IELTS & TOEFL Listening Practice: Academic Vocabulary

Hi, there. My name is Emma, and in today's video, we are going to do some listening practice.

This video is going to be particularly useful if you are going to university or plan to

go to university, if you are writing the TOEFL test, or if you are writing the IELTS. University

words come up a lot on the TOEFL and the IELTS, especially in the listening, so this video

will help you improve your listening, specifically about university words.

Okay, so to get started, I want you, on a piece of paper, to put something like this.

Okay? I want you to write the word "university" in the center, "verbs", "people", "places",

"things", "slang". Okay? I want you to copy this, because I'm going to have you pause

the video for one minute... Or maybe... You know what? Give yourself three minutes, and

I want you to think about all the words you can think of that have to do with university.

Okay? So, for example, people, I might think the "prof"; verbs, I might think "enroll".

But try to come up with as many as you can. Places, maybe "cafeteria"; things, "course";

slang, "hit the books".

Okay? So I want you to try to come up with as many words as you

can, and then we will talk about these words.

Okay, so I hope you've done some brainstorming, and you've come up with a list of words. What

I want you to do now is I want you to see: Did you come up with any of the same words

that I came up with? Okay? So, behind me, I have a bunch of words I thought of. Do you

have the same words, or totally different words? I put the word:

"advisor", "flunk", "fall behind", "marks", "grades",

"freshman", "sophomore", "junior", "senior", "prof",

"pull an all-nighter", "cram", "TA", "ace the test",

"dean", "instructor", "registrar", "drop a course", "hit the books",

"undergrad", "grad student", and "hand in".

So these are all very common words we use when we talk about university. If there are any words here that

you don't know the meaning of, I highly recommend watching some previous videos I've done on

these words that explain them fully. Okay? So there will be a link for that, so feel

free, if you don't know these words, to click on the link.

So now what I'm going to have you do is we are going to do a practice listening. Okay?

We are going to... You are going to listen to me tell you a story about university. You

are going to look at these words, and if you hear me say the word, you're going to put

a checkmark right beside the words you hear. If you are on engVid, there's going to be

a link that you can click to download these words so you can print them off and have them

in front of you. Same with on YouTube, if you're watching this off of YouTube, there

will be a link you can click on in the description, and that will take you to a place where you

can download a list of these words. Otherwise, if you don't want to do that, you can actually

just copy them out by hand, just write down these words. And then when you're ready, you

can listen to me, and all you need to do is if you hear the word, you put a checkmark.

If you don't hear the word in what I'm going to say, then no checkmark. Okay?

Okay, so let's get started. So, again, put a checkmark if you hear the word.

I went to the University of Toronto. I remember when I was an undergrad,

I found school very difficult, especially in my freshman year.

I guess the main problem was it was my first time away from home.

School had always come naturally to me before. I wasn't used to cramming and

pulling all-nighters. I naturally had been a straight-A student.

Now I had to work hard so I wouldn't flunk.

The problem was I was terrified of my prof and my TAs.

I was confused with my first assignment, and didn't hand it in on time.

I bombed the test that same week. I started to study harder so I wouldn't fall behind.

Eventually, I met with an advisor

who really helped me. By my junior year, I was doing well.

Okay, so take a moment. I'll read it one more time so you can check your answers.

You can put a check if you hear any of these words.

I went to the University of Toronto. I remember when I was an undergrad,

I found school very difficult, especially in my freshman year.

I guess the main problem was it was my first time away from home. School had always come

naturally to me before. I wasn't used to cramming and pulling all-nighters.

I naturally had been a straight-A student. Now I had to work hard so I wouldn't flunk.

The problem was I was terrified of my prof and TAs.

I was confused with my first assignment, and didn't hand it in on time.

I bombed the test that same week.

I started to study harder so I wouldn't fall behind.

Eventually, I met with an advisor who really helped me.

By my junior year, I was doing well.

Okay, so let's see which of these words we heard.

We heard the word "advisor", yep.

"Flunk", yep. "Fall behind".

Did we hear the word "marks"? Let's see. Okay.

Nope. "Grades", nope. "Freshman",

yes. "Sophomore", no. "Junior", yes. "Prof".

"Pull an all-nighter", "cram", "TA". Okay.

"Ace the test", no. "Dean", no. "Instructor", nope. "Registrar", nope. "Drop a course",

nope. "Hit the books", nope. "Undergrad", yes.

"Grad student", no. And "hand in", yes.

Okay?

So I've put a check beside the words I've said. You can listen again to make sure that

you've heard them. Okay, so now we're going to do that again. I'm going to read a second

story, the final story, and I want you, again, if you hear the words, put a checkmark.

Okay, so now for my second story. Listen carefully.

I loved university.

I remember my first day at the registrar when I needed to enroll in my classes.

They were so friendly at the university, and really helpful, too.

Undergrad was amazing. I met tons of cool people.

In my psych class, we even formed a study group. Every Wednesday, we'd hit the books.

On our final exam, we all aced the test. Because I had studied for weeks before,

I didn't have to cram or pull an all-nighter. My instructor was really impressed with our marks.

He introduced us to the dean.

In my senior year, he gave me such a good reference, I was able to get into a master's program.

Eventually, I became a grad student and a TA.

Okay, so I'm going to read that one more time. Listen again. Check your answers, see that

you've heard all of the words and you've put checkmarks beside the correct words.

I loved university. I remember my first day at the registrar when I needed to enroll in my classes.

They were so friendly, really helpful, too. Undergrad was amazing.

I met tons of cool people. In my psych class, we even formed a study group.

Every Wednesday, we'd hit the books. On our final exam, we all aced the test.

Because I had studied for weeks before, I didn't have to cram or pull an all-nighter.

My instructor was really impressed with our marks. He introduced us to the dean.

In my senior year, he gave me such a good reference,

I was able to get into a master's program.

Eventually, I became a grad student and a TA.

Okay, so let's see which words you heard. Okay.

So, "advisor", nope. Let's go through this... We have the word "registrar", check.

We have the word "enroll". Did we put that there? Okay, nope.

Okay, we have the word "undergrad", check. We have the word "hit the books". Okay.

"Ace the test", do we have that? Yes, we do. Perfect. "Cram",

"pull an all-nighter", okay, I said that. We have the word "instructor" again.

Do we have the word "instructor" here? Yes. Perfect. We have the word "marks".

I said the word "dean", "senior", in my senior year.

We have the word "master's", but it's not here. Okay,

and we have the word "TA" and "grad student". Okay.

So, hopefully you were able to hear all of those words. This is, again, very good practice

if you are taking the TOEFL, the IELTS, or you are going to be in university, because

you are going to hear conversations that use all of these words very frequently.

So you can come visit our website at www.engvid.com.

There, you can actually take a quiz to see

how many of these words you know, and you can really, like, see them again, see their

definitions, and it can really help you with this. Okay?

So, until next time, take care.