Practice these TOEFL iBT listening tests to help you score high in the TOEFL Listening Section. Check the correct answers and audio transcripts below. This video is in the series of NEW TOEFL iBT Preparation: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2jvSGmpWX1UMjbc8Onae7i-R6Z8VcPbU.
Questions 23 through 28. Listen to a lecture in an American history class.
(professor) Today we’re going to talk about the last monarch to rule land that today makes up part of the United States. This last monarch was a queen, and she was named Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii.
To understand Queen Liliuokalani s situation, I’m going to give you some background about the history of Hawaii before I discuss Queen Liliuokalani. I’m going to be talking about two people today in addition to Queen Liliuokalani: These two people are Captain James Cook and King Kamehameha. The reason I’m going to talk about these two people is, of course, that they’ll help you to understand Queen Liliuokalani and the situation in which she found herself.
So, first of all, let's talk about Captain James Cook. You must be familiar with Captain Cook. Captain Cook arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1778 and gave the islands the name Sandwich Islands in honor of a British nobleman, the Earl of Sandwich. When Captain Cook arrived in the islands near the end of the eighteenth century, the islands were not a single unified society. Instead, various islands in the chain were under the control of different native kings.
The next person we’re going to look at is King Kamehameha. Kamehameha spent almost 30 years uniting the Hawaiian Islands under one ruler, and by 1810, only a few decades after Captain Cooks arrival, all of the islands were united under this one king, King Kamahameha. King Kamehameha was the first ruler to reign over all of the islands together. He ruled over all the islands together until he died in 1819. A number of other kings of the Hawaiian Islands followed Kamehameha during the nineteenth century.
Now we'll discuss Queen Liliuokalani, the last monarch of Hawaii. Liliuokalani became queen after her brother, King Kalakaua, died in 1891. Liliuokalani was the first and only female monarch to rule the Hawaiian Islands, and she was the final monarch of Hawaii. Liliuokalani became queen during a period when a large percentage of the population believed that it was better to have a democratic government than a monarchy. Liliuokalani refused to consider ending the monarchy and also refused to consider limiting the power of the monarchy and initiating a democratic government. In 1893, two years after she became queen, she developed a constitution granting complete power to the monarch. At that point, she was removed from the monarchy. Over the next few years, there were a number of plots to try to reinstitute the monarchy.
By 1898, Liliuokalani had renounced her claim to the royal throne of Hawaii. She received a pension from the government and returned to her royal estates, where she lived out her life for the next 20 years with the title of queen but without the authority as the last monarch of the Hawaiian Islands.
I know that the Hawaiian names can be a bit difficult to remember, but I hope you got the important main points, that it was King Kamehameha who unified the Hawaiian Islands under one monarch and it was Queen Liliuokalani who was the final monarch of the Hawaiian Islands. That’s all for today.
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Correct Answers:
23. C
24. A
25. D
26. D
27. B
28. Kamehameha: Beginning of the 19th century
James Cook: End of the 18th century
Liliuokalani: End of the 19th century
