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TOEFL Listening Mastery Course: Target Score 27+

Why Scoring 27+ in TOEFL Listening Is Challenging — Even for Native Speakers

The TOEFL Listening section is far from a casual test of English. It features fast-paced academic lectures across a wide range of disciplines—philosophy, psychology, biology, geology, astronomy, and more. Each of the three, five-minute lectures presents dense, abstract content and includes both subject-specific vocabulary (e.g., theory of mind, feudal system, plate tectonics) and general academic terms like hypothesis, anomalies, confirmed, or falsified. You’re expected not only to understand what’s being said but also to follow the reasoning behind the claims—something even native speakers find challenging.

Why Listening in TOEFL Is Harder Than Real College Lectures

Unlike real university lectures—where professors often pause, repeat themselves, or slow down when explaining difficult concepts—TOEFL Listening features scripted narration delivered at a natural, uninterrupted pace. To make things more challenging for test-takers, the lectures frequently include complex sentence structures. For example, you might hear:

“The researchers couldn’t not consider the impact of the anomaly, even if it contradicted earlier assumptions.”

To understand this in real time, you have to untangle the logic of the double negative (“couldn’t not consider” = “considered”), interpret the contrast, and track the overall argument—without missing a beat.

In addition to complex sentence structures, you’ll also hear connected speech, reductions, elisions, and unstressed negatives—just like in fast, native conversation. For example, “was not confirmed” may sound like:

“wuznuh confirmed.”

Missing that unstressed “not” can completely flip the meaning, causing confusion or misunderstanding of the statement.

The Hidden Difficulty of TOEFL Conversations

The conversation sections may seem easier at first—but they test a different skill: understanding pragmatic meaning. That means grasping not just what is said, but how it's said.

For instance, if a student replies with a flat-toned “Great,” they may actually mean “This is terrible.” You'll need to recognize sarcasm, suggestion, hesitation, or emotional tone through intonation and stress—not just through words. Literal translations won’t help here. You need to train your ear to hear what’s implied.

Why Listening Alone Isn’t Enough

Even if you understand every word of the lectures and conversations, you might still struggle if you can’t recall the details needed to answer questions accurately. That’s why note-taking is a core skill in TOEFL Listening.

If your notes are disorganized or incomplete, you’ll have trouble answering:

• Specific fact questions
• Inference questions (which go beyond what’s directly stated)
• Questions that require connecting multiple ideas or categorizing information

Note-taking is not optional. It’s a critical skill—and mastering it can be the difference between a good score and a great one.

What This Course Offers: Guaranteed 27+ After Completion

Scoring 27 or higher in TOEFL Listening depends on two key factors: mastering effective listening comprehension strategies and practicing with plenty of questions to refine these strategies. This course offers both: targeted lectures on strategies that cover all aspects of answering confidently and correctly, and 74 full sets of TPO-style practice questions.

Lectures on Strategies Include:

  • Mastering listening skills for fast native English
  • Effective note-taking techniques
  • Question-specific answering strategies for TOEFL Listening question types

74 TPO-like Practice Sets
You’ll apply everything you learn through 74 sets of realistic practice. Each set includes 3 lectures and 2 conversations with full-length audio, questions, and answers.

Instructor Support & Bonus Lectures
This course is personally managed by Dr. Nanhee Byrnes, an expert in TOEFL strategy. You’ll have direct access to Dr. Byrnes for any course-related questions, whether it's about a lecture, your notes, or understanding answer choices. She’ll provide personalized guidance to ensure you're on track to reach your 27+ target score.

Each week, Dr. Byrnes will post new lecture materials in various formats (videos, PowerPoints, or even live sessions). These sessions will focus on challenging TPO lectures and conversations, helping you break down complex audio passages, understand tricky answer patterns, and tackle even the toughest questions with confidence.

This course is the best investment you can make for TOEFL Listening success!

Course Syllabus

Coming soon

티피오TPO Contents

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