This task frequently uses common conversational idioms and expressions whose meaning isn't obvious from the individual words alone ("I wouldn't count on it," "that's news to me," "give it a shot"). Recognizing these by their overall function in a conversation, not by translating word by word, is the actual skill being tested.
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Idiomatic phrases fall apart under literal, word-by-word analysis — "give it a shot" has nothing to do with shooting anything. Train yourself to process these phrases as single units of meaning (roughly "try it") rather than decomposing them, the same way a native speaker processes them automatically.
Rather than memorizing a long list of idioms in isolation, group them by what they're typically used to do in conversation: expressing doubt ("I wouldn't count on it," "that's a long shot"), expressing surprise ("that's news to me," "you don't say"), or agreeing enthusiastically ("sounds good to me," "I'm in"). Recognizing the function often gets you to the right answer even if the exact phrase is new to you.
Idiom lists help, but genuine, repeated exposure to natural spoken English — podcasts, shows with everyday conversation, dialogue-heavy content — builds faster, more automatic recognition than memorization alone, since idioms are learned best in the natural contexts they actually occur in.
Practice Listening with natural, conversational TOEFL-format audio.