Is Listening Purpose Clear? Improving Part 5 (Lecture) of the Common Test ［共テ リスニング］

I attempted the English listening section of this year's Common Test. Unfortunately, I got one question wrong in Part 5, so I didn't score a perfect mark. Here, I'll summarize my thoughts and insights from tackling the Common Test's English listening section.

Good Questions with Clear "Objectives, Settings, and Situations"

Overall, I find the listening part of the Common Test well-designed. In particular, many questions clearly define the "objectives, settings, and situations," as emphasized in the Course of Study.

For instance, simple content-matching questions in Part 3 provide clear "purposes" of what to listen for, thanks to the settings described in Japanese and the questions asked in English.

Part 3

The clarity in "objectives, settings, and situations" is also evident in Part 4-B. Leaving aside the question of whether the scenario with the "You are..." prompt is natural, I think it's a good question that applies the maximum possible settings for a standardized test.

Part 4-B

Why I Missed a Question in Part 5 (Lecture)

As mentioned earlier, I missed one question in the lecture part, Part 5. Although it sounds like a poor excuse, let me critique this question.

Part 5

Firstly, I found it extremely difficult to skim through the questions beforehand in the limited time available. While I could glance at the "situation" and "worksheet," reading all the choices for Question 32, "Select the option that matches the lecture content," was nearly impossible.

I personally don't recommend "pre-reading" the options. In most cases, reading the choices before hearing the talk doesn't really help and can even distort understanding being influenced by the phrasing of the options.

So, when I tackled Part 5, I listened to the lecture with only a quick check of the "situation" and "worksheet." I had no problems with Questions 27 to 31, but I made a mistake in Question 32.

Question 32 asked to choose an option that matched the lecture's content. It was a challenge because I focused too much on the details in the worksheet and neglected to grasp the overall picture.

I know it sounds like I'm just crying sour grapes, but for Question 5, the worksheet is presented first, and Questions 27 to 31 are all about filling it out. In my mind, the primary goal of listening to the lecture became "filling out the worksheet" and "catching the details" for that purpose, leading me to miss the overall picture in Question 32.

What Should Be the "Purpose" in Part 5 (Lecture)?

Having a "purpose" is crucial in listening activities. Of course, sometimes we listen without a specific purpose, like when overhearing conversations in a TV drama. Even in some listening tests, like in the EIKEN test, understanding the conversation itself may be a purpose.

However, when carefully listening to a substantial amount of English, you need a "purpose" to retain information. For example, in Part 4-B, the purpose is clearly to choose a cultural festival event that meets "your criteria."

According to the Course of Study, one of the objectives of English lessons in terms of listening is to enable students to understand key information, get an overview and grasp the main points and details of a talk based on their purposes for listening. Here, "based on their purposes" seems to be the key. 

So, what was the "purpose" for listening to the lecture in Part 5? As mentioned, I was too focused on catching the details for the worksheet. Perhaps the question could be structured to encourage grasping the overall summary as well.

Issues with "Content Matching" Questions

From a "purpose" perspective, questions like Question 32, "Which option matches the lecture content," should perhaps be avoided.

As noted, it's hard to "pre-read" choices for each question in limited time. If you read the choices carefully, you'd realize that the question is about understanding the overall summary. However, without sufficient time for this, the instruction "choose the matching content" becomes meaningless. Depending on the choices, it could be either about matching details or about understanding the overall lecture.

"Content matching" questions fail to clarify the "purpose" of listening and thus don't measure the ability to "understand key information, get an overview and grasp the main points and details of a talk based on their purposes for listening," as outlined in the Course of Study.

What Could Be Improved?

Considering these criticisms (which admittedly stem from my own excuse), let's think about improvements.

One approach could be to rephrase Question 32 as "Choose the most appropriate summary of the lecture" and place it at the beginning. This would clarify the purpose of understanding both the summary (for this question) and the details (for the worksheet). However, the current choices for Question 32 don't seem to reflect the lecture's summary, so this would require changing the options.

If we keep the current choices, how about rephrasing the instruction as "Choose the option that does not contradict the overall content of the lecture"? The emphasis on "overall" would make it clear that the question is not just about matching details, potentially making it easier to answer.

Integrating Listening with Reading?

The above suggestion is based on my own error in focusing too much on the details and missing the overall picture in Part 5. It proposes making the "purpose" of listening to both details and summaries clear to the examinee.

One might argue that grasping the overall picture is standard when listening to a lecture. But is it always so? In university lectures, for example, the theme is often given beforehand, and pre-reading assignments are expected to grasp the overall content. With this in mind, integrating listening with reading might make such questions more authentic.

When transitioning from the Center Test to the Common Test, it could have been an opportunity to integrate reading and listening. Of course, there might be operational challenges, but it wouldn't be as difficult as introducing speaking.

Since this post was mostly prompted by my own excuses, my suggestions may not be fully constructive. Nonetheless, thank you for reading through to the end.