IELTS Listening [2020]

IELTS Listening

IELTS is abbreviation of International English Language Testing System mainly to test the English Language Proficiency of an Individual. This is simply tested for those candidates who want to go abroad for the study or work in the English Speaking Countries.

IELTS now a days is conducted by British Council and IDP Australia. There are other tests of English Language similar to IELTS are TOEFL, PTE, CAE, CPE etc.

IELTS aims to test the four skills of language. Listening, Reading, writing and Speaking are tested in IELTS test.

All the tests except reading are administrated on the same date and same test center. A candidate has to reserve the seat in advance for the test date. S/he needs identification card most of the cases the passport to reserve the test.

Speaking test is conducted either before or after the other tests with in 3/4 days.

IELTS test result is published on the 14th day after the test.

    IELTS Listening

     Test of IELTS Listening takes about 30 minutes, and the candidate will have an additional 10 minutes time to transfer the answers to the answer sheet.

It is always recommended to listen to the instructions for each section of the test carefully because if it is missed them the whole story goes to the vain. Answer all of the questions. There are 40 questions altogether. Each question carries one mark.

Listening in IELTS tests both the listening for gist and listening for specific information. But IELTS mainly focuses to the specific information. The pattern of IELTS Listening are as follows:

There are four subsection under listening test. They are

Section 1: Conversation

There is a conversation of 7 to 8 minutes long. The subject matter is based on everyday subject matter.

Section 2: Monologue

There is a monologue of 7 to 8 minutes long. The subject matter is based on everyday subject matter. Since it is monologue, there is only one person describes about any topic of everyday life. The video is of 7 minutes long.

Section 3: Discussion

In this section, there are more than 2 speakers. As the title suggests that the subject matter is serious/formal/academic/training but not the everyday subject matter. The speakers discusses either about the university courses or project work most of the cases. The audio is of 8 minutes long.

 Section 4: Monologue

There is a monologue of 8 minutes about any academic/training related topic. Most of the time professor delivers his/her lecture on any academic topic.

In this way, the first two sections of the test are concerned with social needs.

The latter couple of sections are concerned with situations related to any educational or training contexts i.e. the scenario is the university in most of the cases.

All the questions and topics of the IELTS listening are designed to test your listening abilities. So, it is not necessary to be worry about your study subject. Either you are from Nursing or engineering it is not going to make any difference.

More specifically the British Accent is in high priority but a range of English accents and dialects are properly used in the recordings. It reflects the international usage of IELTS.

Question Types

IELTS listening consists of the following types of questions on the test paper.

Note: There is a separate answer sheet for the listening test and you are given 10 minutes time to transfer the answer.  

·        short-answer questions /multiple choice

·        sentence completion  

·        notes/summary/diagram/flow chart/table completion  

·        labelling a diagram which has numbered parts  

·        classification  

·        matching  

There is the clear instructions on the test paper on how to answer the questions, and they are clear and easy to follow. Simply there is an example for you that will be supportive how you will handle the upcoming any unfamiliar question types.

Thirty seconds to 1 minute time is given time to read the questions and enter and then check your answers. It is required to answers on the question paper as the candidates listen and when the tape ends ten minutes are allowed for them to transfer the answers to an Answer Sheet. As you know there are 40 questions altogether where one mark is awarded for each of the 40 items in the test.

The following table summarizes the pattern of IELTS Listening

Note: I often suggest the IELTS practitioners to adopt 3 main strategies for the better learning and outcome.

Special Tips/Strategies for Listening Improvement

Many Scholars have suggested various types of tips/strategies for the improvement of listening skill. I here categorized most of them into three types.

a. Free Listening

Please listen whatever you find in English language. Please listen as much longer as you can. It may be a song, play, reality show, movie, news, interview, sermon, commentaries etc. Some scholars suggest that find your interest on those materials.

 b. Listen for Test Format

Here there are many Practice-books available in the market as well as in the internet. Resemble the test scenario. Or you can spent your time as mock test of listening.

c. Listen with Tape Script

However, listening with tape script is suggested to a very poor learner of English who really cannot handle the situation in natural English Speaking Situation, it is equally important for those who really wants to be perfect in British and American accent. 

  

Best of Luck!!