I often get asked about how many words you can use for answers in the IELTS Listening test when the instruction is ‘Write no more than three words and/or a number’, and so I thought I’d explain what this instruction means here. Read the full post »
If you find it difficult to read and follow the questions on the question paper while listening to the recording in the IELTS Listening test, then here are two IELTS Listening tips just for you.
Before you listen, if you circle or underline words in the questions that tell you what you’re listening for, you won’t need to read the whole of each question again when you listen to the recording. (Remember that you’ll be given some time to read the questions before each of the sections in the IELTS Listening test).
To see what I mean, have a look at the following page from an official IELTS Listening question paper, and think about why I circled or underlined the words ‘grade’, ‘cancelled’ and ‘advise against’. Read the full post »
Hi
A common mistake in the IELTS Listening test is to not read the instructions carefully and to include too many words in the answer.
To show you what I mean, here’s a question from Section 1 of the Listening test in the Official IELTS Practice Materials (Volume 2) and a transcript of the audio recording.
(The recording is a conversation between a customer and a booking officer at a theatre).
Hi
Here’s the answer to the IELTS Listening question in my post ‘Don’t get distracted in the IELTS Listening test‘.
As with any IELTS Listening test practice, if you find you’ve got an answer wrong, it’s important to understand why your answer is wrong.
The newest sports facility in the hotel is
A) a swimming pool
B) a fitness centre
C) a tennis court
Transcript: “The Bridge Hotel is set in three and a half hectares of grounds with an open-air swimming pool and four tennis courts. There is also a newly opened gym with fitness suite, which is considered one of the best equipped in the area.”
In this example, many candidates may be distracted when they hear ‘swimming pool’ or ‘tennis courts’ in the recording and choose ‘A’ or ‘C’. The correct answer, however, is ‘B’ because the ‘gym with fitness suite’ is the newest sports facility.
Here’s a more challenging example from Section 3 of the same test where two students (Katy and Harry) are discussing who will answer questions in their presentation: Read the full post »
Hi
A common mistake in multiple choice questions in the IELTS Listening test is to get distracted by words in the audio recording that match words in one of the possible answers.
To show you what I mean, here’s a multiple choice question from Section 2 of the Listening test in the Official IELTS Practice Materials and a transcript of the audio recording. Read the full post »