Before you start working through practice papers, take ten minutes to make sure you actually understand how the IELTS Listening test works. A surprising number of candidates lose marks not because of their level of English, but because they were caught out by the format. Here is what you need to know.
The shape of the test
The Listening test has four parts, with ten questions in each part, for a total of forty questions. You listen for around thirty minutes, typing* your answers straight in as you go, and you get two minutes at the end to check them.
Parts 1 and 2 deal with everyday, social situations: a conversation about renting a flat, say, or a talk about a local event. Parts 3 and 4 move into educational or training contexts: a discussion between students, or a lecture on an academic topic. The questions always follow the order of the recording, so the answer to question 3 will come before the answer to question 4.
You hear the recording once
This is the single most important thing to internalise. Unlike some English tests, IELTS Listening plays each recording only once. There is no rewind, no second chance. This changes how you should approach the test entirely – you cannot afford to get stuck on one question and miss the next three.
Use the pre-listening time properly
Before each part of the recording begins, you are given a short time to look at the questions for that part. This is not dead time. Use it to read every question, underline key words, and predict what kind of answer you are listening for. Is it a number? A name? A place? A date? A single word or a short phrase? If you know what you are listening for, you are far more likely to catch it when it goes past.
If you miss an answer, move on immediately
This is the discipline that separates candidates who do well from candidates who tank a whole section. If you don’t catch an answer, do not sit there trying to remember what was just said. The recording has already moved on, and if you stop listening, you will miss the next answer too. Put a mark next to the question, keep listening, and come back to it at the end.
Expect a range of accents
The recordings use a mix of accents – British, Australian, New Zealand and North American. If you have only ever practised with one accent, the others may throw you. In the weeks before your test, deliberately listen to podcasts, news broadcasts and TV from a range of English-speaking countries.
Spelling and grammar count
If the correct answer is Wednesday and you write Wenesday, you lose the mark. Same for plurals: if the answer is two apples and you write two apple, no mark. When you type in your answers, check spelling carefully. Capital letters are accepted throughout, so writing everything in block capitals is a legitimate strategy for candidates whose handwriting is unclear.
And if you can’t hear the audio clearly on test day?
Tell the invigilator straight away. This is a technical issue and they are expected to resolve it. Do not sit through the test hoping it will get better.
Once you have these basics locked down, practice tests will do far more for you – because you will be practising technique, not learning the format from scratch.
Try this series of tutorials from the British Council on YouTube. Start with the one on Listening.
*For the paper-based IELTS Listening test, candidates get 30 minutes to listen to the four recordings and write their answers on the question paper, followed by an additional 10 minutes at the end to transfer their answers onto the separate answer sheet. That means 40 minutes in total.
Further reading