Two more practice items in this task's short-exchange format. For the full task breakdown and strategy, see the main Listen and Choose a Response guide.
Take the free TOEFL Benchmark Test and get your estimated band score in about 45 minutes.
Exchange: Speaker A: "Do you think the professor will post the lecture slides before the exam?" Speaker B: "I wouldn't count on it."
What Speaker B means: Speaker B is expressing doubt that the slides will be posted — "I wouldn't count on it" is an idiomatic way of saying "don't rely on that happening," not a literal statement about counting anything. Recognizing this idiom is the actual test here, not the surface-level vocabulary.
Exchange: Speaker A: "I heard the library extended its hours during finals week." Speaker B: "That's news to me."
What Speaker B means: Speaker B hadn't heard this before — "that's news to me" idiomatically means "this is new information to me," not a comment about journalism or news media. This kind of common idiomatic phrase is exactly what this task is designed to test.
Practice all four Listening task types under real conditions.