazines, and mail-order catalogs in their mailboxes. This contact with the outside world broke their isolation and changed the outlook of rural America. Thanks to the mail-order houses of Montgomery Ward and Sears and Roebuck, no farm was too isolated to be aware of the latest clothing, furniture, farm equipment, music, and literature.
The wide distribution of the Sears catalog had another interesting effect. The Sears catalog had a lot to do with the similarity of goods available nationwide. Of course, this was also due to the mass–production of goods. Mass- production techniques made it possible to create reasonable copies of, for example, high-priced clothing. The two factors working together mass production and nationwide distribution tended to minimize regional differences in clothing styles. This is why there was a general lack of class and regional distinction in American clothing. People believed that if clothing of the same design and brand was widely worn by many people, then this was a sign of its value.
By 1910, both men and women could buy every article of clothing, ready-made, from mail-order catalogs like Sears. Sears didn’t pretend to be a leader in fashion, but it did try to provide what average Americans wanted. Women wanted to dress more fashionably and they welcomed new styles. For farm women, the pictures of the smiling women on the pages of the Sears catalog were as close as they came to outside contacts during the long winter months. And for immigrants who wanted to become Americans, the Sears catalog was a textbook. Here they learned how to dress, how to furnish their homes, and some catalogs even had recipes and menus for holiday dimiers how to cook American food.
Questions 18 through 22.
Listen to part of a conversation between a student and her tutor.
W:There’s something I’ve always wondered about. OK. A glass of water is crystal clear. A bathtub full of water looks faintly blue. And the water in a swimming pool is light blue at the shallow end and a darker color blue at the deep end. Does water have a color? I mean, its own true color?
M:Believe it or not, it does.
W:OK. Then what is it?
M:It’s blue, like a piece of blue glass. And like glass or any other relatively transparent substance, the thicker it is, the deeper the color. That’s why a swimming pool is a darker blue at the deep end.
W:OK. Then what I learned as a kid was wrong. In grade school I was taught that water doesn’t have a color, that it’s clear, and clear isn’t a color. But my own eyes tell me otherwise. So, why is this? I mean, why is water blue, like blue glass?
M:It’s because water transmits light of every color, but it’s clearest for colors with shorter wavelengths. That’s why its peak transparency is in the blue–green part of the light spectrum.
W:That explains why most of the time it looks blue or green.
M:Well, there are actually lots of factors that affect the color of water.
W:Such as … what, like how deep the water is?
M:Right. And it’s easy to see why. It’s because light from water comes from three places: the top, the middle, and the bottom of the water.
W:I’m not sure I understand.
M:Think of it like this. Together, all three parts of the water top, middle, and bottom make up the blend of light that we see. Under certain circumstances, one may dominate the others. For example, in shallow water, light from the bottom is most important. In deep water, very little light comes from below, so reflections from the surface are the brightest.
W: So, that means, in a shallow puddle, the bottom is well lit, so it sort of contributes more to the scene. I mean, it affects the overall color more than … say uh … the invisible bottom of the ocean?
M: Uh … that’s right. Because a shallow puddle is relatively transparent, the water adds virtually no blue light of its own.
W: And muddy water looks brown because…?
M: Because the light is scattered, primarily from the suspended sediments near the surface. That’s another factor that affects the color of water sediments. Even the cleanest, purest mountain lake contains a lot of tiny particles that scatter light.
W: That’s because mountain lakes have a lot of silt from the glaciers, right?
M: That’s right. Lakes fed by glaciers get their colors from the fine, suspended silt in the water, and also from the reflected light of the sky. Glacier-fed streams are usually sort of a milky blue, and hot springs are sometimes yellow because of the sulfur suspended in the water. Some water is green and some is brown, depending on the mineral content.
W: This is really interesting. I’m glad I asked you about this.
Questions 23 through 28.
Listen to part of a lecture in a communications class.
Throughout most of human history, a society’s culture was defined and communicated primarily through the family. Early cultures communicated their values and beliefs to their children by oral tradition word of mouth. Parents and grandparents had the job of passing on the culture’s history and traditions. The older members of the family were storytellers and historians our “cultural narrators.”
The cultural narrator was valued for his or her wisdom and experience, The cultural narrator helped to sustain the society through the preservation of vital cultural information. Until the mid–twentieth century, the family was the medium by which culture was passed along.
Since the 1950s, however, the role of the cultural narrator has been taken over by television. What 1 mean is, the family storytellers have been replaced by television shows that tell us who we are, what we need, how we should speak, and what we should believe in.
In the sixties and seventies, as television became more a part of North American life, several writers and philosophers began to study what was going on. One of the most creative minds to explore this issue was Marshall McLuhan.
McLuhan studied English literature in his native Canada and in England, and then taught at several universities in the United States. As a Canadian scholar teaching in the U. S., McLuhan realized that he didn’t understand his American students. He couldn’t figure out their interests and values, why they spoke and acted and lelt the way they did. So, he set out to learn more about the values of his students by studying their popular culture: the movies, television shows, music, pastimes all the things that young Americans pursued in their leisure time.
McLuhan became convinced that electronic media played a significant role and that the media were responsible for the attitudes and values of his students. In fact, he went beyond his immediate interest in his own students to theorize that the media had prompted most of the social changes in Western culture. McLuhan’s ideas soon made him the leading cultural critic and media theorist of his time.
McLuhan’s ideas gained attention worldwide. He wrote several books about the effect of media on human development, including this one. The Medium in the Message, which is the book you’ll be reading next in this course.
The Medium in the Message is McLuhan’s most influential book. Although it was first published more than thirty years ago, it remains an important classic in the field of communications. It’s a book and an idea that you’ll come back to over and over again, and reading it will probably change your view of how we communicate.
Why is it such an important book? Well, you’ve probably heard the expression, “The medium is the message” because it’s entered our vocabulary. What McLuhan meant by this statement was that how people learn the medium is more important tlian what they learn the message. In other words, the method of communicating information has more influence on the public than the information itself. Communication is culture, and culture is communication.
McLuhan didn’t consider himself a critic of the media in the sense of condemning it. He wasn’t interested in deciding whether television was good or bad. He just wanted people to understand how it affected them so they could make their own informed decisions about it. We’re just beginning to understand the ways that the media have affected our culture. Sociologists, psychologists, media ecologists people in a multitude of fields arc trying to explain the relationships among media, values, and behavior.
Is television good or bad for us? Does television cause human behavior, or merely record it? This question is of particular interest to researchers who study the effects of television especially television violence on children’s behavior. And now that television is starting to merge with other electronic media, like the Internet, there are a growing number of issues and new questions calling for informed thinking about the relationship of the media to human development.
Questions 29 through 34.
Listen to part of a talk in an agriculture class.
In the field of agriculture, marketing is sort of a complex system. Marketing is supplying people with goods and services what people want, in the form they want it, and when they want it. In agriculture, marketing involves moving a wide range of products food crops, animal products, fiber crops, flowers, wood, and so on.
Marketing links the producer with the consumer. All of the processes and infrastructure involved harvesting equipment, storage and transportation facilities all of these processes and infrastructure come under the broad heading of “agricultural marketing technology.” The focus of agricultural marketing technology is on meeting consumer demand.
A lot has to be done before farm products are ready for the consumer. The typical North American consumer can’t deal with live chickens or cattle, unshelled wheat, or raw logs. Typical North American consumers want their food ready to cook, their clothes ready to wear, their wood products in sizes ready to use, and so on.
Consumers also want certain products at certain times of the year. They expect to have roses at Valentine’s Day and poinsettias at Christmas. So, producers and marketing specialists have to make these special products available when consumers want them.
Getting products to consumers involves several processes we call them marketing functions. These functions convert the product from its original form into the form that consumers want, and then transport it to the consumers. Functions such as harvesting, assembling, grading, transporting these are just some of the important functions of agricultural marketing.
The first function, harvesting this begins on the farm or ranch. Harvesting methods vary for different types of products. Some products are harvested by machine, while others have to be harvested by hand. Harvesting includes a wide variety of activities for example, picking apples, picking cotton, digging potatoes, cutting wheat, cutting roses, cutting timber, shearing sheep, milking cows, and so on.
A very important function that comes after harvesting is assembling. Assembling is the delivery of a product to a central location, like a packing shed, grain elevator, cotton gin, or processing plant. Assembling is gathering large quantities together to make marketing more efficient. Marketing professionals want to deal with large volumes, and some farms don’t have large enough volumes, so they have to combine their product with the product of other farms.
Another function is grading, which means sorting products for uniformity. Grading can take place during or after assembling. Grading involves dividing up the product on the basis of several factors for example, size, color, variety, or the presence of defects. When people buy eggs, they kind of want a uniform size, not a mixture of small, medium, and large eggs. Various standards are used in grading products. Sometimes the government sets the standards. Sometimes the standards are set by an association of producers, or even by the processing plant or supermarket.
A very important marketing function is transporting, moving the product from one place to another. Milk is moved from the dairy farm to a processing plant. Freshly picked tomatoes are moved to the packing shed or cannery. Wheat is moved to the grain elevator. Logs are moved to the sawmill. Agricultural products are transported in various kinds of vehicles: wagons, trucks, barges, airplanes, and railroad cars.
In order to market products, certain facilities must be available what we call marketing infrastructure the vehicles, roads, railroads, assembling and processing plants, storage facilities, and so on. All of these facilities are necessary infrastructure for marketing agricultural goods.