IELTS Listening: the complete guide

Format at a glance

The Listening test has 4 parts with 10 questions each and takes about 30 minutes. It is the same test for Academic and General Training. You hear a range of accents, including British, Australian, New Zealand and North American. The questions follow the order of the information in the recording.

IDP’s Listening guide says you get 30 seconds to read the questions before each part, at least 30 seconds to check after each part, and 2 minutes at the end to check all your answers, for a total of 30 to 34 minutes. Then the test closes automatically. The British Council describes the questions as becoming progressively more difficult.

On computer you type or select each answer while you listen. You can move between all four parts at any time and adjust the volume, but the audio cannot be paused or rewound.

Every question type

IELTS lists six Listening task types. Two of them are kinds of gap-filling and are covered together here. Any type can appear in any part. In all of them, the words you hear are rarely the words printed in the question: the recording paraphrases.

Form, note, table, flow-chart, summary and sentence completion

Answer:

words and/or numbers you hear, within a word limit

Order:

follows the recording

How it works. You see an outline of the recording with gaps: a form to fill in, a set of notes, a table, a flow-chart of a process, a short summary, or separate sentences. You fill each gap with the exact word or number the speaker says. The instructions set a limit such as ONE WORD ONLY, ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER, or NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER. Sometimes you choose from a list of options instead.

Strategy. Before the audio starts, predict what fits each gap: a name, a number, a date, a noun, an adjective? Read the words around the gap, because the speaker will paraphrase those, and that is your signal that the answer is coming. The answer itself is said exactly as you must write it. When you have typed it, read the completed line: it must make grammatical sense, including singular or plural.

Watch out. Adding a word takes you over the limit. If the limit is ONE WORD and the speaker says “a leather jacket” for a gap that reads “a ______ jacket”, the answer is “leather”, not “a leather”.

Multiple choice

Answer:

a letter; one of three options, or two or three from a longer list

Order:

follows the recording

How it works. A question or an unfinished sentence comes with three options, A, B and C. In another version you choose two or three answers from a longer list. There, each correct letter is worth one mark and the order in which you give them does not matter.

Strategy. Use the reading time to underline what makes each option different from the others. Expect to hear all the options mentioned. Your job is to notice which ones the speaker rejects, doubts or corrects, and which one survives. The correct option is usually a paraphrase of the recording. It rarely repeats the speaker’s words.

Watch out. Choosing an option because you heard its exact words. Echoed words are how wrong options are made to sound right.

Matching

Answer:

a letter from a list of options

Order:

the numbered items follow the recording; the options do not

How it works. You match a numbered list of items from the recording, such as people, places or courses, to a lettered list of options, such as opinions, features or recommendations. Read the instructions to see whether an option can be used more than once.

Strategy. Read the option list first and put each option into your own words, because you will hear a paraphrase of it, not the printed wording. The numbered items come in order, so keep your eyes on the current item and the next one. In Part 3, listen for who is speaking and whether they agree: an idea that one speaker suggests and the other rejects is not the answer.

Plan, map and diagram labelling

Answer:

normally a letter chosen from a list or from labels on the image

Order:

follows the recording

How it works. You see a plan of a building, a map of an area or a diagram of an object, with some parts unlabelled. The speaker describes where things are or how the parts connect, and you choose the label for each numbered question.

Strategy. Before the audio, find the starting point (often “you are here” or the entrance) and any compass arrow. Say the fixed landmarks to yourself so you will recognise them when you hear them. Then follow the route with your cursor or your finger as the speaker moves. The language is what is tested: opposite, next to, beyond, at the far end, the second turning on the left, in the north-east corner.

Watch out. The speaker often mentions a location, then moves on from it: “You’ll pass the café on your right, and the bike store is just after that.” The answer is where the route ends, not the first place named.

Short-answer questions

Answer:

words and/or numbers you hear, within a word limit

Order:

follows the recording

How it works. You answer a factual question in a few words, for example within NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER. Some questions ask you to list two or three things.

Strategy. Underline the question word. Where needs a place, when a time, how many a number. That tells you what to listen for. Write only the words that answer the question, with no sentence around them.

Distractors: how the recording misleads you

A distractor is information that sounds like the answer but is not. Distractors are a deliberate part of the test design, and the IELTS partners describe them openly. There are four patterns worth learning to hear.

• The correction. A speaker gives one answer, then changes it: “It’s about 150… in fact, I’ve just checked, 147.” Listen for signals such as actually, sorry, no, wait, I mean. This is most common with numbers, dates and places in Part 1.
• The rejected option. In multiple choice, every option is usually mentioned. Only one survives. The others are considered and turned down, belong to the past, or are true of someone else.
• The paraphrase. The question uses one word and the recording uses another with a similar meaning. If you wait to hear the printed word, you will miss the answer.
• The hidden negative. A small word reverses the meaning: “I wouldn’t say it was expensive”, “hardly anyone came”.

Spelling, numbers and word limits

Every question is worth one mark, and there is no partial credit and no penalty for a wrong answer. These are the rules that decide whether a typed answer earns its mark.

IDP also publishes guidance on how numbers should be written:

• Use a comma for thousands (1,000) and a full stop for decimals (4.5).
• Do not add a plural to hundred, thousand or million: “4.5 million”, not “4.5 millions”.
• Times can be written with a colon or a full stop: 6:45 or 6.45.
• Dates are accepted in several forms, such as March 5th, Mar 5th or 5/3. If you add an ordinal ending, it must be right: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 11th.
• Money and measurements can be shortened: $4.50, 60 km.

What to train, because these are the classic Part 1 problems:

• Names spelt aloud. Practise the alphabet until the letters are automatic, especially the pairs that are easy to confuse: A and E, G and J, I and Y, M and N, B and P. Know “double”: “double T” means TT.
• Similar-sounding numbers. 15 and 50, 13 and 30. The stress is different: fifTEEN, FIFty.
• Phone and reference numbers. “Oh” for zero, “double seven” for 77.

Common traps and how to avoid them

• Losing your place. You miss one answer, keep thinking about it, and miss the next two. If an answer goes by, guess and move your eyes to the next question immediately.
• Leaving blanks. A wrong answer costs nothing, so a blank is a wasted chance. Always type something.
• Singular or plural. If the speaker says “tickets” and the gap needs a plural, “ticket” is wrong.
• Copying the question’s words into the gap. If the gap reads “cost: £______”, type the number only.
• Relaxing in the easy part. Part 1 has the simplest language but the most corrections and spellings. Marks lost there are just as expensive as marks lost in Part 4.

Time management: before, during and after the audio

You cannot control the speed of the recording, but you control three things around it.

1. Before each part: read the questions that are coming. Underline the key words, predict the type of word for each gap, and notice what makes the multiple-choice options different. IDP gives this reading time as 30 seconds, so practise being quick.
2. During the audio: keep two questions in view, the current one and the next. If you hear the answer to the next question, you have missed the current one. Guess it and carry on.
3. In the final 2 minutes: do not re-think answers you were sure of. Fill every blank, check each spelling, check each word limit, and check singular and plural.

How Listening is scored

You get one mark for each correct answer. The total out of 40 is converted to a band from 1 to 9, in whole and half bands. IELTS itself publishes only four points of the conversion, as averages: about 16 marks for band 5, 23 for band 6, 30 for band 7 and 35 for band 8. It adds that the exact marks needed vary slightly from one test version to another.

Because the conversion moves a little between versions, treat any band from a single practice test as an estimate. The band calculator shows how many marks you need for your target, and How scoring works explains how Listening feeds into your overall band.