Introduction to IELTS Listening

IELTS

International English Language Testing System

Listening

Introduction to IELTS Listening

Timing:

You have about 30 minutes to listen to the recording and answer the questions plus 10 minutes' transfer time.

You are supposed to take notes and mark the correct answers on the test paper in the first 30 minutes while the

recording is played; in the last 10 minutes, you need to transfer the answers to your answer sheet. (You will get

a ZERO if you only write on your test paper instead of the answer sheet!)

Test Parts: There are 4 sections with 40 questions in total.

Section Number of Questions Content

1 10 a conversation between two people set in an everyday social context (e.g. in an accommodation agency)

2 10 a monologue set in an everyday social context (e.g. a speech during a conference)

3 10 a conversation between 2–4 people set in an education or training context (e.g. a group of university students planning a research project)

4 10 a monologue on an academic subject (e.g. a university lecture)

Note:

Each section is heard ONCE ONLY! Take notes while you are listening.

A variety of voices and accents are used in the recording. You will probably hear some people speaking with a

slight foreign accent (like Indian or Italian).

Introduction to IELTS Listening

Question Types:

A variety of question types are used, chosen from the following: multiple choice, matching, plan/map/diagram

labelling, form completion, note completion, table completion, flow-chart completion, summary completion,

sentence completion, short-answer questions.

(You will not see all these types of questions in one test, but had better have an idea of how each of them is like

before you go to the test.)

Marking:

Each correct answer receives 1 mark (raw score). There are 40 questions, that is, the full mark of the Listening

component is 40. Raw scores are then converted to the 9-band scale, and are reported in whole and half bands.

(The round-up rule applies.)

Listening

Band score Raw score out of 40

5 16

6 23

7 30

8 35

Introduction to IELTS Listening

Skill Assessed:

The IELTS Listening component assesses a wide range of listening skills, including:

Understanding of main ideas

Understanding of specific factual information

Recognizing opinions, attitudes and purpose of a speaker

Following the development of an argument

Get familiar with the answer sheet and pay attention to the instruction in red in the following picture:

Introduction to IELTS Listening

Introduction to IELTS Listening

Introduction to IELTS Listening

Here is a listening sample of a speech given by a museum staff to school teachers:

(Tutor may click the picture to play the record, but it is recommended that tutor copy the following URL and open

it in a new tab so that both tutor and student can read the questions while the record is playing.)

http://tutor.aaimperial.com/IES/Aplayer.aspx?code=2814E3A134D0C9C2

The entire recording is 6:00 long.

The questions are shown in next page. Listen to the recording and try to take notes of possible keywords.

Introduction to IELTS Listening

© 2014 Acadsoc Limited

Introduction to IELTS Listening

This recording is a typical IELTS Section-2 content: a monologue set in an everyday social context—a speech

about museum guidance given by a museum staff to school teachers on their teacher's meeting.

Question 11-15 are form completion questions that test your ability to take notes of keywords of specific factual

information, while 16-20 are multiple choices that expect you to screen out wrong/untrue information.

Now check your answers:

11. 1:30

12. 25 December/December 25th/Christmas Day

13. car park/parking lot

14. 45

15. (some) tables

16-18 (in any order) C F G

19-20 (in either order) B E

How many correct answers have you managed to get? Don't worry. Let's take at a look of the transcript:

Introduction to IELTS Listening

Transcript

(For question 11-15)

Hello, and thank you for asking me to your teacher's meeting to talk about the Dinosaur Museum and to

tell you a bit what you can do with your students there.

Well, let me give you some of the basic information first. In regard to opening hours, we're open every

day of the week from 9:00 am to 8:00 pm except on Mondays when we close at 1:30 pm. And, in fact the

only day in the year when we're closed is on the 25th of December. You can book a guided tour for your

school group any time that we're open.

If you bring a school group to the museum, when you arrive we ask you to remain with your group in the

car park. One or more of the tour guides will welcome you there and brief you about what the tour will be

about. We do this there because our entrance is quite small and we really haven't got much room for

briefing groups in the exhibition area.

As far as the amount of time you'll need goes, if you bring a school group you should plan on allowing a

minimum of 90 minutes for the visit. This allows 15 minutes to get on and off the coach, 45 minutes for

the guided tour and 30 minutes for after tour activities.

If you're going to have lunch at the museum you will, of course, have to allow more time. There are two

cafes in the museum, with seating for 80 people. If you want to eat there you'll need to reserve some

seating, as they can get quite crowded at lunch time. Then outside the museum at the back there are

tables, and students can bring their own lunch and eat it there in the open air.

Introduction to IELTS Listening

(For question 16-20)

When the students come into the museum foyer we ask them to check in their backpacks with their

books, lunch boxes, etc, at the cloakroom before they enter the museum proper. I'm afraid in the past we

have had a few things gone missing after school visits so this is a strict rule. Also, some of the exhibits

are fragile and we don't want them to be accidentally knocked. But we do provide school students with

handouts with questions and quizzes on them. There's so much that students can learn and it's fun for

them to have something to do. Of course they'll need to bring something to write with for these. We do

allow students to take photographs. For students who are doing projects it's useful to make some kind of

visual record of what they see that they can add to their reports. And finally, they should not bring

anything to eat into the museum, or drinks of any kind.

There are also a few things the students can do after the tour. In the theatrette on the ground floor there

are continuous screenings of short documentaries about dinosaurs which they can see at any time. We

used to have an activity room with more interactive things like making models of dinosaurs and painting

pictures, even hunting for dinosaur eggs, but unfortunately the room was damaged in a bad storm

recently when water came in the roof, so that's closed at the moment. But we do have an IT centre

where students have access to CD ROMs with a range of dinosaur games. These games are a lot of fun,

but they also teach the students about the lives of dinosaurs, how they found food, protected their

habitat, survived threats, that kind of thing.

And…I think that's all I have to tell you. Please feel free to ask any questions if you would like to know

anything else…

Introduction to IELTS Listening

Section 2 is a relatively easy section in all the 4 sections. If you find the foregoing test

very difficult, you'll have to work hard on the Listening component! But don't get too

worried, as Listening is a skill you can gain great progress in through systematic training

and practice.

A more detailed account on IELTS Listening will be given in your future lessons.