IELTS LISTENING

Test format – Listening

Candidate will listen to four recordings and after or while listening candidate has to write his/her answers to the questions asked in the question sheet.

• Recording 1 – a conversation between two people.
• Recording 2 – a monologue speech
• Recording 3 – a conversation between three or four people context
• Recording 4 – a monologu

TYPES OF QUESTIONS

In general, there are mainly 6 types of questions in the listening section-

Form, note, Table, Flow-chart, summary completion:

In this students are required to fill the gaps in the listening content. This part will focus on the main facts or ideas in the content. It may be a form (such as name), notes, a table ( on place/time), a flow-chart ( show directions).

Plan, Map, Diagram Labeling:

In this students are required to complete the labels on a plan (eg of a building), map (eg of part of a town) or diagram (e.g. of a piece of equipment). The answers are usually selected from the list which is given on the question paper.

Matching:

In this students are required to match a numbered list of information from the listening content to a set of options on the question paper. The options may be norm of some kind.

Multiple Choices:

There will be a 3 or 4 options given in this type of question while listening. Students need to mark right option after listening to the information. Sometimes it have completed a sentence question also where one sentence have to complete with the given suitable options. The questions are given in the same way as given in the recording.

Sentence Completion:

In this type of task, you are given sentences from the listening with a gap in it. Candidate need to fill it with words. The answers will not be in the same order always in the content. The instructions will be given how the answer should be like, ‘NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER or ‘ONE WORD ONLY’ or ‘NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS’. The students will not more than the mention words if they do then they will lose bands for that.

Short answer question:

In this student are required to read a question and then write a short answer using information from the listening content. A word limit is given, for example, ‘NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER’. Test takers are penalised for writing more than the stated number of words.

This section has been designed to test. The English Comprehension skills of candidate, whether a student is able to understand the piece of information or successfully  answer questions. The listening scores are out of 40 and are calculated as per correct answer number. There is no negative marking for incorrect answers.

The maximum word limit for answer is three words or a number. Sometimes the demand of answer is two words or one word. In multiple choice questions candidates need to write only option of correct answer such as [A, B, C and D]. They are not required to write full option.