Reading and Listening Comprehension - Music 


1.  What is the speaker's favorite type of music?


2.  When did the speaker's favorite type of music occur?


3.  Describe the music before cool jazz, what was it like?


4.  What can be inferred about cool jazz?


5.  Why did jazz bands start to have more players and became mid-sized orchestrated groups?


[Lesson Credits:  Listening Building MP3 TOEFL, Track 4]

01 Music

M: Today, I get to talk about my favorite movement in jazz music. Cool jazz! This movement, which occurred during the 1940s and ’50s, had a huge effect on jazz in general.

Okay, so in the movement before cool jazz, the music was faster and more aggressive. It consisted of instruments like saxophones and trumpets to give the music a more racing sound. Cool jazz changed this. It had a classical European influence that promoted the use of instruments that had never had a home in jazz before, like flutes and tubas. These instruments added something new to the music: a lighter, softer sound. Because of this softer sound, jazz bands started having more players and became mid-sized orchestrated groups.

Also, cool jazz put a greater focus on the individual musician. Miles Davis is sort of seen as the first cool jazz icon. He recorded Birth of the Cool with his band. With this recording came the individual recognition of Miles Davis. Before, people pretty much attended jazz concerts to dance. But with cool jazz, they came to hear specific musicians like Davis.


Reading and Listening Comprehension - Geology


1.  How old is the diamond?


2.  Where does a diamond come from?


3.  What changes the carbon molecules of a piece of coal in order to become a diamond?


4.  How does a diamond come to the surface of the Earth?  


5.  How does a diamond appear to miners or treasure hunters?


[Lesson Credits:  Listening Building MP3 TOEFL, Track 5]

02 Geology

M: You might think that the diamond ring on your mom’s finger is just some expensive rock that your dad bought for her, but do you realize all the work that went into the creation of it?

First, can you believe that the diamond is 2 to 3 billion years old? Even stranger is that it started out as a lump of coal. Basically, this piece of coal was about 160 kilometers down inside the Earth. The pressure was incredible. Also, it’s about 2200 degrees Fahrenheit down there. That intense heat and pressure changed the carbon molecules in the coal and rearranged them into the crystallized diamond we’re so familiar with. Okay, that’s fine, but all this happens deep within the Earth. So how does it get to the surface? Well, the diamond was contained in molten rock, or magma, underneath the ground. The magma rose up to the Earth’s surface and erupted from a volcano. Then the magma hardened into rock.

Finally, the rock that contained the diamond weathered away, revealing the diamond underneath. It was then ready for miners or other treasure-hunters to find. 


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