2015年11月21日托福口語真題及答案解析

Task 1
　　Talk about one of your special ways to study.
　　One of my special ways to study is to make wise use of my smart phone. It may sound crazy to study using a smart phone at first, but here are some reasons you may find convincing. Firstly, it significantly increased my study efficiency. Before when I was in class, I needed to spend a lot of time taking notes, not only was it tiresome, it also made me miss a lot of important information my teacher had to say. Now I bring my smart phone with me to class, and every time I need to take notes, I simply take a picture of the screen in front. It helped me better focus on what the teacher is saying and it's so much more time-saving. Besides that, I also started a study group using WeChat, my classmates and I share class notes and our ideas for group projects there all the time. So using my smart phone has been a pretty unique and efficient way to help me study.
　　Task 2
　　Do you agree or disagree that it's acceptable for students to disagree with their instructors?
　　I agree that it's acceptable for students to disagree with their instructors for the following reasons. Firstly, disagreeing with our instructors means that we are thinking independently and may even push us to study harder. Take myself as an example, when I was in college, I sometimes would disagree with what my instructor said in our philosophy class, so what did I do? Every time I finished my philosophy class, I'd spend hours in the university library trying to find proof to prove that I was right and he was wrong. In the end, it didn't even matter any more who was right or who was wrong. What was important was that through the process of trying to prove myself right, I learnt a lot of new things that I didn't learn in class. Plus, it's important for universities to protect the ideas of students, if we don't allow them to disagree with something, they will never be able to build up their independent thinking ability and critical thinking ability.
　　Task 3
　　The university is planning to open the university gym to people off-campus due to two reasons. The first reason is that the university can charge them a monthly fee and use the money to upgrade the gym facility. And the second reason is that it won't affect the students' life that much. In the conversation, the woman agrees with the plan. Her first reason is that it'd necessary now for the university to upgrade the facilities because some of them are really old, this way the university doesn't have to charge the students or the faculty. As for the second reason, she mentions that it's a pretty small town anyway, so not a lot of people will use the gym and it won't make too big a difference for students.
　　Task 4
　　In the lecture, the professor introduces the concept of generalizing which means children are able to realize that a word doesn't only mean a specific object but also other means other objects of the same category as they grow up. He offers us an example of his own son. When he was much younger, he learnt the word 'train', at first his understanding of this word was pretty limited, he thought it only referred to his toy train. But as he grew up, it came to his understanding that the word 'train' not only refers to his toy train but also other real trains in life. That's how the professor uses the example of his son to illustrate the concept of generalizing.
　　Task 5
　　The man's problem is that he wants to go on a trip with his French club during spring break but he can't afford it. There are two possible solutions for him. The first solution is to pick up some extra shifts at work. And the second solution is to sell his guitar and uses the money for the trip. If I were in his shoes, I'd go for the second solution because I don't see the importance of his guitar in his life, it's not like he's going to be a musician or something, it wouldn't hurt to sell it and use the money for the trip he really wants to take. I personally don't recommend the other solution because he has an upcoming exam and picking up extra shifts would take up the time he's supposed to spend on studying.
　　Task 6
　　In the lecture, the professor introduces two benefits of loyal customers. The first one is to spread positive information about the company. For example, there's a guy whose car broke down, so he took it to a repair shop, he really enjoyed the service there and thought it was nice and attentive. So next time if his friend's car broke down, he would definitely recommend this repair shop to his friend. The other benefit is that loyal customers can be helpful to the other customers. For example, the professor encountered a guy who couldn't find books about history when she was in her favorite bookstore, so she led the guy to where all the history books were directly without troubling a shop assistant.