SOME STRATEGIES FOR STUDENTS TO AVOID THE TYPICAL TRAPS IN THE LISTENING SECTION OF THE TOEIC TEST

 

Hoang Vinh Loc *

 Abstract

          The scores of the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) indicate how well people can communicate in English with others in business, commerce and industry. Actually, it is agreed by several authors that in order to achieve satisfactory success in the TOEIC test, one need to improve both his language skills and test-taking skills. This research introduces the typical traps and specific strategies for the listening section of the TOEIC test to help the students be confident in taking the TOEIC test.

Although listening is widely known as a receptive skill, it requires a lot of efforts and practice and involves a great deal of activity on the part of the listener. Vandergrift (1999:1) once highlighted the characteristics of listening comprehension:

 

          It is a complex, active process in which the listener must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain what was gathered in all of the above, and interpret it within the immediate as well as the larger socio-cultural context of the utterance.

 

          As for that, a competent communicator should be able to successfully process the auditory input in a short time. Listening comprehension items used in the TOEIC test are of authentic spoken English that ESL or EFL learners can hear or use in real-life situations, which also reflects their speaking competence in business communicative environment. However, the writer’s survey shows that about 26% of the participants who are third-year English majors at Lac Hong have difficulty in completing all the listening items of the TOEIC test. The problem is that the participants have to get at least 750 points of the TOEIC test as a condition for their graduation, which also means they must get at least 375 points of both listening comprehension and reading comprehension sections. On the other hand, about 68% of the participants said they were very anxious about being able to get 750 points of the test and 16% of them said they were afraid that they would not be able to get the scores above.

 

         The writer’s hypothesis was that after having acquaintance with the traps and knowing the strategies for avoiding them, the students can succeed in taking the test and getting the required test scores. In this research, the writer wishes to introduce the typical traps in the TOEIC listening section and effective strategies for avoiding them. Besides, the writer, at the position of a language learner would like to make some recommendations for improving the students’ listening skill for the TOEIC test and building more effective listening classes at the Faculty of Foreign Languages of Lac Hong University.

 

         The traps with illustrated examples introduced in the research were believed to be the typical and most problematic ones by the participants of the research and were taken from the following TOEIC preparation books.

 

1.       Building Skills for the TOEIC® Test by Richardson Gina & Michele Peters.

2.       Upgrading TOEIC Test-taking Skills – Target TOEIC by Anne Taylor.

3.       Longman Preparation Series for the TOEIC Test-Advanced Course by Lin Lougheed.

4.       Tactics for TOEIC Listening and Reading Test by Grant Trew.

 

         Hereafter is a short introduction with illustrated examples to three most common traps which are Same-or-similar-sound traps, Questions and responses in authentic spoken English and Word used out of context.

 

         Same or similar sounds: In the answer choices of TOEIC listening section, there are words or phrases that sound the same or very similar to those in the listening texts. The words that sound the same can be homophones - words pronounced like other words but having different spellings or meanings.

 

Example:

 

Answer choice c. and d. contain the word ‘walking’, which is the same as that in the correct answer, but the subjects in these sentences are not appropriate for the context of the picture.

 

Answer choice b. contains the word ‘working’ which sounds similar to the word ‘walking’ in the correct answer. Working /wç:kiî/ - Walking /wä:k17/

 

 

Answer choice a. contains the phrase ‘airport lounge’ which is the same as in the correct answer choice; however, it is not a good description of the picture.

Answer choice b. and c. contain the word ‘board’ which can make listeners make a wrong assumption about the context of the picture.

 

Question and Response:

²What’s the exchange rate today?

a. You can exchange it if you have a receipt.

b. The same as yesterday. (correct)

c. Most people resist change.

 

        The question asks about the exchange rate of the day. Answer choice a. tries to confuse listeners by repeating the word ‘exchange’ in the question; however, it belongs to a different context. Answer choice c. contains the phrase ‘resist change’ which sounds similar to the word ‘exchange’.

 

        Questions and responses in authentic spoken English: Part II of the TOEIC listening section includes short questions and responses in daily communication. It is noticeable that in this part of the test, listeners should not expect responses to Yes/No questions to begin with ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ or to answer the questions directly.

Examples:

² Have you finished the minutes of the meeting?

a.    I’m almost done.

b.    Yes, it took them a month to finish.

c.    No, the finish is very smooth.

 

        As we can see from the situation above, answer a. ‘I’m almost done.’ is the most appropriate response to the question; however, it does not begin with ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. Although answer choice b. and c. contain the word ‘finish’ and begin ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, they are not relevant to the context of the question.

        Word used out of context: In the answer choices of all four parts of the TOEIC listening section, there are attractive words which can be found in the pictures, questions, statements, conversations or talks, but they are, in fact, irrelevant to the contexts of the listening texts, which can lead listeners to making incorrect inferences.

        Answer choice a. contains the words ‘serious accident’ which are used out of context. Although there does have a big pile of sand on the road, in the actual context of the picture this sand pile is not resulted from any severe traffic accident. The sand pile is being used for reconstructing the road.

        Answer choice d. also contains words used out of context: ‘car / crushed’. There are several cars on the road, but in the context of the picture these cars are running smoothly; therefore, it is unreasonable to infer from the picture that a car has been crushed or squeezed.

The strategies mentioned below are from the writer’s own experience in taking the TOEIC test and from the aforementioned TOEIC preparation books.

 

Part I : Picture Description

•  Make use of the time for the direction to predict possible nouns/verbs and statements that relates to the context of the pictures before you actually listen to the recordings.
•  Listen carefully for the similar-or-same-sound traps. Do not hastily mark an answer choice when you have not listened to all the answer choices provided.

Part II: Questions and Responses

•         Do not always expect Yes/No responses to YES/NO questions.
•         Pay special attention to question words to determine the right responses. (What / When/ Where /Why / How…)

•         Be careful with the similar or same sounds and homophones.

        Words that sound similar at the beginning:

        Personal – personnel

        Magnet – magnate         

        Than – then

        Device – devise

        etc.

 

        Words that sound similar at the end:

        Hand – brand

        Cab – tab

        Large – charge

        Pay – say

        etc.

 

        One-syllable words that have similar vowels

        zip – tip – ship

        night – write – high – flight

        how – now – plow

        etc.

 

        Words that sound similar when combined with other words.

        They’re – their

        He’ll – hill

        We’ll – well

        etc.

 

        Homophones:

 

        Ad (advertisement): Did you see this ad in the paper?

        Add (addition): Did you add these numbers correctly?

        Sale (low prices): Mr. Sulka bought his boat on sale.

        Sail (travel by boat): Mr. Sulka likes to sail his boat on weekends.