TOEFL Speaking Task 3 Practice Test #6

Narrator: Now listen to part of a lecture in a Psychology class.

Professor: I have a three-year-old daughter, and last month I decided to help her learn how to wash her hands by herself. Now we usually think of washing our hands as one action, but when you think about it, you can break hand washing down into a series of simpler steps. Step one, you turn on the water. Step two, you get your hands wet. Step three, you add some soap. Step four, you rinse your hands. And step five, you turn off the water. So I broke it down into these steps, and then I helped my daughter learn them one step at a time. I didn’t present them all at once, because that would’ve been too complicated. First, I showed her step one, turning on the water. That’s all we practiced for the next few days. Then, when she started turning on the water by herself, I added step two, getting her hands wet. And for the next few days she practiced steps one and two, turning on the water and getting her hands wet until she could do both steps on her own. Then we added step three, putting on the soap, and she practiced steps one, two, and three for a while. Then we added step four, rinsing her hands, and eventually step five, turning off the water. She practiced all five steps in sequence for a few days until she could wash her hands all by herself.