• You only hear each recording once.
• The listening passages become more difficult through the exam.
• You must be familiar with a variety of question types.
• You have to be aware of distractors that test if you are listening closely.
• You must focus throughout in order to answer questions well.
• You must be able to predict answers by analysing the questions.
• There are a range of English accents represented in the exam.

However, the majority of people who take IELTS need some form of strategy to get the band scores they need. Even NATIVE speakers!

As each question carries the same mark, each extra mark really makes a difference.

Keep reading to learn what you need to know to achieve your IELTS Listening goals.

Good news! There are no differences between the General Training and Academic IELTS Listening papers.

This also applies to IELTS Speaking, Reading and IELTS Writing Task 2.

IELTS Listening takes 40 minutes. 30 minutes of this time is listening to recordings and answering questions in the Question Booklet.

After you listen to the final passage, you are given 10 minutes to transfer answers from your Question Booklet to your Answer Sheet.

Misspellings in the answer sheet are marked as incorrect, so you should also use this time to double check your spellings.

• This is a dialogue (a conversation between two people).
• The conversation involves an everyday basic exchange of information and is usually the easiest part of the Listening Test.
• These could be – joining instructions at the Student Union, Library, Doctor’s Surgery, Swimming Pool or Gym or alternatively obtaining information from a Local Tourist Information Centre, Accommodation office at university or Travel Information from a Tourist Information Centre.
• You are required to complete some numbers in the answer sheet, usually a date, a telephone number, a price or building number
• You are required to spell something, usually a name of a place or person or an address

Description

Description

For each section read the instructions carefully and always underline the number of words you can write in each space.

Underlining the number of words reminds you that if the instructions state you are only allowed ONE word, for example, and the answer you hear is ‘driving number‘ then you probably know just to write ‘number‘.

Similarly, if you are allowed TWO words, then write both words.

Although it might not seem obvious, the Listening Test Part 1 tests your knowledge of common plurals and the various spelling patterns.

You always lose marks for incorrect spellings or structure.

I suggest you review spelling rules for common plural nouns e.g. mouse – mice birthday party – parties, Chinese dish – dishes, fried potato – potatoes curry – curries

Silent letters as in doubt, come and lane,

Similarly changes in spellings such as bit/bite

Vowel sounds but different spellings such as raise raze,

Long and short vowels e.g fit and feet

Common homophones e.g to, two, too – by/buy/bye – brake/break – peace/piece – hear/here

You don’t need to learn all the rules but common spellings to remember are ‘double L’  as in Hilly Lane and Billy Smith, and also be aware of the similar sounding letters of the alphabet e.g. b/p and j/g.

Pay attention to double digits in telephone numbers,

077250   556523

and double digits in house or apartment numbers,

16 High Street – 60 High Street – 160 High Street

and this also applies to costs and prices.

Tickets –  £15.50

Membership cost – £16.50

Admission costs – £1.60

The good news is that IELTS accepts different formats for dates. Abbreviations for days and months are also acceptable as long as they are correct.

So May 21st can also be written as 21st MAY or 21st of May

June can be written as Jun, September as Sept and October as OCT, but not Wednes or We

Check and review you know the different ways of telling the time, for example,

‘a quarter to four/3.45 /fifteen minutes to 4‘

 ‘a quarter past eleven/ 11.15‘

‘5.30/half past five‘

‘13.30/thirteen-thirty/half one‘

This is where the speaker corrects themselves in mid-sentence or when checking information. This is a feature of natural speech.

In the listening passages 1 to 4 there is a good chance there will be a correction, as in this example:

‘We can schedule the meeting for Wednesday morning, no sorry, I mean, Thursday morning’.

It may look obvious but when listening, candidates often miss the corrections made so make sure you write down the correction which is usually the second answer you hear.

But not always.

‘We can schedule the meeting for, ermh, Thursday morning, and not Wednesday morning’.

There are often also corrections with spellings and phone numbers.

‘Did you say 286 828 ? No – 286 838′.

The speaker uses intonation to emphasise which is the corrected number and they often say it louder, more slowly or with a different ‘pitch‘.

You can listen to these examples here.

Pay attention to the change intonation, how the speaker may speak more loudly or slowly or even in a higher or lower pitch

A simple shopping dialogue demonstrates this:

SK: Can I help you?
C: I’d like a chocolate (fall) ice-cream.
SK: One chocolate (fall-rise) ice-cream. Anything else?
C: One strawberry (fall) ice-cream.
SK: One chocolate (fall-rise), one strawberry (fall-rise). Anything else?
C: Yes. One chocolate (fall-rise), one strawberry (fall-rise), and one vanilla (fall).

In the previous examples, IELTS uses various tricks to check if are able to listen carefully.

There are also often many distractors included as well.

Distractors are designed to make you listen carefully for details in the information given.

Joining a gym

So, there’s no cost for students of this college, it’s free but it’s £55 per year to the general public or £25 if you’ve got a current student card from another college.

Answer: Cost to join per year (without student card): £55

Joining the library

You are allowed to borrow 9 items at any one time if you’re a student. However, we only allow 7 items for members of the public.

Answer: Number of items allowed: (members of public) 7

Information about bus tickets

You can buy an off-peak travel card for £6.50, or a weekend pass for £9.00 which covers Zones 1-3. For Zones 1-4 the cost is £9.50 and £12.50

Answer: Weekend pass: (All zones) £12.50

Making a booking

Most people book a place 24 hours in advance. Sometimes you can get one with short notice. However the earliest you can book a computer is 48 hours before you need it.

Answer:  Computers can be booked up to 48 hours in advance.

Hiring a car

The cost of a medium sedan per day is £75, and weekend rates are £120. If you have points on your licence, an additional £55 credit card deposit applies, so the weekend rate would cost £175.

Answer: Weekend hire charge: (Standard) £120

Information about fines

The minimum fine is 75p but it can go up to £5.

 Answer: Fines start at 75p.

You can listen to the exerts here

Scoring is clear for the Listening paper.

Each question is worth 1 point, so you can achieve a “raw” score of up to 40 points. Each question carries the same 1 point throughout the paper.

Therefore, you must treat the questions from Section 1 the same as you do for the questions from Section 4.

Read the instructions carefully and follow the instructions and make sure you spell words correctly.

You don’t want to miss easy points in the first sections due to silly mistakes.

Additionally, since all points are worth the same, you don’t want to lose points because you are focussing too much attention on a particular question.

Sometimes, despite your best efforts and close attention, you might not hear the answer to a question or you may not understand a large section of the listening passage. If this happens, it is best to guess and move on.

Don’t miss valuable points on upcoming questions because you can’t understand the answer to the current question.

The more questions you can answer, the more IELTS can convert your “raw” score into your Band Score.

You can find a basic conversion table on this page of the official IELTS website.

Attention to detail is very important on the IELTS Listening exam. Too many candidates lose points unnecessarily because they don’t pay close attention to the instructions.

Here are some general guidelines to follow:

Make sure you write the correct type of answer on your final Answer Sheet. For example, on Multiple Choice questions, the correct answer will be a letter (A, B, or C).

Do not write the words or numbers that come after the letter on the answer sheet. You won’t receive a mark.

Various short answer questions are common on the Listening paper. You may need to fill in a summary, a map, some notes, or listen for specific words or numbers.

You always have instructions on how many words and/or numbers you are allowed to use in your answers.

YOU MUST read the instructions for each set of questions because the requirements change.

One set of questions may allow a short answer of three words, but the following questions may only allow two.

If the instructions state you that you may not use “MORE THAN TWO WORDS and/or A NUMBER,” then your answer will be marked incorrect if you write down three words, or more than one number.

Note that one number can be more than one digit.

For example, the number 16 [sixteen] is one number. 1 and 6, written separately, would be two numbers.

Point 1 and 2 require practice because you must be able to do both quickly during the actual exam.

Before each recording is played you have 30 to 40 seconds to look at the questions in the next section.

You should not use this time to check the answers from the previous section.

It is vital to study the upcoming questions. The best approach to IELTS Listening is to answer questions in your Question Booklet while you’re listening to the speaker.

If you try to answer questions without looking at them first, you are likely to lose position in the text and miss the information you need.

The best approach is to use your 30-40 seconds strategically. First, you should analyse the question and determine:

• What type of question is this? There are various types of question.
• How should you answer the question? Look at the instructions, what do the instructions tell you? Should you answer with a one word, two or three words, letters or numbers?
• What keywords are in the question? Underline words and phrases that seem important in each question. Remember correct answers are almost always paraphrases of these words. Underlining them helps you to focus your attention as you listen.

Listen to this text.

For example, you might encounter a Sentence Completion question that looks like this:

After the test, Janet scheduled a meeting with________________.

These keywords are the concepts (these are often nouns) you should listen for in the passage.

As an example, you might hear something like this from the speaker to answer this question:

Janet: “I feel so disappointed about the result yesterday. I regularly met with my study group and did lots of preparation and I thought I was ready! So I’ve decided to make an appointment with a personal tutor because I got such a poor grade. Obviously I need more help.”

Looking at words before the gap can help you predict the kind of word you need to listen for.

In this example, there is a preposition (with) and this is often followed by a noun.

In fact, you could easily predict you need to listen for a specific person’s name or a type of person because of the context of the sentence; Janet has just finished an exam and she is now scheduling a meeting, therefore it is likely to be someone who is going to offer help.

It is impossible to know the answers until you actually listen to the passage.

However, if you have a good sense of what to listen for based on your predictions, it is much easier choosing the correct answers while the speakers are talking.In the example above, the underlined keywords would help you remember that you need to find

1) who Janet scheduled a meeting with

2) after the test. She met with a study group before the test, but she met with a tutor after she received a disappointing result. Underlining the keywords helps you focus on the concept as you listen to the speaker.

The second strategy during the 30-40 second period is to examine the questions and make predictions about the answers from the context.

Often, when you are underlining key words you find useful information that helps you make predictions about answers

After the exam, Janet scheduled a meeting with _+_(noun/someone/a person)___.

Here is an additional example.

These are two IELTS Listening Multiple Choice questions.

Without listening to the text, can you predict what the answers will probably be?

1. If Australians had an extra day per week, they would spend it
   A    working an additional day
   B    focussing on personal relationships
   C   sharing time with family
2. Understanding how people consider time can help

         A    become better managers

         B    work together better

         C    identify troublemakers

It is impossible to know the answers until you actually listen to the passage.

However, if you have a good idea of what to listen for based on your predictions, it is much easier choosing the correct answers while the speakers are talking.

In this example there might be links related to the topic of “relationships.” “personal relationships, sharing time with family, and work together better”.

All of these fall under this general category of relationships. You could go further and predict a relationship between time and relationships.

Therefore one of the possible correct answers might be

1 – B/C

and

2 – B  

The final IELTS Listening strategy is called Following.

I will discuss the most important strategy in a moment.

As a language learner you might have experience of PRE-listening  and POST-listening teacher learning strategies used in classrooms.

This is where a teacher might provide a similar example, asks you to discuss a situation or consider some questions. This is to provide a meaningful context to best understand the listening passage to come.

Similarly, in the POST-listening stage you might have questions to answer or a discussion to check your understanding.

If you are a trainer teacher, then you might find this article on planning a listening skills lesson from the British Council useful

This is a guiding pedagogic principle you should follow in the test so do something similar when you approach IELTS listening. 

Firstly, establish the situation, e.g the gym, consider the context, e.g vocabulary about membership and facilities and predict the possible listening content e.g booking a gym session or becoming a member.

Lastly, when you have completed the last gap on the test paper, you have an opportunity to check the answers you gave are logical, fit the number of required words and fit the context.

The most important strategy is Following. Following is something you do while you listen to the recording, and it requires focus and attention.

The goal is to keep track of where the speaker is in the passage, and which question you should be answering in the Question Booklet at the same time.

Following works because IELTS Listening questions always provide contextual clues and information to help you know where you should be in the passage.

When preparing for the IELTS Listening exam, it is obviously very important to take as many practice exams as you can but also try to create the test situation.

Therefore, when practicing the IELTS Listening Test, you should listen for the overall gist, or if you have a practice paper available, specifically for the answers as written.

You should not stop the recording and listen again as in the IELTS test you are not listening for the details and you don’t listen to the recording more than once before you answer.

Answering questions the first time prepares you for the test and gives a realistic sense of how well you are performing.

As you review your answers, go back to the listening passages and study them closely. Most textbooks and practice exams provide a transcript of the listening materials for closer study. It is a good idea to understand each mistake you make and additionally keep a record of any new vocabulary.

Don’t limit yourself to practice tests, however. I recommend you listen to a wide variety of materials in your IELTS preparation.

Here is a good list of listening materials you can use:

• TED.COM
• TED.COM Short Talks
• Listen and Watch from the British Council
• BBC Radio World Service
  
• BBC Radio Radio 4

If you would like to read a few more of my posts on IELTS Listening

Go Here

IELTS LISTENING – AN OVERVIEW

IELTS LISTENING MARKING CRITERIA

Remember, the Listening test for candidates is the same for both Academic and General Training versions of IELTS and consists of four recorded dialogues and monologues.

IELTS LISTENING Section 1

IELTS LISTENING Section 2

IELTS LISTENING Section 3

IELTS LISTENING Section 4

You can use these official resources to practise following the advice I have given you

The following IELTS Listening sample tasks are to be used with the Answer Sheet and MP3 audio files and/or transcripts. Each answer sheet indicates which recording to listen to, or if a transcript is provided.