Practice TOEIC Questions › Listening - Short Talks
This part gives you ten short monologues, each followed by three questions with four printed answer choices. That comes out to 30 questions total. Just like Part 3, some of the talks are paired with a graphic (a chart, a map, or a schedule) that you'll need to reference alongside the audio.
The big difference from Part 3 is that here there's only one speaker. There's no back-and-forth and no turn-taking. You're just following a single person's message from start to finish.
Announcements. These cover things like airport gate changes, store closing notices, and office policy updates. They typically follow a "here's the situation, here's what you need to do" structure.
Advertisements. These promote a product, service, or event. They're usually built around a problem, a solution, and then a call to action.
Voicemail and phone messages. Someone is leaving information or making a request. These often include the caller's name, a callback number, and a reason for calling.
News and weather reports. These are brief factual updates that tend to be dense with numbers and locations.
Guided tours or introductions. A speaker is presenting a place, an event, or a person. These usually start with some background information and then move into logistics or next steps.
Workplace briefings. These are things like meeting updates, schedule changes, or instructions for staff. They tend to pack several action items into a short amount of time.
Each of these types follows a fairly predictable structure, and once you start recognizing those patterns, it gives you a real advantage on test day.
Topic pivots. A talk will often start with one subject and then shift to another partway through. For example, an announcement about a delayed flight might transition into instructions about a new gate assignment and a compensation offer. The questions might target the first half, the second half, or both.
Number confusion. Talks frequently contain multiple numbers (times, dates, prices, quantities), and the questions tend to zero in on exactly one of them. It's easy to confuse similar-sounding numbers like "fifteen" and "fifty," or to mix up two different dates that were both mentioned in the same talk.
Implied purpose. A question like "What is the purpose of the talk?" doesn't always have a literal, word-for-word answer in the audio. Sometimes you need to figure out the purpose from the overall tone and content rather than from any single direct statement.
Too much details. The talk might mention several facts that sound important, but the question is only asking about one of them. The extra information is there to distract you.