{"id":2848,"date":"2016-02-16T08:00:30","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T16:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/?p=2848"},"modified":"2020-12-10T13:44:14","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T21:44:14","slug":"what-to-do-when-you-dont-know-a-word-in-toefl-listening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/what-to-do-when-you-dont-know-a-word-in-toefl-listening\/","title":{"rendered":"What to Do When You Don’t Know a Word in TOEFL Listening"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In my very first post on this blog, I wrote about how to get around \u201cvocabulary road blocks<\/a>\u201d in reading. In that article, I gave strategies for how to understand the whole meaning of a reading passage, even when you can\u2019t understand some individual words and phrases.<\/p>\n

These kinds of context-based, critical reading skills are very important\u2014in TOEFL Reading, you can\u2019t let an unknown word stop you or slow you down. The same is true in listening. An unheard word should not halt your comprehension of everything else that you hear. If you get distracted by hard-to-hear words, you will easily and fall behind and get lost in your listening. This is just as much of a problem in real English use outside the test itself.<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019re listening to something in English and you miss a word, don\u2019t dwell on it. Instead, focus on everything you do<\/em> understand, and keep your attention on the overall meaning of what you hear. (Check out more TOEFL Listening tips and tricks<\/a> to help you develop these skills!)<\/p>\n

To help you practice this skill of listening for context, I\u2019m going to share an audio track with you. In this audio, you are pretty much guaranteed<\/em> to miss a few words or phrases. It\u2019s a recording of an interview between a reporter and CISCO Executive Chairman John Chambers at the 2016 Davos World Economic Forum. Although the speakers both make an effort to speak clearly, they have somewhat unusual accents. The interviewer has a very strong Australian accent, and the Chambers has an American Southern accent, which sounds a lot different from standard North American English.<\/p>\n

Below the playable audio track in this post, you\u2019ll find a series of comprehension questions. Listen to the audio and see how many of the questions you can answer correctly. How much general meaning can you understand, even if you aren\u2019t able to hear every word that\u2019s said? Look at this transcript<\/a>\u00a0of the interview to check your answers.<\/p>\n

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