27+TOEFL Listening Course Syllabus
Part I. Lecture
Test format
27+ is challenging even for English natives
Question types
Lecture and conversation types
Lecture and conversation organization types
Paragraph making
Organized notes
Listening skills for fast English
Connected speech (Pronunciation)
Stress and intonation (prosody)
Gist questions
Answering strategies for gist questions
Focus on the beginning part
Recurring themes when not beginning
General terms
Elimination strategies
Purpose of visiting
Detail Questions
TOEFL Detail Questions
Implication Questions
Answer and elimination strategies
TOEFL Implication Questions
Function questions
TOEFL Function Questions
Agreement/confirmation/emphasis
Disagreement/criticism/contradiction
Attitude questions
Word Choice
Tone of voice
Context
Trap choices
Literal Meaning vs. Attitudinal Meaning
Attitude types: positive, negative, neutral
Degrees of attitudes
Attitude towards theory
TOEFL Attitude Questions
Optimistic/curious/receptive/reassured
Cautious/ reserved/uncertain/concerned
Connecting idea Questions
Part II: TPO Listening Sets, 1-74
TPO 1
C1: Asking a librarian how to search for articles
L1: The life and work of a visual artist
L2: A surprising finding from a new geological dating method
C2: An education major reporting classroom observation to a professor
L3: Strange features of an archaeological site
TPO 2
C1: Asking a professor how to write up a research project
L1: Practical uses of a banana plant species
L2: Aristotle’s idea of happiness
C2: Two students discussing future plans and club activities
L3: How the asteroid belt was discovered
TPO 4
C1: Asking a librarian to locate old reviews of a controversial play
L1: Strange animal behavior due to conflicting desires
L2: The geological phenomenon of moving rocks
C2: Discussing with a professor how to facilitate a group project
L3: Government support for art
TPO 5
C1: Asking a counselor how to adjust to a large campus
L1: Theories on how cultural information is transmitted
L2: Arguments for another moon landing
C2: A student asking a film studies professor about an assignment
L3: Using an infrared microscope to investigate an art piece
TPO 6
C1: Asking a career services advisor about a job fair
L1: The role of promissory notes in economic boom and bust cycles
L2: Interesting features of an ancient tree species
C2: Asking a professor about a term paper topic
L3: Evidence that the Sahara used to be much wetter
TPO 7
C1: Planning a retirement party with a professor for a faculty member
L1: How bats identify the shapes of objects
L2: Canoe building by Native Americans
C2: Library orientation session
L3: The mechanics of glacial movement
TPO 8
C1: Talking with the registrar about graduation requirements
L1: Factors influencing habitat choices
L2: Women artists in Paris
C2: Discussing a business model
L3: Discovering a new chemical element
TPO 9
C1: Asking a professor about job prospects
L1: Eighteenth-century theater
L2: How shrubs thrive in the tundra
C2: Asking a librarian about a recall notice on a borrowed book
L3: Lake formation in the desert
TPO 10
C1: Career advancement in the arts
L1: Whale evolution
L2: The recycling of a chemical element
C2: Asking a bookstore clerk how to return a book
L3: Why very young children don’t remember much
TPO 11
C1: Asking about a gym pass
L1: Distraction displays
L2: Cape Cod style houses
C2: Student being asked to be a member of a search committee
L3: Consequences of overdevelopment of wetlands
TPO 12
C1: Revising a Hemingway paper
L1: Cell division
L2: Opera
C2: Problem with the TA's payroll
L3: Solar energy
TPO 13
C1: Asking a professor about how to do observational research
L1: How beavers affect the environment
L2: Different types of medieval poems
C2: Borrowing from the language lab
L3: Types of meteorites
TPO 14
C1: Locating a political book
L1: Memories in cognition
L2: Pacific islanders’ use of stars for navigation
C2: Career in journalism
L3: Function of architectural monuments
TPO 15
C1: The campus newspaper's reporter position
L1: Lavie’s game on distraction
L2: Geologic time periods
C2: Performance on a biology exam
L3: Archimedes' Palimpsest
TPO 16
C1: Reserving a room for rehearsal
L1: Lechuguilla Cave
L2: Foraging behavior among beavers
C2: Rescheduling the medieval history test
L3: Stained glass art
TPO 17
C1: Conversation with professor about finding specific material
L1: Dating portable prehistoric artwork
L2: Milankovitch hypothesis on climate change
C2: Conversation with campus food service manager
L3: Timekeeping in ancient Egypt
TPO 18
C1: Applying for a part-time job on campus
L1: Observation of sunspots
L2: Copies of Greek sculptures
C2: Possible participation in a sociology study
L3: North American wood frog
TPO 19
C1: Discussing a point raised in a lecture
L1: Difficulties in astronomy
L2: Plant life in salt marshes
C2: Cafeteria's food policy
L3: Beaux’s vision in portraiture
TPO 20
C1: Returning a library book
L1: Gricean maxims
L2: Interglacial periods
C2: Applying for research funding
L3: Folk tales
TPO 21
C1: Locating a campus building
L1: Geocentric theory
L2: Evolution theory
C2: Registering for a course
L3: Photography of Alice Neel
TPO 22
C1: Student newspaper
L1: The faint young sun paradox
L2: Pleistocene rewilding
C2: Discussion on paper topic
L3: Musicians in the film industry
TPO 23
C1: Campus website
L1: Antikythera mechanism
L2: Earth radiation budget
C2: Advice on choosing courses
L3: Screen dance
TPO 24
C1: Finding a book at the library
L1: Modern dance
L2: Megafauna in North America
C2: Discussion about hydrologic cycle in the final exam
L3: Shield volcanoes on Venus
TPO 25
C1: Graduation requirement
L1: Assisted migration conservation
L2: Hungarian composer Béla Bartók
C2: Whale songs
L3: Hieroglyphic writing
TPO 26
C1: Advertising student business
L1: Green marketing
L2: Comets
C2: Paper topic about jellyfish
L3: Archimedes and the Archimedes Palimpsest
TPO 27
C1: Looking for a book at the library
L1: Corals
L2: Violins
C2: Hydroponics
L3: Sauropods
TPO 28
C1: Paper on Dewey’s political philosophy
L1: Mirror self-recognition
L2: Plants’ photoreceptors
C2: Senior thesis
L3: Archaeology: Gonur-depe
TPO 29
C1: Class schedule
L1: Architectural acoustics
L2: Clovis culture
C2: Assignment
L3: Space exploration
TPO 30
C1: Photography club
L1: Animal consciousness
L2: Oviraptors
C2: Assignment discussion
L3: Jarosite on Mars
TPO 31
C1: Community planning in the colonies
L1: Ancient Greek music and Plato
L2: Tectonic plates
C2: Registration issue
L3: The Botai culture
TPO 32
C1: The bookstore's buyback policies
L1: Boom and bust cycle of animal population
L2: Impact of copper mining on the environment
C2: Paper topic on wood harvesting techniques of Native Americans
L3: The architecture of Harriet Morrison Irwin
TPO 33
C1: Uncomfortable dorm room condition
L1: Theories of how the Great Pyramid was built
L2: Colorado's water
C2: Discussing classroom presentation
L3: The Renaissance gardens
TPO 34
C1: Library book sale
L1: Plants and pollinators
L2: Treatment of solid organic waste
C2: Familiar topic for authentic writing
L3: Life cycle of innovation
TPO 35
C1: Part-time job
L1: Animal navigation system
L2: Earliest permanent settlement
C2: Source material for the paper
L3: Frescos
TPO 36
C1: Changing academic plan
L1: Nuclear fusion
L2: Application of remote sensing technology to archaeology
C2: Applying for campus radio show management position
L3: Suburb housing design
TPO 37
C1: Asking whether a paper topic for anthropology class is acceptable
L1: Soil formation
L2: Biography of Renaissance artists
C2: Getting permission for a play
L3: Endotherms and ectotherms
TPO 38
C1: Dorm room search due to summer class
L1: Plant virus effect on 17th-century market
L2: An avant-garde music
C2: Domestic exchange program
L3: Theories of gas giants
TPO 39
C1: Discussing research on “poor theater”
L1: Organic matter’s effect on mineral evolution
L2: Community-determined films
C2: Job fair
L3: Thoreau’s criticism of technology
TPO 40
C1: Business student confusing concepts
L1: An effect of overfishing
L2: Greenhouse effect
C2: Asking a librarian for recommendation
L3: Privatization of infrastructure
TPO 41
C1: Asking for a recommendation letter
L1: Desert plants
L2: How history is reconstructed
C2: Scholarship types
L3: Conditions for habitable planets
TPO 42
C1: 20th-century German art style
L1: Distribution of the galaxies
L2: Monochromatic statues
C2: Rehearsal space
L3: Fungus
TPO 43
C1: Computer lab computers
L1: Color change of leaves
L2: Radiowaves
C2: Question about midterm exam
L3: Children’s story author
TPO 44
C1: Problem with the project
L1: Application of modern technology
L2: Structure of theater
C2: Art exhibit criteria
L3: Agriculture in South Pacific
TPO 45
C1: Mailbox renting
L1: Realism art style during Renaissance
L2: Calorie intake and T-cells
C2: Economic model
L3: Early pottery
TPO 46
C1: Inquiring about common interest houses
L1: Emergence of collective behavior
L2: Making the blue color
C2: Inquiry on term paper
L3: Material in pennies and nickels
TPO 47
C1: Appalachian music
L1: Romanticism vs neoclassicism
L2: Long-distance foraging
C2: Film reviewing task
L3: Role of wind in distribution of heat and water
TPO 48
C1: Inquiring information for campus magazine
L1: Influence of photography on painting
L2: The plume hypothesis for Hawaiian archipelago
C2: Inquiring about a course
L3: Instance of vertical integration in business
TPO 49
C1: Campus job search
L1: Theories for the cause of elongated lakes
L2: Education pedagogy
C2: Requesting restricted library material
L3: Propagation of archaeological artifact
TPO 50
C1: Essay on voting behavior on referendums
L1: Ancient glass making
L2: Classification scheme in biology
C2: Student election
L3: Natural resources
TPO 51
C1: Experiment on eyes of bugs
L1: History of domesticated plants
L2: Cultural diffusion
C2: Field trip discussion
L3: Why people didn’t believe heliocentrism
TPO 52
C1: Poem writing assignment
L1: Still life painting
L2: Ozone depletion
C2: Artwork sales
L3: Maya civilization
TPO 53
C1: Artistic retelling
L1: Film audio
L2: Solutions to pollution in the ocean bay
C2: Advice for cafeteria
L3: Material for Saturn’s ring
TPO 54
C1: Theater production
L1: Zooplankton
L2: Broadway theater
C2: Hypothesis for meandering river
L3: Locating material
TPO 55
C1: Environmental science assignment
L1: Public museum
L2: Northern phenomenon
C2: Course withdrawal
L3: Stonehenge
TPO 56
C1: Major and career
L1: Visual art abstract expressionism
L2: Ancient birds
C2: Jazz club trip
L3: Techniques in archaeological investigation
TPO 57
C1: Paper about cognitive development
L1: Sentimentality as a philosophical movement
L2: Speciation
C2: Finding books in library
L3: Concept of frontier in US history
TPO 58
C1: Job review
L1: Bird migration
L2: Competition in business
C2: Film class
L3: African American history
TPO 59
C1: Interview method
L1: Impact of animal translocation
L2: The geological creeping of permafrost region
C2: Creating a club
L3: Medieval production system
TPO 60
C1: Dormitory repair needed
L1: Architectural design challenges
L2: Principles of human development
C2: Conflicting schedule
L3: Equilibrium theory of island population
TPO 61
C1: Topic development for essays
L1: Social relationship size
L2: City parks
C2: Unfair fine
L3: Ideas for art preservation
TPO 62
C1: Challenging course
L1: City design
L2: Star formation
C2: Parking violation
L3: Animal symbiosis
TPO 63
C1: Moving out of an apartment
L1: Rock formation
L2: Early writing system
C2: Misunderstanding objectivity
L3: Biological crystal
TPO 64
C1: Discussion of a challenging concept
L1: Relative advantage
L2: Continents’ polar air mass
C2: Artwork exhibition
L3: Animal classification
TPO 65
C1: Unexpected dorm fee
L1: Dinosaurs more like birds
L2: Resilience
C2: Course reading material not meeting expectations
L3: Perspective in theater
TPO 66
C1: Paper on science fiction genre
L1: A method for finding animal mind and its limitations
L2: Function of fish fins
C2: Ways to save money
L3: Benefits of sleep
TPO 67
C1: Plans after graduation
L1: Design techniques of wallpaper during the industrial era
L2: Damasio’s hypothesis on emotions and brain activity
C2: Apartment stove broken
L3: Feeding behaviors of generalists and specialists
TPO 68
C1: Paper missing reference pages and about conclusion
L1: Undisturbed archaeological site of the Range Creek Canyon of Utah
L2: Inferring about the early Earth from zircon crystal
C2: Late for oral exam
L3: Two cultural artifacts of Arctic
TPO 69
C1: Library fine for not returning a CD
L1: Fiddler crab’s visual perception
L2: Strong viewer response
C2: Paper revision due to not considering Jane Eyre
L3: Hydrothermal vent on the ocean floor
TPO 70
C1: School ski trip
L1: Aurora
L2: Art theory on perceptual dynamic range
C2: Career concern as a literature major
L3: Direction of evolution
TPO 71
C1: Dorm rentals
L1: Inuit housing
L2: Planet formation
C2: Asking advisor role for literature magazine
L3: Fire in Savannah
TPO 72
C1: Questions about group project
L1: Memory and imitation of infants
L2: Sapping movement of maple trees
C2: Too small dorm room
L3: Astrobiology
TPO 73
C1: Outlining a paper
L1: Origin of organic compounds
L2: Autobiography vs memoir
C2: Campus conference hotel
L3: Intentional communication of infants
TPO 74
C1: Fire safety violations
L1: Bowerbird courtship behavior
L2: Renewable energy
C2: Journalism essay
L3: Olmec art
L1: The life and work of a visual artist
L2: A surprising finding from a new geological dating method
C2: An education major reporting classroom observation to a professor
L3: Strange features of an archaeological site
L1: Practical uses of a banana plant species
L2: Aristotle’s idea of happiness
C2: Two students discussing future plans and club activities
L3: How the asteroid belt was discovered
L1: Strange animal behavior due to conflicting desires
L2: The geological phenomenon of moving rocks
C2: Discussing with a professor how to facilitate a group project
L3: Government support for art
L1: Theories on how cultural information is transmitted
L2: Arguments for another moon landing
C2: A student asking a film studies professor about an assignment
L3: Using an infrared microscope to investigate an art piece
L1: The role of promissory notes in economic boom and bust cycles
L2: Interesting features of an ancient tree species
C2: Asking a professor about a term paper topic
L3: Evidence that the Sahara used to be much wetter
L1: How bats identify the shapes of objects
L2: Canoe building by Native Americans
C2: Library orientation session
L3: The mechanics of glacial movement
L1: Factors influencing habitat choices
L2: Women artists in Paris
C2: Discussing a business model
L3: Discovering a new chemical element
L1: Eighteenth-century theater
L2: How shrubs thrive in the tundra
C2: Asking a librarian about a recall notice on a borrowed book
L3: Lake formation in the desert
L1: Whale evolution
L2: The recycling of a chemical element
C2: Asking a bookstore clerk how to return a book
L3: Why very young children don’t remember much
L1: Distraction displays
L2: Cape Cod style houses
C2: Student being asked to be a member of a search committee
L3: Consequences of overdevelopment of wetlands
L1: Cell division
L2: Opera
C2: Problem with the TA's payroll
L3: Solar energy
L1: How beavers affect the environment
L2: Different types of medieval poems
C2: Borrowing from the language lab
L3: Types of meteorites
L1: Memories in cognition
L2: Pacific islanders’ use of stars for navigation
C2: Career in journalism
L3: Function of architectural monuments
L1: Lavie’s game on distraction
L2: Geologic time periods
C2: Performance on a biology exam
L3: Archimedes' Palimpsest
L1: Lechuguilla Cave
L2: Foraging behavior among beavers
C2: Rescheduling the medieval history test
L3: Stained glass art
L1: Dating portable prehistoric artwork
L2: Milankovitch hypothesis on climate change
C2: Conversation with campus food service manager
L3: Timekeeping in ancient Egypt
L1: Observation of sunspots
L2: Copies of Greek sculptures
C2: Possible participation in a sociology study
L3: North American wood frog
L1: Difficulties in astronomy
L2: Plant life in salt marshes
C2: Cafeteria's food policy
L3: Beaux’s vision in portraiture
L1: Gricean maxims
L2: Interglacial periods
C2: Applying for research funding
L3: Folk tales
L1: Geocentric theory
L2: Evolution theory
C2: Registering for a course
L3: Photography of Alice Neel
L1: The faint young sun paradox
L2: Pleistocene rewilding
C2: Discussion on paper topic
L3: Musicians in the film industry
L1: Antikythera mechanism
L2: Earth radiation budget
C2: Advice on choosing courses
L3: Screen dance
L1: Modern dance
L2: Megafauna in North America
C2: Discussion about hydrologic cycle in the final exam
L3: Shield volcanoes on Venus
L1: Assisted migration conservation
L2: Hungarian composer Béla Bartók
C2: Whale songs
L3: Hieroglyphic writing
L1: Green marketing
L2: Comets
C2: Paper topic about jellyfish
L3: Archimedes and the Archimedes Palimpsest
L1: Corals
L2: Violins
C2: Hydroponics
L3: Sauropods
L1: Mirror self-recognition
L2: Plants’ photoreceptors
C2: Senior thesis
L3: Archaeology: Gonur-depe
L1: Architectural acoustics
L2: Clovis culture
C2: Assignment
L3: Space exploration
L1: Animal consciousness
L2: Oviraptors
C2: Assignment discussion
L3: Jarosite on Mars
L1: Ancient Greek music and Plato
L2: Tectonic plates
C2: Registration issue
L3: The Botai culture
L1: Boom and bust cycle of animal population
L2: Impact of copper mining on the environment
C2: Paper topic on wood harvesting techniques of Native Americans
L3: The architecture of Harriet Morrison Irwin
L1: Theories of how the Great Pyramid was built
L2: Colorado's water
C2: Discussing classroom presentation
L3: The Renaissance gardens
L1: Plants and pollinators
L2: Treatment of solid organic waste
C2: Familiar topic for authentic writing
L3: Life cycle of innovation
L1: Animal navigation system
L2: Earliest permanent settlement
C2: Source material for the paper
L3: Frescos
L1: Nuclear fusion
L2: Application of remote sensing technology to archaeology
C2: Applying for campus radio show management position
L3: Suburb housing design
L1: Soil formation
L2: Biography of Renaissance artists
C2: Getting permission for a play
L3: Endotherms and ectotherms
L1: Plant virus effect on 17th-century market
L2: An avant-garde music
C2: Domestic exchange program
L3: Theories of gas giants
L1: Organic matter’s effect on mineral evolution
L2: Community-determined films
C2: Job fair
L3: Thoreau’s criticism of technology
L1: An effect of overfishing
L2: Greenhouse effect
C2: Asking a librarian for recommendation
L3: Privatization of infrastructure
L1: Desert plants
L2: How history is reconstructed
C2: Scholarship types
L3: Conditions for habitable planets
L1: Distribution of the galaxies
L2: Monochromatic statues
C2: Rehearsal space
L3: Fungus
L1: Color change of leaves
L2: Radiowaves
C2: Question about midterm exam
L3: Children’s story author
L1: Application of modern technology
L2: Structure of theater
C2: Art exhibit criteria
L3: Agriculture in South Pacific
L1: Realism art style during Renaissance
L2: Calorie intake and T-cells
C2: Economic model
L3: Early pottery
L1: Emergence of collective behavior
L2: Making the blue color
C2: Inquiry on term paper
L3: Material in pennies and nickels
L1: Romanticism vs neoclassicism
L2: Long-distance foraging
C2: Film reviewing task
L3: Role of wind in distribution of heat and water
L1: Influence of photography on painting
L2: The plume hypothesis for Hawaiian archipelago
C2: Inquiring about a course
L3: Instance of vertical integration in business
L1: Theories for the cause of elongated lakes
L2: Education pedagogy
C2: Requesting restricted library material
L3: Propagation of archaeological artifact
L1: Ancient glass making
L2: Classification scheme in biology
C2: Student election
L3: Natural resources
L1: History of domesticated plants
L2: Cultural diffusion
C2: Field trip discussion
L3: Why people didn’t believe heliocentrism
L1: Still life painting
L2: Ozone depletion
C2: Artwork sales
L3: Maya civilization
L1: Film audio
L2: Solutions to pollution in the ocean bay
C2: Advice for cafeteria
L3: Material for Saturn’s ring
L1: Zooplankton
L2: Broadway theater
C2: Hypothesis for meandering river
L3: Locating material
L1: Public museum
L2: Northern phenomenon
C2: Course withdrawal
L3: Stonehenge
L1: Visual art abstract expressionism
L2: Ancient birds
C2: Jazz club trip
L3: Techniques in archaeological investigation
L1: Sentimentality as a philosophical movement
L2: Speciation
C2: Finding books in library
L3: Concept of frontier in US history
L1: Bird migration
L2: Competition in business
C2: Film class
L3: African American history
L1: Impact of animal translocation
L2: The geological creeping of permafrost region
C2: Creating a club
L3: Medieval production system
L1: Architectural design challenges
L2: Principles of human development
C2: Conflicting schedule
L3: Equilibrium theory of island population
L1: Social relationship size
L2: City parks
C2: Unfair fine
L3: Ideas for art preservation
L1: City design
L2: Star formation
C2: Parking violation
L3: Animal symbiosis
L1: Rock formation
L2: Early writing system
C2: Misunderstanding objectivity
L3: Biological crystal
L1: Relative advantage
L2: Continents’ polar air mass
C2: Artwork exhibition
L3: Animal classification
L1: Dinosaurs more like birds
L2: Resilience
C2: Course reading material not meeting expectations
L3: Perspective in theater
L1: A method for finding animal mind and its limitations
L2: Function of fish fins
C2: Ways to save money
L3: Benefits of sleep
L1: Design techniques of wallpaper during the industrial era
L2: Damasio’s hypothesis on emotions and brain activity
C2: Apartment stove broken
L3: Feeding behaviors of generalists and specialists
L1: Undisturbed archaeological site of the Range Creek Canyon of Utah
L2: Inferring about the early Earth from zircon crystal
C2: Late for oral exam
L3: Two cultural artifacts of Arctic
L1: Fiddler crab’s visual perception
L2: Strong viewer response
C2: Paper revision due to not considering Jane Eyre
L3: Hydrothermal vent on the ocean floor
L1: Aurora
L2: Art theory on perceptual dynamic range
C2: Career concern as a literature major
L3: Direction of evolution
L1: Inuit housing
L2: Planet formation
C2: Asking advisor role for literature magazine
L3: Fire in Savannah
L1: Memory and imitation of infants
L2: Sapping movement of maple trees
C2: Too small dorm room
L3: Astrobiology
L1: Origin of organic compounds
L2: Autobiography vs memoir
C2: Campus conference hotel
L3: Intentional communication of infants
L1: Bowerbird courtship behavior
L2: Renewable energy
C2: Journalism essay
L3: Olmec art