In the previous blog post we looked at some Listen and Repeat questions and how they’re scored. Now we’re going to see some answers for the Take an Interview task.
What are the speaking tasks?
If you’re not familiar with TOEFL, there are two types of speaking questions. The questions are exactly what their names suggest: Listen and Repeat and Take an Interview. If you’re not familiar with them, you can read more about them here.
How are Take an Interview questions scored?
Since the provided responses receive a score of 3, 4, and 5, let’s look at the rubric for each of those scores. This is based on the rubrics provided by ETS on the TOEFL website.
A score of 5 fully answer the question and is clear and fluent. The response stays on topic and is well-developed, and the pace is conversational and has a natural use of pauses. In terms of pronunciation, it can be easily understood and effective use of rhythm and intonation help covey the meaning. Last but not least, the grammar and vocabulary used allow for a clear expression of ideas with a precise meaning.
A score of 4 answers the question and is generally clear. The response is on topic and developed, but it could be missing connectors between sentences. The speaking pace is good, but some pausing might affect the flow of the response. Pronunciation may make one or two words a bit difficult to understand, but the overall response can be understood and uses appropriate rhythm and intonation. The grammar and vocabulary is adequate to express the general meaning.
A score of 3 addresses the question, but with limited development and/or clarity. The response is generally on topic, but the development of ideas is limited. In terms of pacing, there are frequent pauses and use of filler words (um, uh, etc). The ability to understand is affected by issues with pronunciation and or rhythm and/or intonation. A limited use of grammar and vocabulary result in a restricted expression of ideas that are not as precise or as clear as a higher-level response.
Take an Interview prompt
In this case, you’re answering questions related to reading habits. Here’s the question you hear:
“Some people believe that reading books helps improve one’s imagination and creativity. Do you agree with this idea, or do you think there are other activities that can also enhance these skills? Explain why you think so.”
Score 3 response
Here’s what we hear in the audio:
“I think that uh, books can make you more creative … because you see something on the book that you can’t imagine at home, so, uh, this is a point of thinking about it. Uh, it preserve creativety, but I think that playing games also make the creativety improve because of some fictional stuff. … And …. seeing fictional films also make it improve. But it’s more about focusing on the fictional stuff. And drawing also make your creativity grow inside.”
I notice a few things about this response.
- The candidate states that books can make you more creative, but so can playing games, watching movies, and drawing. These ideas are introduced, but they aren’t developed with any details or examples.
- There are a noticeable number of pauses and filler words, affecting the flow of the response.
- The candidate’s pronunciation also has a few issues. The pronunciation of fictional has a long “e” sound instead of the short “i” sound, making it a bit difficult to understand. There’s also the mispronunciation of creativity that happens a few times.
- In terms of grammar and vocabulary, the range is quite limited. Looking at structures, the response uses the present simple and the modal verb can. On the positive side, there are some compound sentences. More sophisticated vocabulary would also help this response, and the verbs are often lacking the third-person s at the end.
Score 4 response
Here’s what we hear from this candidate:
“Yes, I think reading can improve our imagination. Um… think about Harry Potter. It depicts a magic world that, that is different from our real world. So um, …. it’s magic it’s imaginative, right? Um, there are also other activities that can improve our imagination like painting and music uh because we have to create different uh images or sounds. So we have to think, so it improve our imagination, yeah.”
Here are my thoughts:
- The candidate takes a clear position about reading, and she also mentions painting and music. She gives Harry Potter as an example related to reading, but she doesn’t say much apart from it being a magical world compared to the real world.
- The response has fewer pauses and filler words, which makes the response flow more smoothly.
- The pronunciation doesn’t present any issues, but the intonation of the word “imagination” sounds unnatural in the first sentence.
- The grammar and vocabulary doesn’t present any major issues apart from a missing -s on “improve” near the end of the response. The response has words like imaginative and depicts, which provide a more precise meaning compared to the previous response. Despite that, it is still limited to mostly using the present simple.
Score 5 response
Here’s the last response:
“Yes, I totally agree. For me, books are one of the main uh things you can enhance and improve your creativity and imagination. Since when you are reading, you uh, get to imagine, really imagine the whole story, like different environment. Or even if the book is describing a person, describing its personality, its clothes, you can like um, use your whole creativity and imagination to really uh like see the the characters, the environment and really imagine the whole story. So yes, I really believe that.
And here are my thoughts:
- The response takes a clear position and provides details to support their answer. Talking about the characters, environment, and personality and clothes of the characters help the listener understand their position.
- There are occasional pauses, and the candidate uses filler words from time to time. Despite that, their response still has a natural flow.
- We can hear the mispronunciation of the word “whole” as “wole”. Intonation is a bit unnatural a few times, but it doesn’t affect understanding of the response.
- The grammar and vocabulary used show a wider range compared to the other responses. We see the use of adverbs like totally and really, and words like enhance, environment, personality, and characters help describe a more precise meaning. There is a slight misuse of its when referring to a character’s personality and clothes, but it doesn’t impact the ability to understand.
If you’d like to listen for yourself, you can access the audio files and PDF with a description of the tasks by clicking here and scrolling down to the section that says Sample Responses. On that same page you’ll find the speaking rubrics that I referenced earlier.
Closing thoughts
These examples do a nice job of demonstrating what a response with a score of 3, 4, and 5 look like. One thing that stood out to me is that the score 5 response has mistakes in terms of grammar and pronunciation; I specify that mistakes are ok and to be expected in the Take an Interview task.
If you’re preparing the Take an Interview part of TOEFL, here are some recommendations:
- Practice answering questions and speaking to fill the entire 45 seconds. The resource that I recommend with free and paid practice is My Speaking Score.
- Find a speaking partner and ask each other questions about topics that appear on the Take an Interview part of the test. You could talk about your daily routine, what you do in your free time, the area you live, what you think about technology, and more. You can time each other, record your responses, and analyze what you can improve.
- Develop your vocabulary and ability to use different structures (conditionals, the different verb tenses, the passive voice, etc.) when speaking. This will give you more tools to be able to answer the different questions that are asked.
What has your experience been with the Take an Interview task? Feel free to leave a comment or question.
Disclosure: AI was not used in the creation of this blog post.
