The character * is called a wildcard, and will match against none or more character(s) in a file (or directory) name. For example, in your unixstuff directory, type
ls list*
This will list all files in the current directory starting with list....
Try typing
ls *list
This will list all files in the current directory ending with ....list
The character ? will match exactly one character. So ?ouse will match files like house and mouse, but not grouse. Try typing
ls ?list