IELTS listening test how to pass easy steps colombo English classes

Important Exam Information

In order to score a Band 7+ in IELTS listening, you need to have a solid understanding of what is expected from you. Spending time understanding the exam format and question types will allow you to manage your time wisely and walk into the exam with confidence:

• The IELTS listening test lasts around 30 minutes.
• There are 40 questions in total. Each question carries 1 mark.
• The test is divided into 4 parts. The questions get progressively more difficult as the test goes on.
• Timing is key. For each part, you will have time to look at the questions before the recording begins and you will have time to check your answers at the end.
• You will be given 10 minutes to transfer your answers to the answer sheet provided at the end of the test.
• Both General Training and Academic IELTS pupils take the same Listening exam.
• You only hear each recording only one time.
• The Listening passages get more difficult as you progress through the exam.
• There are a variety of questions types with which you must be familiar.
• You must stay very focused in order to answer questions well.
• You must also develop your skills at predicting answers by analyzing the questions.
• There are a range of English accents represented on the exam.
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 IELTS Listening Lessons

1.      Part 1 – Social context (2 speakers)

2.      Part 2 – Social context (1 speaker)

3.      Part 3 – Education/training (2-4 speakers)

4.      Part 4 – Academic context (1 speaker)

·        Passage 1: This is usually a conversation between two people. Typically, the conversation will involve a basic exchange of information. For example, someone might be placing an order over the phone, or confirming details for a reservation. The topic will be a daily-life situation.

·        Passage 2: This is usually a monologue (one person speaking). Passage two will also come from a common daily situation. For example, you might hear someone providing directions, or presenting basic information about a place or an event.

·        Passage 3: The topics become noticeably more challenging in Passage 3. This will be a conversation, often among several people, about an academic topic. You might hear a few students discussing something from class, or a professor providing feedback about an assignment, for example. Passage 3 is tougher because the vocabulary is more difficult, the topics are more complicated, and there are more speakers involved in the discussion.

·        Passage 4: This will be a lecture from a professor. It could cover any topic from a typical college course. You are not required to have specialized knowledge about the subject matter. However, the language will be difficult and the lecture will be complex. This is the toughest passage on the Listening exam for most students.

• Summary Completion Lesson

This lesson will help you prepare for the test by familiarising you with summary completion questions, giving you some tips and a chance to practice.

• Overview and Tips 

This is a good article to start with and will allow you to understand exactly what the test is and how you can use this site to improve your listening skills.

• Form Filling Question Tips

In the first section of the test, there is often a form filling question. Normally the answers will be one or two words long and will be factual information, such as phone numbers, dates and times.

• Multiple Choice Questions

This post will show you how to effectively answer multiple choice questions in the test. It will show you the three different types of multiple choice questions, look at common problems and give you tips and a strategy to help you on test day.

• Labelling a Map or Plan

This post will help you answer labelling map or plan IELTS questions more effectively by looking at common problems, useful language and giving you a strategy to use on test day.

IELTS Listening Tips

Tip #1: 

You will be given some time to read the questions before each recording is played. Read the questions very carefully as you will hear each recording only once, so you want to be familiar with the questions before you hear the recording

Tip #2:

As you listen, write your answers in your test booklet and then transfer them at the end of the listening test. You will be given 10 minutes to do this. Be sure to check that you have transferred your answers correctly and remember to check your spelling and grammar. Also, be sure to complete your answer sheet. An incomplete answer sheet means an incomplete score.

Tip #3:

Don’t worry if you don’t understand everything you hear. Listen out for the keywords from the questions and focus on what you need to be listening out for.

Tip #4:

If you miss a question, don’t dwell on it because you may miss the answer to the next one. So, if you miss one, move on.

Tip #5:

Make sure you follow the word count in the instructions of each question. For example, if the instructions say “write no more than one word” and you write “the train” instead of “train”, your answer will be marked as incorrect.

Tip #6:

There is no negative marking, so you will just get a zero for an incorrect or incomplete answer.

Tip #7:

Those are our IELTS Listening Tips! Always cross check your answers from your answer sheet to your listening booklet.

IELTS Listening: Strategy

Although each Listening question type has unique features, the basic approach to each one is the same. There are three things you must do for each set of questions you encounter:

1.     Analyze the questions

2.     Predict the answers

3.     Track questions and the speaker

IELTS Listening Strategies 1 and 2: Analyzing and Predicting

The first two steps require practice because you must be able to do both quickly during the actual exam. Before each recording, the IELTS gives you some time (30-40 seconds) to look at the questions in the next section. Some students use this time to check their answers from the previous section, but this is a big mistake. It is very important to study the upcoming questions. Remember, 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, there is a very good chance you’ll get lost and miss the information you need.

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

·         What type of question is this? (Question types are discussed below)

·         How should you answer? Look at the directions, which will tell you whether your answer should be a letters, numbers, words, etc.

·         What are the keywords in the questions? Quickly underline words and phrases that seem most important in each question, keeping in mind that correct answers are almost always going to be paraphrases of these words. Underlining them helps you to focus your attention on what’s most important as you listen.

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

After the exam, Marcus scheduled a meeting with________________.

These keywords are the concepts you’ll listen for in the passage. As an example, you might hear something like this from the speaker to answer this question:

Marcus: “I feel so disappointed about the test yesterday. I met regularly with a study group to help me prepare and I thought I was ready. But I’ve decided to make an appointment with a tutor since I got such a poor grade. I guess I need more help.”

In the example above, the underlined keywords would help you remember that you need to find 1) who Marcus scheduled a meeting with 2) after the exam. He met with a study group before the exam, but he met with a tutor after he got his disappointing results. Underlining the keywords helps you to keep these concepts straight as you listen to the speaker.

This leads to the second goal during the 30-40 second period you have to examine the questions. This may seem like a lot to accomplish in such a short time, but the second goal is closely related to the first: make predictions.

Very often, when you are underlining key words as you analyze the question, you will come across very useful information that will help you make predictions about answers. For example, let’s take a look at the sentence completion question we just looked at above:

After the exam, Marcus scheduled a meeting with __(noun/person)___.

You could easily predict, based on the sentence alone, that you will need to listen for a noun because the sentence ends with the preposition “with.” Indeed, nouns typically follow prepositions. In fact, it would also be very reasonable to predict that you need to listen for a specific person’s name or a type of person. Since we know, simply based on the information in the sentence, that Marcus just finished an exam and he’s now scheduling a meeting, it would be a very good guess that he might schedule a meeting with someone who is going to offer help.

All of these things are predictions. You won’t 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 to catch the answers while the speakers are talking.

Let’s try some more prediction, this time with a slightly more difficult example. Here are two IELTS Listening Multiple Choice questions. Without listening to the text, what do you think the answers will probably be?

39. If Americans had an extra day per week, they would spend it
A    working harder
B    building relationships
C    sharing family meals

40. Understanding how people think about time can help us

A    become more virtuous
B    work together better
C    identify careless or ambitious people

You won’t be able to guess the correct answer without listening to the passage. However, there is some very useful information in the questions that you can use to make predictions. For instance, a few of the answer choices relate to the topic of “relationships.” “Building relationships, sharing family meals, and working together better” all fall into this general category. You could predict that if the speaker focuses the discussion on the connection between “time” and personal “relationships,” the correct answers are likely to be one of these answer choices. These kinds of predictions can really help you make decisions when you’re listening closely for answers during the exam.

IELTS Listening Strategy 3: Track Questions and the Speaker

The final IELTS Listening strategy is called Tracking. Tracking is something you do while you listen to the recording, and it requires great focus and attention. Basically, your 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.

Tracking works because IELTS Listening questions always provide contextual clues to help you know where you should be in the passage. Importantly, IELTS Listening questions also come in order. In other words, the speaker(s) will provide the answer to question 1 before you will hear the answer to question 2, and so on. Therefore, imagine you are filling in a set of notes based on a professor’s lecture for Section 4 of the Listening exam. In your Question Booklet, you will see the notes with blanks for the information you need to fill in. Tracking successfully in this task means that you will use the information in the notes to determine where the professor is in the lecture.

As you listen, you should focus on the question you’re trying to answer AND you should keep your eye on the next question as well. If you miss an answer to a question, you’ll know because the professor will be discussing something related to the next question, not the one you’re on. In this case, it is very likely that you missed an answer. While that can be frustrating, it is much worse to get completely lost as the speaker is talking. You will have to make a guess about the question you missed in this case. It is more important to continue tracking the speaker and the current question so you don’t get completely lost.

IELTS Listening: Question Types

QUESTION TYPE	OFFICIAL SAMPLE	NOTES
Short Answer	Sample task Recording	Remember to read the directions! You must follow the word/number requirements for short answer questions. Very often, you will have to find detailed information related to some category. For example, you might get a question like this: “What TWO types of tree cannot survive in a desert environment?” In this case, you should underline “type of tree cannot survive” as you analyze the questions before listening.
Multiple Choice	Sample task Recording	IELTS Multiple Choice questions only have 3 possible answers. Sometimes (but not frequently), there will be more than three answer choices. In this case, you will usually be instructed to choose more than one answer. You must remember to answer with LETTERS (A, B, or C) on your Answer Sheet. Don’t write the answer choice word(s)! Sometimes, you will only have 2-3 Multiple Choice questions in a section. Other times, there could be more (5 to 8). Treat Multiple Choice questions exactly like other question types. In the time provided before you listen to the passage, skim all of the questions and the answer choices to find keywords. Answers will come in order in the passage, so you need Track answers across all of the questions in the task you’re working on.
Form Completion	Sample task Recording	This is a common question type for Section 1 of the Listening exam (although it can come up in other sections too!). In this question type, you will fill out a form of some kind. Often, these are standard types of forms such as an application or an order form. The forms will include a lot of information you can use to make predictions before you listen. For example, most forms will have some kind of title at the top, or an indication of the kind of information to expect in the discussion. It is common to see blanks next to “Phone number” or “Address” on these forms, for instance. Use contextual clues on the form to track where the speakers are in their conversation as you follow along.
Sentence Completion	Sample task Recording	Sentence Completion questions are a form of Short Answer question. Therefore, it’s crucial to look to the directions for word and number counts. As the name suggests, this question type requires you to complete a sentence with a short answer at the end. The sentence will almost always be a paraphrase of something you’ll hear in the passage. In other words, don’t expect to hear a speaker say the exact sentence as it’s written in the question. The sentences will provide a lot of information to make predictions about the answers. In particular, it is often possible to gather information about the grammatical form of the answer (noun, verb, adjective, etc).
Plan/Diagram/Map Questions	Sample task Recording	These questions involve a visual of some kind, with missing labels that you will have to fill in based on what the speakers say. You can get a lot of clues by looking at the visual for these questions. For instance, if you are answering a Map Question, look at the location of the first question, and then look at the map to see where the following questions are located. This will give you clues about the order in which the visual will be described by the speaker. Study the Map further, and you will become familiar with the location of other items. For example, perhaps the map includes a statue, a restaurant, or some other landmark. Getting familiar with the Map, Plan, or Diagram before you listen to the speaker will help you get oriented.
Matching	Sample task Recording	Matching Questions usually involve listening for detailed information in the discussion. It is very important to look at the category of information that you will match to the answer choices. These will be lettered options that look like the example below: Within which timeframe will each event occur? Event Starting Times A 9:00 to 12:00 B 12:01 to 16:00 C 16:01 to 23:59 These choices may be presented inside a box, or as a list of items like the example above. In this example, you know that you will need to listen for the time certain events will occur. You will then have a list of times to “match” to the appropriate event. 1 Ceremony _____________ 2 Orientation ____________ 3 Registration ___________ When you analyze these questions before listening to the passage, make sure you understand the category of the lettered answer choices, and pay close attention to the order of the items you need to match in the questions. It is the questions (not the lettered answer choices) that will be presented in order within the passage. You will listen for each of these question items as you “track” answers in the passage.
Flow Chart Table Note Summary Completion	Note Completion example Recording	These question types look different, but they share a lot in common. They are often Short Answer questions, but you may also be presented with a list or a box with answer choices. Basically, you will need to fill in missing information based on the Listening passage. It is very important to look at each question number. Notice where it is located on the visual or summary and what the keywords are that surround it. You will need to “track” these keywords as you listen to the speaker. Question Descriptions:  A Flow Chart is a kind of visual that shows steps or stages in a process. You can expect that you will need to listen for the different stages of the process. A Table could be many things. Often, a table is used to categorize several things, so you will need to fill in missing information on the table. Notes Questions is a common question type for Passage 4, in which you will hear a lecture. You will have incomplete lecture notes that you need to fill in based on what the professor says. For Summary Questions, you will be presented with a paragraph of several sentences which summarize the listening passage. Like the other questions in this category, you need to fill in words that complete the summary based on what you hear.