TOEFL Speaking Question 3: What You Need to Know (2023)

When preparing for the TOEFL Speaking test, it’s essential to know what to expect when it comes to Question 3. This question is designed to test your ability to read, listen, and speak about an academic topic. Here’s a breakdown of how it works:

Breakdown

Reading You will have 45 seconds to read a short article of about 100 words on an academic topic. The article will define a specific term or concept and provide some basic details. Based on a survey of 500 students in 2019, the most common topics for this section are biology/animals, business/marketing, psychology/learning, and art/history/literature.

Listening After the reading, you will hear a lecture of about 1-2 minutes on the same topic. The lecture will explain the term or concept using one or two examples.

Question

Question Prompt Finally, you will be asked to summarize both the reading and the lecture in your response. The question prompt may look something like this:

1. Define the term _____ and explain how the professor’s example demonstrates its meaning.
2. How does the example of _____ support the concept of _____ as explained in the lecture?
3. Using the lecture examples, clarify the definition of _____ and its significance.
4. Explain the concept of _____ by citing the examples provided in the lecture.

Sample Questions

Answer Template

To structure your response, you can use the following template:

1. After reading the text, it is clear that [CONCEPT] is defined as [DETAILS]. The lecturer expands on this by…
2. The reading introduces the concept of [CONCEPT] as [DETAILS], which the professor expands upon by providing examples…
3. The lecturer builds on the reading’s definition of [CONCEPT] by providing specific examples that illustrate…
4. As outlined in the reading, [CONCEPT] can be described as [DETAILS], which the professor elaborates on with examples…

Tips and Tricks

Here are some tips to help you do your best on TOEFL Speaking Question 3:

• In order to better structure your answer, it’s helpful to incorporate transitional phrases such as “thus,” “accordingly,” “in addition,” and “hence.”
• Including transitional phrases like “as a consequence,” “furthermore,” “additionally,” and “thus” can improve the organization of your response.
• To enhance the coherence of your answer, consider using transitional phrases like “in light of this,” “in summary,” “equally important,” and “accordingly.”
• Spend no more than 10-13 seconds summarizing the reading, as your listening summary carries greater weight in your score. 
• Demonstrate your language proficiency by using a combination of simple, compound, and complex sentences. 
• While paraphrasing is beneficial, avoid going overboard with it. The key is to accurately and effectively convey the main ideas.

Sample Answer

To give you an idea of what a good response might look like, read the following in 60 seconds.  

The topic from the text was cellular respiration, which is the process by which cells generate energy from food. The professor explained that cellular respiration can be broken down into three main stages: glycolysis, the Krebs cycle, and the electron transport chain.
During glycolysis, glucose is broken down into smaller molecules, which release energy stored in molecules called ATP. This energy is then used to power the Krebs cycle, which produces more ATP and other molecules the cell needs to function.
Finally, the electron transport chain uses the energy from these molecules to create even more ATP, which the cell can use for various processes.
Overall, the lecture gave me a better understanding of how our cells convert the food we eat into the energy we need to live.