IELTS Listening

Read the questions before listening!

Try to get an idea of the situation.
Who are the speakers?
Where are they?
Why are they speaking?

Make sure that words that

should be capitalized
i.e. proper nouns and
names for example, are
written with an initial
capital letter.

During the test, use your time well.

Read the questions quickly and try to decide
which type of word goes in the spaces eg is it a
noun, verb or adjective?
Write 'N' for noun and 'A' for adjective and 'V'
for verb in each space. This will help you focus
and listen for the word you need.

Before each part of the test you will hear

someone say: You will hear a conversation
between or you will hear a lecture on
It is very important to listen to this information
because it gives the topic for what you are
about to hear and makes understanding the
rest much easier.

It is not written on your question paper, so

listen carefully.

At the end of each section you

have 30 seconds to check your
answers.
Use this time wisely to go
back and check your answers
by checking for word forms,
plurals (did you forget an s on
plural words?) and spelling.

One of the sections is almost always about education.

Quite often you will hear students and a tutor talking
about an assignment.
Make sure you know all the vocabulary you can about
studying at university.
This will help you to understand section 3 and gain some
extra marks.

At the end of the test you have 10 minutes to transfer

your answers onto an answer sheet.
As you do so check your answers are correct and that
you are writing your answers into the correct numbered
space.
That is to say that the answer for question 9 goes onto
the answer sheet in space number 9.
In practice tests many students get this wrong so dont
throw away marks through a careless mistake.

Dont JUST use practice tests as a way to improve your Listening.

Listen to everything you can specially BBC TV and radio programs.
The internet is a good source of listening material.

Dont leave any blank answers!

In both listening and reading you should write something in the answers
box.

If you dont know, then make a guess. You never know: you may just
be right!