You are asked about the purpose of the speaker in regards to the main idea or key point. E.g. why did the speaker say that?

​Gist-Purpose

​You are asked about the main idea or key point. E.g. what happened in the recording?

​Gist-Content

Types of Questions

• Listen to academic lectures in various areas. Start with short lectures about familiar topics, and then move on to longer lectures about unfamiliar topics. You can listen to a lecture more than once.

• You are never asked both gist-content and gist-purpose questions. It's always only one.​

​You are asked about the real meaning of a statement within its context.

​Function

​You are asked about important specific details. These are always explicitly stated.

​Detail

Types of Questions

• As an exercise, listen to a recording with someone, write down as much as you can afterwards, and then compare who wrote the most.

• ​Ask yourself, what is the speaker really doing when saying something? Differentiate between literal and real meaning.

​

​You are asked about the structure of a lecture. These questions are often about the examples used in the lecture.

​Organization

You are asked about the attitude or feelings in conversation from the speaker's tone.

​

​Attitude

Types of Questions

• ​Ask yourself, how can I describe the speaker's tone? Try watching some comedies as tone is very noticeable in these shows.

• ​Listen for signal words about the different parts of the lecture.

​

​You are asked about the meaning of something not explicitly stated, usually the implications.

​Inference

​You are asked about the relationship among ideas in a lecture. It is usually Fill in a Table or Chart.

​Connecting content

Types of Questions

• Identify the logical chain that connects a conversation or lecture. While listening, stop, summarize, and predict.

• Ask yourself, are the words spoken positive or negative? How do these words imply positive or negative ideas?​