TOEFL Listening: Listening and answering strategies for academic lectures
Hi everyone! Today we’re going to practice TOEFL Listening, focusing on academic lectures, which many students underestimate.
If you look at ETS score charts, you’ll notice something interesting. To reach a C1 / score 5 level, you only need about 22 in Listening, while Reading, Writing, and Speaking usually require 24 or 25.
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| 2026 TOEFL Score Conversion |
That’s a strong signal that Listening is full of traps.
The challenge is not vocabulary. It’s understanding how professors organize ideas, emphasize important points, and lead you toward correct answers. Even if you understand every word, you can still get questions wrong without the right answering strategies. That’s why strategy training—like what you learn in Dr. Byrnes’ 2026 TOEFL Listening course—is so important for scoring 25+.
Today, I’ll show you how to listen to a long lecture in the 2026 TOEFL, when to take notes, and how to solve the questions step by step.
Understanding What TOEFL Is Really Testing
The lecture we’ll listen to today is about endotherms and ectotherms, a common biology topic. But remember: TOEFL is not testing biology knowledge. It tests whether you can follow how ideas are introduced, explained, compared, and supported.
So while listening, don’t try to memorize everything.
Instead, listen for:
Organization
Emphasis
Cause-and-effect relationships
Professors often mention many technical terms quickly. You can usually ignore those. But when the professor slows down, repeats something, or explains a function or result, that’s your signal to pay attention and take notes.
I’ll pause the audio at key moments so you can clearly see what matters and what doesn’t.
First Listening Segment: Classification
At the beginning, the professor explains how animals are classified by body temperature:
endotherms vs. ectotherms.
She also defines these terms using word roots. This is common in academic lectures. If you know roots like endo (inside) and ecto (outside), you can understand and remember these terms more easily.
Second Segment: Endotherms
Next, she explains how endotherms regulate body temperature.
Notice how she emphasizes the words physiological and brown fat, especially the idea that brown fat produces heat chemically. When professors emphasize words like this, TOEFL often tests them.
She also mentions behavioral adjustment, like wearing a coat, but clearly tells us this is not the main mechanism.
So your notes should look like this:
Endotherms
Regulate temperature physiologically
Shivering when cold
Panting and sweating when hot
Brown fat → produces heat chemically
Behavioral adjustment possible, but not primary
Third Segment: Ectotherms
Now the professor makes a clear comparison.
She says ectotherms have low metabolism—this is the first major characteristic mentioned. Because of this, their body temperature matches the environment.
She gives a clear example:
A lizard moves between sun and shade.
Then she removes the behavior option by introducing a temperature chamber. The lizard can’t move.
Result:
Body temperature drops
Metabolism decreases
The lizard survives
Then she contrasts this with a mouse in the same cold chamber:
The mouse increases metabolism
It produces more heat to stay warm
This contrast is very important for TOEFL questions.
Big Picture: Lecture Organization
So let’s review how the lecture is organized:
Define endotherms vs. ectotherms
Explain how endotherms regulate temperature
Physiologically
Chemically (brown fat)
Minor behavioral role
Contrast with ectotherms
Behavioral regulation
Use an experiment to compare a lizard and a mouse in cold conditions
Once you understand this structure, answering TOEFL questions becomes much easier.
Now let’s move on and examine the six TOEFL questions, and I’ll show you exactly how ETS turns this lecture into traps—and how to avoid them.
Question 1
What do the speakers mainly discuss?
For main-idea questions, always ask: What is the lecture mostly about from start to finish?
The professor repeatedly talks about endotherms vs. ectotherms and explains how each group regulates body temperature. This comparison runs through the entire lecture.
A. Internal processes that help animals maintain constant metabolic rates. A is a trap: metabolism is discussed, but only as part of the explanation, not the main focus.
B. Differences in how animals regulate their body temperatures. this is what we are look for.
C. Behaviors that help some animal species survive in extreme environments. C is a partial idea: behavior is mentioned, but only for ectotherms and as one mechanism.
D. The difficulty of determining whether an animal is an endotherm or an ectotherm.
D is wrong: the professor never says classification is difficult.
Correct answer is B
Question 2
According to the professor, what is distinctive about brown fat?
For detail questions, always ask: What exact feature did the professor emphasize, and how did she contrast it with something else?
The professor explains that endotherms regulate body temperature in three ways: physiologically, chemically, and behaviorally. Brown fat is mentioned during the chemical explanation.
A. It produces large amounts of triglyceride.
A is wrong: triglycerides are never mentioned in the lecture.
B. It provides fuel for muscle movement.
B is a trap: muscle movement refers to physiological regulation (like shivering), not chemical regulation.
C. It produces heat without muscle movement.
This is exactly what the professor says. Brown fat generates heat chemically, without using muscles.
D. It insulates internal organs from the cold.
D sounds scientific but is never stated or implied.
Correct answer is C
Question 3
Why does the professor mention elephants?
For example-purpose questions, ask: What idea comes right before the example, and what idea does the example support?
The professor mentions elephants splashing water on themselves to show that endotherms can also regulate temperature behaviorally, even though behavior is not their main method.
A. To contrast them with small animals that live in extremely cold environments.
A is wrong: cold environments are not discussed here.
B. To show an important behavioral difference between two mammal species.
B is a trap: the professor is not comparing elephants with another mammal.
C. To emphasize that body size helps determine an animal's metabolic rate.
C is wrong: body size is discussed later with mice and lizards, not elephants.
D. To indicate that endotherms may use behavior to help regulate body temperature.
This directly matches the professor’s point.
Correct answer is D
Question 4
What does the professor emphasize about the metabolic rate of ectotherms?
For emphasis questions, listen for comparisons and numbers.
The professor clearly contrasts ectotherms with endotherms and emphasizes that ectotherms have a much lower metabolic rate.
A. It is regulated by taking short, quick breaths.
A is wrong: breathing is associated with endotherms, not ectotherms.
B. It varies throughout the day.
B is never mentioned.
C. It is much slower than the metabolic rate of endotherms.
This is explicitly stated and emphasized with the mouse–lizard comparison.
D. It increases to help the animals survive a sudden drop in temperature.
D is wrong: ectotherm metabolism decreases in cold conditions.
Correct answer is C
Question 5
What happens to an ectotherm in a temperature chamber?
For experimental questions, ask: What changes when behavior is no longer possible?
In a temperature chamber, the ectotherm cannot move to regulate its temperature behaviorally.
A. It regulates its temperature by behaving in certain ways.
A is a trap: behavior works in nature, but not in a temperature chamber.
B. It shivers when the chamber's temperature is lowered.
B is wrong: shivering is an endotherm response.
C. Its metabolism remains unchanged.
C is wrong: metabolism slows down significantly.
D. Its body temperature matches the temperature inside the chamber.
This is exactly what the professor explains.
Correct answer is D
Question 6
Why does the professor say this?
“Ever heard of a frog being chased by a polar bear?”
For pragmatic questions, ask: What is the professor’s attitude, not the information?
The professor uses humor to respond directly to a student’s comment and signal agreement.
Deeper Analysis
In this conversation, the professor talks about ectotherms—animals like frogs that rely on the environment to control their body temperature. The student comments that these animals probably wouldn’t survive in very cold places.
To respond, the professor jokingly asks, “Ever heard of a frog being chased by a polar bear?” This is a rhetorical question, which means it isn’t meant to be answered. The implied answer is “No, of course not.” The professor uses this humorous example to show that it’s ridiculous to imagine frogs living where polar bears do. This playful exaggeration helps confirm the student’s point: ectotherms cannot live in freezing climates.
Therefore, the professor asks the question to highlight that the student’s understanding is correct. That’s why the best answer choice is A.
A. To indicate that the student's assertion is correct.
This matches the tone and function of the statement.
B. To introduce a fact she thinks will surprise the student.
B is wrong: no new fact is introduced.
C. To point out the effectiveness of the frog's defense mechanisms.
C is unrelated.
D. To find out what the student knows about extreme environments.
D is wrong: she is not asking a real question.
Correct answer is A
Enroll in Dr. Byrne’s TOEFL Listening Course today and start scoring smarter—immediately.
This course doesn’t just teach listening; it trains you to think like ETS. Every lecture breaks down real TOEFL Listening questions, reverse-engineering how test writers build traps so you can spot them instantly and avoid losing easy points.
With 50+ hours of targeted, strategy-driven training, you’ll learn exactly what to listen for, what to ignore, and how to answer with confidence—even on the trickiest questions. No wasted time memorizing technical terms. Just proven methods that build your skills step by step and push your TOEFL score higher, faster.
Study with strategy. Beat the traps. Get the score you need.