TOEFL iBT Listening Section

The TOEFL iBT Listening section is designed to measure your ability to understand conversations and lectures in English. It includes listening for:

• basic comprehension
• understanding the speaker's attitude and degree of certainty
• connecting information

Listening questions

You’ll hear lectures and conversations in this section. Both use campus-based language.

• 3–4 lectures, some with classroom discussion, each 3–5 minutes; 6 questions per lecture
• 2–3 conversations, each 3 minutes; 5 questions per conversation

You can take notes on any audio item throughout the test to help you answer questions.

Test time: You have 41 to 57 minutes to complete the section.
 

Listening videos

Watch these videos to learn about the types of questions in the Listening section, plus helpful tips.
 

The Listening section includes native-speaker English accents from North America, the U.K., New Zealand or Australia to better reflect the variety of accents you might encounter while studying abroad. For example, listen to this talk about the greenhouse effect (MP3). The lecturer is from the U.K.
 

Extra test questions

Your test may include extra questions in the Reading or Listening sections that don't count toward your score. These questions help ETS to:

• make test scores comparable across administrations
• determine how these questions function under actual testing conditions