Testees could possibly understand the utterance perfectly well but not know how to respond to it. Also, since the utterances are presented in isolation and out of context, the situation is not realistic. However, this type of item can be useful if these limitations are kept in mind. It is a more communicative type of task than many listening tasks, so it may have beneficial backwash effects, and it is relatively easy to administer. Some types of tasks make use of visual materials along with the spoken material to test listening.
Testees look at the visual and decide if the statements are true or false.
An alternative is to present testees with a series of similar pictures and to have them match the pictures with spoken sentences describing them. Similarly, the testees can listen to a short dialogue, rather than just a statement, and decide which of the pictures matches the dialogue. However, they do not reflect the sorts of listening done in the real world. Another way to use visual materials in testing listening is to use maps. One activity involves having testees listen to directions for how to get somewhere and follow along on the map.