ACADSOC TOEFL

Test of English as Foreign Language

Section 5 TOEFL ibt Practice Test

Lesson 74 Listening ①

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 Contents
No class time allocated here

1. TOEFL iBT® Test

2. Answer keys
Questions

Listening Section

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TOEFL iBT® Test Questions

1 Class time: ≤ 20 min

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 Listening Section

Directions: This section measures your ability to understand conversations and lectures in English.

You should listen to each conversation and lecture only one time.

After each conversation or lecture, you will answer some questions about it. The questions typically ask about the
main idea and supporting details. Some questions ask about a speaker’s purpose or attitude. Answer the questions
based on what is stated or implied by the speakers.

You may take notes while you listen. You may use your notes to help you answer the questions. Your notes will not
be scored.

In some questions, you will see this icon: This means that you will hear, but not see, part of the question.

Most questions are worth 1 point. If a question is worth more than 1 point, it will have special directions that
indicate how many points you can receive.

It will take about 60 minutes to listen to the Conversations and Lectures and to answer the questions. You will have
35 minutes to respond to the questions. You should answer each question, even if you must guess the answer.

At the end of this Practice Test you’ll find answers and scripts for the audio tracks.

Turn the page to begin the Listening Section.

Contents continues overleaf

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 Listening Section

Listen to Audio Track 1.

Questions 4.Why does the man mention winter?
A, To suggest that an electric heater is not yet necessary.
B, To show that he understands the woman’s frustration.
1.Why does the woman go to see the man?
C, To encourage the woman to move to another room.
A, To ask about a university policy regarding dorm room.
D, To explain why it may take time to fix the woman’s
B, To report excessive noise in her room.
problem.
C, To report that room temperatures are too high in her room.
D, To inquire about the status of a request she had made for a repair.
5.What will the man do to help the woman?
A, He will fill out a maintenance request form for her.
2.How has the woman been dealing with her problem?
B, He will send a maintenance team to her room soon.
A, By using an electric heater.
C, He will order a new heater for her room right away.
B, By staying in a different building.
D, He will allow her to change room temporarily.
C, By sleeping in another room in her building.
D, By exchanging rooms with a friend.

3.What does the man imply about the custodian?

A, The custodian is not usually responsible for making repairs.
B, The custodian did not follow correct procedures.
C, The custodian needs permission before making repairs.
D, The custodian had reported the problem earlier.

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 Listening Section

Listen to Audio Track 2.

Questions 9.Why does the professor talk about the accuracy of the proportions of
the Great Pyramid?
6.What is the lecture mainly about? A, To provide background on the principles of microgravimetry.
A, Building techniques that were common in the ancient world. B, To discount the possibility that a ramp once spiralled around outside
B, Evidence of several early attempts to build a pyramid. of the pyramid.
C, Possible answers to an ancient mystery. C, To explain the effectiveness of computer models of the pyramid.
D, The history of the pyramids of Egypt. D, To emphasize the difficulty of building a ramp with the correct slope.

7.According to the professor, what is the main argument against the 10.The professor discusses methods the Egyptian may have used to build
theory that the stone blocks of the Great Pyramid were lifted into the Great Pyramid. For each method listed below, choose one that show
place with cranes? with whom it is associated.
A, Wood Cranes would have been too weak to lift the blocks. A, Spiral ramp inside the pyramid.
B, There is no evidence of ancient Egyptians ever using cranes. B, Wooden cranes used to lift heavy blocks.
C, The use of cranes would have resulted in imprecise dimensions. C, A straight ramp used for the entire pyramid.
D, There would not have been enough room for a platform for the D, A straight ramp used for the bottom of the pyramid only.
cranes.
11.What is the professor’s view of the Houdin’s theory?
8.Why does the professor mention a mountain road? A, She would like to see more detailed microgravimetric surveys before
A, To illustrate an alternative to a steep ramp. she will be convinced it is true.
B, To emphasize the effort needed to more large stone blocks. B, She is surprised at how similar it is to Herodotus’ theory.
C, To imply that progress on the Great Pyramid was slow. C, She finds the microgravimetric evidence for it to be very strong.
D, To describe the shape of the road leading to the Giza Plateau. D, She thinks it

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 Listening Section

Listen to Audio Track 3.

Questions
15. What assumption did researchers use to draw conclusions about the
12. What is the lecture mainly about? Colorado River basin?
A, The use of tree rings to measure water usage rates. A, Ancient tree ring data can only be obtained from dead trees.
B, Collecting data that are useful for planning water distribution. B, The climate in an area tends to remain constant over time.
C, Investigating the history of water use in the Colorado River basin. C, Rainfall has a limited impact on water flowing in rivers.
D, The need for more government involvement in water distribution. D, Width of tree rings can correspond to the amount of moisture in an area.
13. What does the student find surprising about the 1922 water- 16. What does the professor imply when he describes the early to mid-
sharing agreement? 1900s as the wettest period for the Colorado River in 400 years?
A, It was based on only twenty years of data. A, The climate in the Colorado River basin will become wetter in the future.
B, It was approved by all seven states in the region. B, The 1922 agreement was based on overestimated average river flows.
C, It was meant to remain in effect for more than 100 years. C, Water flowing in the Colorado River rises and falls at a predictable rate.
D, It was based on data from outside the Colorado River basin. D, Human activity caused climate change in the Colorado River basin.
14. According to the professor, what was the problem with the data 17. What is the professor’s attitude toward future water-management
recorded before the 1970s? plans in the Colorado River basin?
A, The data were recorded on old instruments. A, He believes better methods for collecting data need to be developed.
B, The recorded data and human observation did not match. B, He does not believe water management will be a concern in the
C, There were gaps in the recorded data. immediate future.
D, The data did not reflect the historical changes in the flow of the C, He is optimistic that new data will lead to better planning.
Colorado River. D, He is not certain all scientists understand the current condition of the
Colorado River.

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Answer keys
2 Class time: ≤ 5 min

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 Answer keys
Teaching point: check if the student got his/her answers right and explain how well he/she has done the practice

1. A 8. C
2. C 9. A
3. B 10. B
4. D 11. C
5. B 12. B
6. C 13. A
7. D 14. D
15. D
16. B
17. C

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 Answer keys
Tapescript
Track 1
Woman=Hi, I’m a little lost, um, is this the housing maintenance office?
Man =You found it. How can I help you?
Woman=Oh, good, I have a quick question. Are we allowed to keep electric heaters in our rooms?
Man =Actually, you’re not. What’s going on, your room cold?
Woman=It’s freezing in my room. I think the heat went out or something.
Man =Are you sure it’s out? Maybe it just got turned down too far.
Woman=Oh, no. I tried adjusting the, uh, the heat control, but it doesn’t make any difference. It’s so cold in my
bedroom I can’t sleep at night. I’ve actually been sleeping on the sofa in the front room. The heat still works in
there. Actually, we get hot air in all the bedrooms except ours.
Man =Wow! Do you have a roommate?
Woman=Yeah, but she said she isn’t bothered by the cold. But on the sofa, I’m kept up by the noise out in the
hall. The dorms can sometimes get pretty noisy. So, what can be done about it?
Man =Well, OK, there’s a couple of things we can do. I can have a custodian take a look at it and see if he can do
something.
Woman=Actually, I asked the custodian yesterday to take a look, but he said he couldn’t find anything wrong.
He said that some of the other rooms have lost heat also and that if we’d come here, you guys would fix it.
Man =Oh, he did? That’s weird because I would’ve, the custodians themselves are usually supposed to report
any problems right away. OK, in that case, then what you need to do is, here, fill out this form.
Woman=I have to fill out a form?

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 Answer keys

Tapescript

Man =Yeah, but at least that’ll put your heater problem in a work order for the maintenance crew. They’ll get to
you as soon as possible. Just so you know, because it’s not winter yet, and it’s not as cold as it could be, it may
take a few days for a maintenance crew to get to you.
Woman=A few days? I can’t even sleep in my own room. Can’t we get an electric heater?
Man =I’m sorry, but students just aren’t allowed. OK, I can see this is a problem and not just with your room. So,
if you can get the form back to me this afternoon, I’ll try to get a maintenance crew to look at your problem by
tomorrow. How’s that?
Woman=Oh, that would be great, seriously. I have to take off now. But when I fill this form out, I’d give it to you,
right?
Man =Right, and if I’m not here, just put it in my box and I’ll get it.

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 Answer keys
Tapescript
Track 2
The great pyramid of Giza in Egypt might be the most famous building in the world. We know exactly when it was
built: construction started in 2547 B.C.E., about four thousand five hundred years ago. We know who had it built:
that was a Pharaoh Khufu. And we know who oversaw its construction: the Pharaoh’s brother. We know so many
things about it, but the funny thing is, we still don’t know exactly how it was built. This picture will give you an
idea of the size of the pyramid and the size of blocks it’s made up of.

About two million stone blocks were used to build the great pyramid and they’re incredibly massive. The average
weight is two and a half tons. The problem that has puzzled scholars for centuries is how were these blocks lifted
up the height of this massive structure and then fit into place and without the benefit of modern technology.

Of course there have been a lot of theories over the centuries. The oldest recorded one is by the Greek historian
Herodotus. He visited Egypt around 450 B.C.E. when the pyramid was already two thousand years old. His theory
was that cranes were used much like we use cranes today to construct tall buildings, and Herodotus may have
seen Egyptians using cranes made of wood. But the problem with this theory has to do with simple mechanics: a
crane needs a wide and sturdy base to stand on or it will fall over. Well, as you get to the top of the pyramid,
there’s really no place for a crane to stand. The stone blocks are too narrow to provide a base. Well, so much for
that theory.

The next one has to do with the use of a ramp that would allow workers to drag a stone block up the side of the
structure. Of course the ramp can’t be too steep. It has to have a long, gentle slope and that’s the problem. If you
built a ramp with a slight slope up to the top of the pyramid that’s over 130 meters high, it would have to be

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Tapescript
almost two kilometers long. Well, the pyramid is built on a flat area called the Giza plateau. The plateau is simply not big enough to
accommodate a two-kilometer long ramp. OK, so what now?

Well, if you’d ever driven on a mountain road, you know that it has a lot of twists and turns and bends in it because that’s how
engineers keep the roads from having to be too steep. So why not wrap the ramp around the pyramid, building a ramp around it as
you go. Sounds like a pretty good idea except it’s got a serious problem.

See, one of the most remarkable things about the great pyramid is how accurate the proportions are. The dimensions are almost
perfect. To get that perfection, the engineers must have had to measure it repeatedly during construction. And the way you’d
measure it is from the four corners of the base. Well, if you’ve got a ramp spiraling up from the base of the pyramid, those corners
would be buried by that ramp during construction. Well, who says the ramp has to be on the outside of the pyramid? And now we
get to the latest idea: if the ramp were on the inside of the pyramid, the corners at the base would be exposed so the engineers
could do their measurements while they’re building. Well, an architect named Houdin has spent a few years working on making
computer models of the building of the pyramid. And what Houdin believes is that an exterior straight ramp was used to construct
the bottom third of the pyramid. This ramp would have been fairly short. It probably rose less than 50 meters. Then the rest of the
pyramid was constructed using an internal ramp that spiraled around the inside of the pyramid. But how can we test this idea?

Well, there are several ways to look inside the pyramid. One’s called microgravimetry Microgravimetry’s a technique that’s used to
detect voids inside a structure. You can then take the data and generate an image that shows any empty spaces in the interior. Well,
in 1986, French scientists completed a microgravimetric survey of the pyramid. And one of the images they produced showed an
empty spiral space inside it. The shape of that space corresponds exactly to what Houdin thought what the ramp would look like. I
think Herodotus would be convinced. We might very well be at the end of centuries of guessing.

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Tapescript
Track 3
Male Professor=I’d like to continue with the topic of managing water resources but I want to focus on a particular case, a, uh, an
example of water management that’s made us reconsider the methods we use when we make these decisions. So let’s look at
what’s happening in the Colorado River Basin. The Colorado River Basin is a region in the southwest United States. Seven states rely
on the Colorado’s water and as you can imagine, as the populations of these states began to grow, it became clear that the system
to distribute, uh, to make sure each state got its fair share of water, some kind of system had to be created, and in 1922, a water-
sharing agreement was made. Elizabeth, you have a question?
Female Student=Well, how exactly do you figure out how to share a river? I mean, you can’t, like, cut it up into pieces.
Male Professor=Well, let’s start with the first step and that’s trying to figure out how much water, on average, flows through the
river each year. Now, researchers had started gathering data on water flow back in the late 1890s using instruments they placed in
the river. When the 1922 water-sharing agreement was made, there were about twenty years of data on water flow available. The
average annual flow was calculated and, well, the agreement was based on that calculation. The same basic agreement is in effect
today.
Female Student=Wait! That was all the data they had and they based their decision on that?
Male Professor=Yes, and we’ll see why that was a bad decision in a moment. OK, as decades past, it became clear that measuring
river flow was much more complicated than we had thought. See, a river has periods of low flow and periods of high flow and this
wasn’t taken into consideration when the 1922 agreement was made. In the 1970s, the population of the area was rising while the
amount of water flowing through the river seemed to be falling. By this time we had, what, a hundred years of recorded data to
look at? That’s still a pretty short time for an ancient river. As we get more data, we look at a different source, a source that was
able to tell us about hundreds of years of the river’s history: tree rings. OK, let me explain. You probably know that we can
determine a tree’s age by counting the rings on the cross-section of its trunk. Each ring represents one year of the tree’s life. So if
you know the year the tree was cut, you can count inwards and date each ring all the way back to the center. You can also tell how

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Tapescript
much moisture the tree got during each of those years by looking at the width of the rings. A wide ring means plenty of water while
a narrow one indicates less. Fortunately for us, certain areas of the Colorado River Basin are home to some very old trees, some 800
years old and older. Researchers can drill core samples, uh, basically get a cross-section of a tree without having to kill it, look at the
rings and get a picture of what the climate was like in the basin for each of the tree’s years. Well, the results tell us something we
wouldn’t have known without this data: that over the past five hundred years or so, the Colorado River Basin has experienced
severe droughts, some worse than any we’ve ever recorded. They also show that the early to mid-1900s, when most of the data
that led to the water-sharing agreement was collected, well, this was the wettest period in the past four hundred years. Well,
obviously, had water management officials known then what we know now, the 1922 agreement would have been handled
differently. But, today, we can use the past to help us prepare for the future. With the demand for water in the basin states
increasing, and with a real likelihood of lower flows in the river, if history’s our teacher, we can develop innovative methods of water
conservation and reevaluate how water is distributed.

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Self-analysis checklist

I am familiar with the types

of questions and content on
the actual test

I understand how the TOEFL

iBT test is structured and
formatted.

How well have you done this practice? You will be given
more practice in TOEFL Listening in the next lesson. I know how well I have done
the mini test

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