overall IELTS listening

1. IELTS-Listening
Naseem Ara Shaikh

2. IELTS-Macro skills
• Listening
• Reading
• Writing
• Speaking

3. About the listening test
• You will listen to 4 different recordings and answer 40 questions
• The test takes approximately 30 mins. You will have an additional 10 mins to
transfer your answer to an answer sheet
• You only hear the audio once
• A variety of voices and native speaker accents are used
• Different topics
• A variety of question types are used

4. Section 1 Section 2 Section 3 Section 4
Usually a
conversation
between two people
Two parts
Can be social or
academic setting
Personal details
About 4 minutes
listening time
Usually a
monologue of a
social/functional
nature
Can be social or
academic setting
Information giving
About 3-4 minutes
listening time
Usually a
conversation
between 2-4 people
Academic setting
Information sharing
About 4 minutes
listening time
Usually a lecture or
a speech given as a
monologue
Academic setting
Information giving :
lecture
Atleast 4-5 minutes
listening time

5. Possible topic Areas
• About Social and Educational Situations
• Academic Context
• Details of Assignments
• Plans for excursions
• Holiday

6. General Pointers
• Become familiar with structures given
• Read the question carefully
• Anticipate what you will hear: imagine
• Learn to identify question types.

7. General listening advice
• Read the question before you highlight keywords
• Pay attention to linking words and discourse markers
• Check your spelling and grammar
• Guess-if you cannot find the answer
• Transfer answers quickly but carefully
• Remember that the most important words are always stress the most
• Don’t leave any space on your answer sheet.

8. Task-1 Multiple choice
• Task type and format
• In this type the question is followed by 3 possible answers, or the beginning
of a sentence is followed by 3 possible sentence endings. You will have to
choose 1 correct answer.
• Sometimes you are given a longer list of possible answers and told that you
have to choose more than one. In this case you will have to read the question
carefully to check how many answers are required.

9. Task focus
• This task type is used to test a wide range of skills. It may require you to
have a detailed understanding of the main points of listening test.
• No. of questions variable

10. Task type-2 Matching
• Task type and format
• In this task type you are required to
match a numbers list of items from
the listening test to a set of options
on the question paper. The set of
options/ may be criteria of some
kind. Many variations of this task
type are possible with regards the
type of options to be matched.

11. Task Focus
• This task types assesses the skill for listening for detail. It assesses whether
you can understand information given in a conversation on an everyday topic
such as different types of hotel or guest house accommodation. It also
assesses the ability to follow a conversation involving interaction between
two people. It may also be used to assess your ability to recognize
relationships and connections between facts in the listening text.
• No. of questions: variable

12. Strategies
Be ready to listen
The moment you hear the words “ Section-1” or “Part-1” you should;
• Be prepared and ready to listen for the instruction that are given.
• Listen for details about the information contained in the coming passage (eg. Who, what, where, when and why?)
Learn to predict
• As in listening you use all the four skills together
• Read the instruction and questions
• Listen for general information
• Listen for specific information
• Write the answers as you listen for the answers to the question that follow

13. Activity
• (214) Cambridge IELTS BOOK 6 ,Listening Test 1 - YouTube