It’s best to practice all the different question types separately so that you get used to the particular difficulties for each type.
Some of the techniques you use will be the same for all of the question types. For example all question types:
- use synonyms in the questions of what you hear in the recording — so get used to spotting them.
- will offer key words that help you identify when to listen out for the answer
Also, in most question types you can
- predict the answer by analysing whether the question is asking for a noun or an adjective, etc
Specifically for short-answer questions
- Its not always about matching words in question and the recording.
- You need to get the whole meaning, not just words, because the answers are to the whole question
This is an interesting news piece about the effects of keeping busy on your brain. (Some Chinese translations at the bottom of the page)
If the player doesn’t work, please go here
Listen from 00:00 to 02:23
Write no more than two words and/or a number for each answer to questions 1 to 3
What kind of tests do the most active people do well on?
- (1) ______
Besides ability to remember and think quickly, what other brain skill was tested?
- (2) ______
The tested subjects also had to fill in what kind of forms?
- (3) ______
What do people who are busy all the time regard that busyness as?
- (4) ______
Before the research, the researchers thought that busy people might be doing what to their minds?
- (5) ______
The researchers now guess that being busy might be doing what to our mind?
- (6) ______
Having a full schedule when we get older might safeguard us against what in old age?
- (7) ______
Answers, transcript and clues under the image.
- cognitive
- reasoning
- questionnaires
- stress
- wearing away
- building up
- dementia
Complain All You Want, But Your Busy Schedule May Help Your Brain
Single mothers, untenured professors, young reporters and on-call doctors might have a thin silver lining for their hurried days and response for the people who insist on slowing down: All that hustling may translate into superior brain power as you get older, as a study finds that the busiest people perform best on cognitive tests.
Sara Festini, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas, Dallas, and her adviser, Denise Park, published the study in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience on Tuesday. They tested over 300 people between the ages of 50 and 89 on cognitive functions including memory, reasoning and mental quickness.
These same people also answered questionnaires on their busyness. “These are self-report data,” Park says. “People who tend to report chronic busyness tend to report it as a stress. Like ‘Oh God, I’m just so busy.’ If you’re chronically busy and dumping stress hormones into your body, that could be bad for your cognition.”
Festini and Park at first imagined that the harried, mentally taxed among us could be wearing our minds away. But on every test, those who had fuller days and less time on their hands outperformed those who were less busy.
The busier the individual, the higher he seemed to score. It’s possible, the researchers hypothesized, that the daily workout of completing task after task is building our brains up and improving mental skills.
If those with crammed schedules have sharper minds, then staying active in old age could protect against dementia. Past research has shown that this might be the case, and that includes not just mental effort but physical exertion.
Still, Festini and Park are hesitant to say busyness equals staying mentally sharp. “It could be that people become slowly less busy over their lifetime as dementia [sets in],” Park says. That would make less busyness a consequence of failing cognition, not the other way around.
Or it could be that those who are “better endowed cognitively are more likely to take on more roles and tasks.
on-call doctors 值班醫生
thin silver lining (every cloud has a silver lining) 黑暗中總有一線光明
insist 堅持
hustling 忙亂
translate 翻譯/轉換
superior 優越
cognitive 認知
postdoctoral 博士學位取得後的
Texas 美國德州
Dallas 達拉斯（美國德州城市名）
adviser 顧問
published 發表
Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience 衰老神經科學
cognitive functions 認知功能
reasoning 推理
mental quickness 神經反應
questionnaires 問卷調查
busyness 繁忙
self-report 自我報告
tend 頃向
chronic 慢性
chronically 長期地
dumping 傾注
stress hormones 壓力賀爾蒙
cognition 認知
mentally 精神上
taxed 壓力/負擔
among 在..之間
fuller 充滿/充分
outperformed 勝過
individual 個人
hypothesized 假設
daily workout of completing task 日常
workout of completing task 完成任務訓練
crammed schedules 擠滿時間表
sharper minds 更清晰的頭腦against預防
dementia 癡呆
mental effort 腦力勞動
physical exertion 體力消耗
hesitant遲疑的躊躇的
mentally
sharp 頭腦敏銳
lifetime 一生
consequence後果
failing cognition 認知失敗
endowed 天賦
cognitively 認知
roles 角色
tasks 任務
IELTS in Taiwan 