IELTS Listening 

Listening is the first module of IELTS. General based students and Academic students take the same Listening Test. It has 4 sections. The first two are interactive sections. The third and fourth have some academic content.

The audio for Listening is played once only. If you miss the answer, there will be not a second chance. Hence you need to listen carefully. Different accents are used, although mostly British accent. In case of spelling stick to one form of spelling, either British or American, do not mix both.

As you listen to the recording, you need to write down the answers, therefore, you need to learn the skills of multitasking because it requires focus and attention, which can be attained only through constant practice.

Candidates should follow the instructions given on paper. For example, if the question says no more than two words or a number, it would be written as “ticket office”, ‘25 men’ or the number itselfas ‘25’. Note that the words would be plural, and number would be singular. If you use more words than instructed, your answer would be marked incorrect.

You need to read the question before the recording begins. Underline the key words in the question so that you can predict the answer, for example, if the question is talking about mountain ranges, check if the blank requires a noun or an adjective.Is the answera name of the mountain or suggesting the tallest mountain.

Do not change the words that you hear from the recording. You will hear the exact word that you need to write, even though it might be the synonym of the answeryou need to write. 

Write the answer in numerals; if the answer is a “number” instead of writing in words, this is to avoid spelling mistakes.

It is allowed to write all the letters in capitals when you write your answers, this would avoid incorrect use of capitals.

Always make a guess when you do not know the answer, never leave it blank, you might be lucky.

In this exam accuracy is very important, for example in a complete a note question, the answer must be ‘evening’ and you gave the answer as ‘the evening’, your answer would be incorrect.  Spelling is equally important; it must be accurate or else you run the risk of losing a score.

Look for key words in the question to find the answer. Look out for similar sounding words and numbers. For example, 1930 and 1913, listen closely to understand the gist of the question, for instance,“Does the boy commute by bus, train, or private car?”

Answers can come quickly; you could get suddenly three answers coming together, to avoid missing on an answer, keep your eye on other questions coming so that you don’t lose track on time while answering. Make notes with short forms and complete it when they give you half a minute to check your answers.

Many foreign languageusers struggle to hear the plurals especially for sentence completion questions. Know your grammar well by looking out for countable and uncountable nouns. Noun forms like milk, information and advice are uncountable and does not have an ‘S’ at the end of the word.

Look for the ‘Title’, as they are found in your question paper, and it helps you to prepare for the topic that is coming.

IELTS Listening paper has 40 questions there are four sections and each section has 10 questions.You get 1 mark for each right answer.There are different types of questions presented in the Listening test, you need to learn each question types such as Multiple-choice questions, sentence completion, map labelling, form completion, note completion, flow chart completion, short answer, table completion, labelling a diagram and Summary completion.

All forms of questions have a purpose, and it tests your listening skills andby paying close attention to the idea you need tounderstand the core subject, detailed information given, subtle distinctionsor guess the meaning.

You must learn to listen and comprehend between the lines and pick up on the clues given from the voice and intonation. 

By making use of the practice resources as well as by utilizing the right strategies of IELTS actual exam format, the aforementioned skills can be achieved.