the present research study attempted to find out the extent to which two pre-task activities of “glossary of unknown vocabulary items” and “content related support” assisted efl language learners with their performance on listening comprehension questions across two different proficiency levels (low and high). data for this study were obtained from a total of 120 language learners, female and male. the test materials used in the course of this study were five listening comprehension multiple-choice questions and a cloze test. before the onset of the study, a toefl test was administered to divide participants into low and high proficiency levels. this led to the formation of three groups, 20 participants in each group, totaling to 60 l2 learners in each level. the three classes were assigned into two experimental groups and one control group. a “glossary of unknown vocabulary items” with the pronunciations was offered one session before taking the listening test while content related support (in written form) was offered just 10 minutes before administering the tests. the statistical analysis of the data revealed that in low proficiency level, vocabulary group outperformed both content and control groups while in high proficiency level, content group outperformed the other groups. the study concluded by suggesting that pre-task activities need to be used taking account of the support type and the learners’ proficiency level.