TOEFL Listen and Choose a Response
One of the 4 task types in the Listening section. 326 practice questions in the bank, across 33 sets.
Listen and Choose a Response plays one line of speech and asks which reply answers it. There is nothing to take notes on. What decides the item is whether you recognised what the line was doing — a request, a question, an offer, a polite refusal.
What it looks like
A real item from the practice bank:
You hear: “Our bake sale raised over two hundred dollars for the animal shelter.”
- AI raised my hand, but the professor didn't see me.
- BYou can adopt a cat at the pet store downtown.
- CWow, that's double what we made last semester.correct
*Explanations in the PrepScore bank are written for a Chinese-speaking audience, so the reasoning on this page is ours rather than a translation of the bank’s.*
How to approach it
- Take no notes. The whole item is one line.
- Identify the speech act first: is this asking, offering, refusing or informing?
- Reject the option that reuses the words you just heard — that is the standard distractor.
How much practice there is
The bank holds 326 questions of this type across 33 sets. 77% sit in the basic layer and the rest in the advanced layer, which unlocks once your basic-layer accuracy passes 60% — the same two-stage shape the real test uses in Reading and Listening.
Practise Listen and Choose a Response free
Ten questions a day at no cost, with the reasoning on every answer.
Frequently asked questions
Should I take notes on Listen and Choose a Response?
No. The item is a single line, and writing costs you the next one.
Why are these harder than they look?
Because they test idiom and register rather than words. An indirect request or a polite refusal is easy to miss even when every word is clear.
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