TOEFL ITP

Level 1
Question Stems
 Menu
Listening Reading

• Listening for Main Ideas • Reading for Main Ideas

• Listening for Specific Information • Reading for Specific Information

• Inferencing • Inferencing (meaning)

• Inferencing (content)

• Recognizing Function and Discour

se Patterns
 Question stems per skill
Listening for main ideas

• What are the speakers mainly discussing?

• What is the student discussing with the professor?
• What are the speakers talking about?
• What was the research study about?
• What is the speaker’s main purpose?
 Question stems per skill
Listening for specific information / details

• What problem does the woman have?

• Why did the man talk to the professor? Focus on
• What does the man suggest the woman do? question words,
such as “what,
• How has the man helped the woman? when, where,
how,” etc.
• What does the man want to know?
• What was John’s concern?
• What is not included in the monthly rent?
• What does the man tell the woman about the delivery?
• What does the man say he wants to do?
• How was the information for the study collected?
 Question stems per skill
Inferencing (meaning/content)

• What will the woman probably do next?

• What can be inferred about the man?
• What does the woman imply about her new passport?
• How does the man feel?
• What does the woman say about the figures?
• According to the woman, what will happen soon?
• What does the woman mean when she says: ?
• Why does the woman say: ?
• What does the woman mean?
 Question stems per skill
Reading for main ideas
• What does the passage mainly discuss?
• What is the main idea of the second paragraph?
• The passage focuses on the United States in the
1920s primarily in terms of the…
• Which of the following statements is supported
by the passage?

Question stems will help you anticipate the type

of information required to answer the question.
 Question stems per skill
Reading for specific information / details
• What is image processing?
• According to the passage, when did the United States experience a brief
depression?
• According to the passage, the growth in automobile production caused an
increase in the demand for…
• Which of the following is NOT true of the professional piano players
mentioned in the fourth paragraph?
• What was the purpose of the Sutro Tunnel?
• The author compares the construction of the Sutro Tunnel to the first
transcontinental railroad in North America because both projects…
• Why does the author mention “x-ray emissions” in line 25?
• Which of the following statements is true of the ball in a ballpoint pen?
 Question stems per skill
Inferencing (vocabulary/meaning)

• The word “expire” in line 8 is closest in

meaning to…
• The author mentions a “suction pump” in line
17 to indicate a function of the…
 Question stems per skill
Inferencing (information/content)

• It can be inferred from the passage that there was

interest in designing a new type of pen because the old
ones…
• What can be inferred from the passage that the
characters in the novel This Side of Paradise are…
• The paragraph following the passage most probably
discusses…
• The passage probably continues with a discussion of…

Be sure you are familiar with all of the words in the

stem questions. (What does “inferred” mean?)
 Question stems per skill
Recognizing function and discourse patterns

• The word “it” in line 2 refers to…

• Where in the passage does the author mention an
historical account of early attempts at flight?

Referents can be found before or after

the pronoun in question.