"What is the lecture mainly about?" PFF!!!

[Faux Carnival]

What is the lecture mainly about?
What is the talk mainly about?

How should I approach these types of questions? (At least 3-4 of them in TOEFL tests and I get 90% of them wrong)

Generally, there are 2 or 3 or more subjects discussed in the talk/lecture. I just can't know which one to choose.

[ts3]

In general, the main idea from the talk appears at the begining of the lecture/conversation

1. Conversation : the students often tell the advisor or the professor the reason why they visit them.
2. Lecture : the lecturer states the purpose of the talk at the early stage of the talk.

But sometimes, it is not clear stated by the speaker, so we must use our sense from the whole listening. You can extract the main idea after review your note structure. There are some kind of structure, for example : explain, describe something, cause and effect, classify...It is often that the structure of the lecture is the purpose of the talk.

In case there are more than one subject discussed, you must decide which bring more general information, which is the sub point only.

This is my own strategy. Hope it can help you!