Listening at a glance

The Listening test consists of 4 sections. There are about 38-40 questions in total. You need to answer all the questions as you listen to the tape. Tape is not paused at any time and you hear it only once. The questions get more difficult as you progress through the test

Remember, it is important that you spell correctly all of your Listening answers, not just the words they spell for you on the tape. Also, make sure that your answers are readable and understandable, when you copy them to the Answering Sheet. You may write in pencil only.

How to prepare for IELTS

Isn’t it nice to learn from mistakes of someone else :)? Well, another mistake I made in my preparation for IELTS was concentrating on just one sub-test out of four. I started to study for Writing and neglected all the other ones - Listening, Reading and Speaking.

There are reasons why a person would do what I did. Usually, people like doing things they are good at and avoid doing things they are not so good at. I was good at writing, so it was very natural for me to write essays and letters and set aside all the other difficult and “scary” subjects. Or the opposite might happen - people assume they are good in Writing and concentrate on something else that needs improvement.
There are many reasons not to do what I did. First, in many cases you are required to get nice band score in every sub-test, or at least in two sub-tests. That means you can not be satisfied with a good average, because you need a Band Score 7 in two sub-tests no matter what.
Second, when you hope for a good average while concentrating on one or two sub-tests, your chances don’t look good. All the sub-tests in IELTS have the same weight, so if you score 8 in Reading, 4 in Listening, 8 in Writing and 4 in Speaking, the average score will be 6 (simple math). If you think about it, it is quite difficult to score 8 in Reading or Writing, no matter how hard you try. That’s why studying a little bit harder for all four sub-tests makes much more sense and eventually pays off.
Finally, some real advice - divide your time to four equal (or almost equal) parts and practice in IELTS Listening, Reading, Writing, and Speaking without making exceptions.You can mix 2 subjects in one day, for example, practice in Reading for one hour and then in Writing for one hour. This way of studying helped me and my friends - I hope it will help you too.

Listening - a skill, not a gift!

Listening is very often your biggest problem. I know it because almost all my IELTS-taking friends had trouble there. Your Listening ability in many cases is not developed enough. But the good news is that Listening is a skill, not a gift, which means anyone can learn how to listen and understand (almost :)) every word. My friends and I came up with this technique that worked for us.

What usually happens:
You listen and hear “Blablablablabla”, which you can’t to break into words, and for that reason it makes no sense to you. There is a big difference between seeing a word printed on paper when you read and hearing it. If you saw a word, it doesn’t mean you will recognize it when you hear it. Every word you have read, you need to hear at least once.
What can be done about it:
You need to teach yourself the words
How do you do it:
When training, take a recording of the news, lecture, television program movie or an actual IELTS Listening test and work with it.
Listening Tip # 1 - use transcript.
Use an IELTS Listening test - just choose from all the links in the right sidebar. You need a test that has transcript, so I suggest Listening test # 1 (be patient, their site is slow).First try just listening, to get used to the accent. Then start working with a recording and a transcript: go over the recording, stop it every sentence and use transcript to make sure that you understand every word.
Listening Tip # 2 - repeat phrases
You can use any recording. First, listen, remember what you heard and stop the recording after each phrase. Even if you didn’t understand the phrase, play it in your head a couple of times, like a broken record “Tonight we have a special guest”, “Tonight we have a special guest”, “Tonight we have a special guest”.Then say it out loud. If you understood that phrase at first, this exercise will improve your pronunciation. If you didn’t understand the phrase for the first time, this repetition will give you more time to hear it better, break it into words and make sense out of them. And if it is still difficult, you can always rewind and hear the phrase again.

Listening: distractions

Continuing the previous post, here comes

Listening Tip # 3 - don’t let them distract you(oh boy, they are good at that! )

In Listening section of IELTS the recording “speaks” several different voices - of younger and older people, men and women. You may also hear different accents - Australian, British, American, Japanese, etc. The background noise is also different. It can be of airport, cafe-shop, street, University lecture hall, you name it. Be ready for it and don’t let it distract you - because that is exactly what they want. Ignore the noises and listen for the answers.

Of course, the accent you hear the most is British. Suggestion: when you are studying for IELTS, listen to as much British accent as you can. Where can you get it? I liked what BBC have - visit BBC site by clicking here. You can listen there to news (and read the transcript), learn the news vocabulary, learn the pronunciation, etc. Try it, you might like it.
A very good site to use for listening exercises in American English is VOA News - click here to visit it. This is how they recommend using their site:“The short sentences, limited vocabulary and slow pace of speaking make it easy to understand. It succeeds in helping people learn English in a non-traditional way. People around the world practice their listening and speaking skills by recording the programs and playing them repeatedly. Internet users can also listen to programs on the Special English Web site while reading the text.”

What you need to know about Answer Sheet

Answer Sheet is a very important piece of paper.

First of all, your score for Reading and Listening tests is calculated based on what you have written on it - only! It means that if you’ve got all the Reading/Listening test answers right but didn’t copy them from the booklet to the Answer Sheet, you score ZERO for the whole Reading/Listening test. I have read in IELTS official site that you can request later that they check your booklet for answers, but honestly - who needs the head ache?


Second, it is best that you look at it before you go to take IELTS because it has this certain structure you need to be familiar with. There are 2 sides you must fill, one for Listening and the other one for Reading answers and they look very much alike. It is very easy to mix them and start writing answers on the wrong side, so check and see what’s printed above the table with answer numbers 1-40, “IELTS Listening Answer Sheet” or “IELTS Reading Answer Sheet”.
Third, when you are training (with clock) for IELTS, you should include in your practice copying your answers to the Answer Sheet. This way you imitate the whole IELTS process better and get used to dividing your time correctly.
So here use this link to PDF file from IELTS official site, open it, go to page 8 and see for yourself what IELTS Answer Sheet looks like - click here.

Listening: The right way to answer

Continuing the previous post, here comes
Listening Tip # 4 - Answer as you listen

What I mean here is that you need to listen and write the answer at the same time.Make no mistake - it is not a very natural thing for you, so you have to practice a lot in it.The reason you have to “answer as you listen” is that you immediately forget the sentences after you have heard them. This is what stress, foreign language, constant flow of information does - it makes you forget. After hearing the third sentence you won’t be able to repeat the first. It means that when any part of Listening is over - you won’t be able to remember any of answers. So write them as you hear them, leave nothing for later.

IELTS Band Score Calculator

IELTS Band Score calculator
This nice addition is something I always wanted but never had. It converts number of correct answers in Listening or Reading sections of IELTS test to approximate Band Score. You will find it very helpful when practicing in solving IELTS exam papers; it saves you some time of calculating the exam result yourself.
But enough said - one picture is worth a million words, check it out right here.
Enjoy and tell your friends!
And now after you had the chance to check your score, here is a way to improve it:
1. Read texts from this list of sources (the passages are of Academic IELTS difficulty)
2. Practice using these Academic Reading tasks.
3. Practice using these General Training Reading texts.
4. Another bunch of Academic and General Training Reading and Listening tasks here