LISTENING OVERVIEW AND TIPS IELTS EXAM

LISTENING OVERVIEW AND TIPS

The IELTS listening test is the same for both those who are taking the Academic and General Training papers

Sections of listening:

1 :- First Section: In section 1 you will hear a conversation between two people and it is almost always someone making an appointment or making a booking of some kind (e.g. making a hotel reservation or hiring a car). The questions are normally gap-fill questions in which you have to listen to the information and complete a form or sentence.
2:- Second Section: In section 2 you will hear someone talking by themselves about a non-academic subject (e.g. TV or radio presenter).
3:- Third Section: Section 3 switches to an academic context and it will always be more than one person discussing something (e.g. an academic paper or assignment).
4:- Fourth Section: Section 4 is normally an academic lecture and you will hear one person (normally the lecturer or professor) talking for an extended period of time.
You will be given a short amount of time (approximately 30 seconds) between each section and you should use this time to look at the questions coming up.You will hear the recordings only once.

IELTS LISTENING TIPS:

1 Practice both type of listening at same time: One will have to practice listening to both one person speaking (a monologue) and more than one person speaking at the same time. Listening to monologues is challenging because the person does‟t often stop speaking for very long so students can feel like they are being overwhelmed. Listening to more than one person can be difficult because there may be different accents or styles of speaking and it is tricky to „tune-in‟ to what is being said.
2 Be careful with your spelling: Lots of easy marks are thrown away because of poor spelling. It is advised to keep a notebook of words you find difficult to spell. Both US and UK spellings are allowed in the listening test.
3 Utilize short break rationally: You will be given a short break (normally around 30-40 seconds) before each section and in the middle of sections 1, 2 and 3. You should NOT use this time to check your answers from the previous section. You should look at the questions in the next section and try to understand the questions and predict the answers coming next. When you predict try to think about the context of the question. For example, if there is a „$‟ in front of the answer, you will probably be listening for an amount of money. Also, establish what type of word (adjective, noun, verb etc.) the
answer will be.

4 Transfer the answer carefully: At the end you will be given 10 minutes to transfer your answers to the answer sheet. When you are doing this make sure you are very careful with spelling and make sure your answers are correct grammatically. For example, if the question was „The man wanted to ______ a ______ car.‟ the answers are likely to be a verb and then an adjective. If your answers are not grammatically correct or spelled incorrectly, then they will be marked as wrong.
5 Mention answer in capital letter: Make sure your answers are mentioned in capital letters only as if it doesn‟t happen you may lose bands because of poor legibility.
6 Follow instructions carefully: Make sure you follow the instructions carefully especially when it comes to word limit. If the question states „No more than three words‟ you can‟t write any more than this. If your answer is four words for this answer it will be incorrect.
7 Range of accents would be wider: A range of accents are used to reflect the international nature of English. These could be from anywhere in the English-speaking world, including the US, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Ireland or Australia. You could also hear one of many regional accents from the UK.
8 Practice Previous Exam: It is recommended that you should practice previous exam, however, you should also remember that this is a test of your general level of English, so you should listen to not only IELTS, but everything you can in English. In general, those who do the best on the listening test are those who have practiced listening in English the most. The best candidates listen to English a little every day.
9 Focus on easy questions first: Focus on getting the easy questions correct first before worrying about the more difficult questions. Anyone hoping to do well on the IELTS listening test should be getting 10 out of 10 on the first part of the test. Make sure you can do this consistently in the first part before worrying about the other parts, especially part four.
10 Listen carefully: Make sure you don‟t get tricked. IELTS listening tests will often try to fool you by giving you something that seems like the correct answer first and then changing this to something else later in the recording. For example, your questions might be „The man would like a ______ car.‟ At the start of the recording the person might say they want a „big family car‟, but then change their minds and say they want a „small sports car‟. If you write down the first option you would be wrong.

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11 Be habitual to listen once only: You have to be used to listen to things only once. Sometimes students listen to a recording three or four times. You can of course listen again and again when analyzing your mistakes, but when practicing the exam you should do it under exam conditions and that means listening just once.
12 Remember to bring an eraser: You will have to write your answers in pencil, so make sure you can change any notes or answers using an eraser.
13 It’s not just a listening test: It‟s an understanding, reading, writing, vocabulary and spelling test. Make sure you practice all of these skills under exam conditions.
14 Write your answers on the question paper: As in the original test, you will be having 10 min for transferring. So, it‟s better to be habitual of exam conditions during training sessions.

15 Practice your short hand: Short hand is when you write a shortened version of a word. For example, you might write approx. for approximately or Eng. for English. This will help you to save time in the exam. Often two answers will come in a very short space of time, if you are busy writing a long word instead of listening, you might miss it. Shorthand is a very personal thing, so do whatever suits you.
16 Concentration is key in the listening test: It is totally normally to lose concentration and most people find it difficult to concentrate for the complete 30 minutes. To improve your concentration you need to practice active listening. Active listening involves setting yourself small tasks when you are practicing and actually doing something when you are listening, just like you will be in the IELTS listening exam.
17 Don’t leave any blank spaces: This might seem very obvious, but you would not believe how many students do this. You are not penalized for wrong answers so you should always have a guess.

Before each section, you will be given information about the speaker and what they will be talking about. You won‟t be tested on this, but it will help you answer the questions that follow by understanding the context. Some students waste their lot of precious time in doing practice tests again and again but still they are unable to get desired score. So, it is suggested to follow the 90/10 rule- 10% IELTS past papers, 90% real authentic listening practice to improve your overall level of English.
There are several different types of question and each requires a different strategy so you should familiarize yourself with all of them. They include:
. Summary Completion
. Form/note/table completion
. Multiple Choice Questions
. Labeling a diagram or map

LISTENING OVERVIEW AND TIPS IELTS EXAM

LISTENING OVERVIEW AND TIPS IELTS EXAM LISTENING OVERVIEW AND TIPS IELTS EXAM LISTENING OVERVIEW AND TIPS IELTS EXAM LISTENING OVERVIEW AND TIPS IELTS EXAM LISTENING OVERVIEW AND TIPS IELTS EXAM LISTENING OVERVIEW AND TIPS IELTS EXAM LISTENING OVERVIEW AND TIPS IELTS EXAM LISTENING OVERVIEW AND TIPS IELTS EXAM LISTENING OVERVIEW AND TIPS IELTS EXAM LISTENING OVERVIEW AND TIPS IELTS EXAM

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