Listen to an Announcement, explained
One speaker, a lot of logistics, and questions that turn on a room number or a date. This is where careful listeners lose points to a detail they heard correctly and filed under the wrong heading. Here is why that happens, with an announcement worked in full.
What Listen to an Announcement asks you to do
You hear a single speaker delivering practical information — a schedule change, a facility closure, a procedure, an event. The register is public and impersonal, closer to a notice read aloud than to a lecture. The questions ask what is happening, who it affects, what a listener has to do, and when.
What ETS states
The 2026 specification lists the Listening section at 47 items and 35 raw points, with task types Listen and Choose a Response, Listen to a Conversation, Listen to an Announcement, and Listen to an Academic Talk.
These are published blueprint values, which the specification states are subject to minor revisions until the official launch. The item count includes non-scored items, so items do not equal raw points — the specification lists a maximum of 1 point per scored item.
The specification lists an estimated Listening time of an 18 minute router plus a second-stage module of 7 minutes (lower) or 11 minutes (upper).
The times are estimated, and the two module lengths are discrete listed values — not a sliding 7-to-11-minute range.
Listening items are machine-scored selected responses, evaluated by rule-based algorithms per the specification’s item-type notes.
Machine-scored is not exclusive to Reading and Listening — Build a Sentence is machine-scored too. This says nothing about how Reach120 scores your practice.
Sourced from the ETS 2026 test specifications, read (link confirmed ). Everything outside this box is Reach120’s own reading of it.
What actually decides the item
The distractors on this task type are usually the OTHER details from the same recording, recombined. An announcement that names a day, a counter, a form of payment and a pricing rule gives the item writer four true facts to attach to the wrong question. Hearing everything is not enough; the details have to stay attached to what they belong to.
Collecting details versus filing them
Weaker
You write down "Monday to Friday", "back counter", "photo ID", "cash or credit", "best prices" as a flat list, then try to match the question against the list.
Stronger
You write them attached to their question: WHEN Monday–Friday · WHERE back counter · BRING books + ID · PAID cash or credit · BEST PRICE next term’s list.
Same five facts, same recording. The second version answers "which books earn the best prices" instantly; the first makes you re-derive it from a list under time pressure.
Worked examples, with every option explained
Worked examples, with every option explained
One announcement, printed whole, with both questions worked option by option — including why the plausible-sounding wrong answers were written.
Bookstore buyback week begins
Transcript
It’s buyback week at the campus bookstore, running Monday through Friday at the back counter. Bring the textbooks you’re finished with and a photo ID, and we’ll pay cash or add store credit, whichever you prefer. Books still on next term’s course list earn the best prices, so it pays to sell early before we hit our quantity limits.
What is the announcement about?
A. A book club meeting Incorrect
No club or meeting is mentioned.
B. The bookstore moving to a new building Incorrect
A location is named — the back counter — which is what makes a move sound plausible. No move is announced.
C. A sale on new laptops Incorrect
Nothing is being sold to students here; the store is buying.
D. A textbook buyback week at the bookstore Correct answer
The key, and it is the first clause of the recording.
Which books earn the best buyback prices?
A. Books with torn covers Incorrect
Condition is never mentioned, and damage would not raise a price.
B. Books still on next term’s course list Correct answer
The key. The recording states it directly, and the reason follows: the store will resell them.
C. Books older than ten years Incorrect
Age is not mentioned at all.
D. Any book, all priced the same Incorrect
The recording says some books earn the best prices, which only means anything if prices differ.
These are Reach120 practice items written for the 2026 task format. None of them is a real TOEFL test item, and nothing on this page is published, licensed, endorsed or reviewed by ETS. The reasoning under each answer is ours.
How this task type is scored
Every item on this task type is a selected response with one keyed answer, so an attempt is either right or wrong and there is no rubric to argue with. What the practice is worth is the reason a distractor pulled you, which is why every option above publishes why it was written rather than only which one is correct.
What ETS states
For TOEFL tests taken on or after January 21, 2026, official score reports use a 1–6 scale in half-band increments.
Sourced from the ETS 2026 test specifications, read (link confirmed ). Everything outside this box is Reach120’s own reading of it.
How to practice it without wasting the material
- 1Write down every number, room, date and name as you hear it — and write what it belongs to beside it. The label is the part that saves the item.
- 2Answer before you read the transcript, then check WHICH detail you mis-assigned rather than whether you got the item right. Those are different diagnoses.
- 3Announcements are short. Do several in a row so labelling becomes automatic rather than something you remember to do.
- 4If a question offers you two details you definitely heard, that is the signal you are being tested on filing, not on hearing.
Listen to an Announcement: common questions
- What is the difference between an announcement and a conversation item?
- An announcement has one speaker delivering information; a conversation has two speakers working through a problem. The questions differ accordingly — announcements ask what and when, conversations ask why and what next.
- Do I need to understand every word?
- No, but you do need the concrete details and what each one belongs to. The worked example on this page shows both questions turning on facts stated once, in passing.
- Is Listen to an Announcement new in 2026?
- It is one of the four Listening task types the 2026 specification lists. Pre-2026 practice material was not organised around these task names, so older prep books will not have a chapter on it.