IELTS Listening Tips and Useful Phrases

IELTS Listening tips and useful phrases

Cross out the false/ bad tips below, leaving true/ debatable/ it depends ones as they are.

On the day of the exam

1. Do an IELTS Listening practice exam in the morning before the exam.
2. Listen again to an exam listening that you have done before on the way to the test, e.g. on your mp3 player on the train on the way to the exam.
3. Learn some vocabulary that you have got from previous listenings on the way to the test.
4. On the way to the test, have some English on in the background such as English music or music radio with an English-speaking DJ without concentrating on it, just to attune your ear to English/ turn on your “English brain”.

 

Before the tasks start

5. Although they are the same in each exam, you should listen carefully to the instructions before you are allowed to open the paper (just to get used to listening carefully to English and because there is nothing else you can do at that time anyway).
6. When you are allowed to open your paper, first underline important words in the instructions such as how many words and numbers can go in each gap.
7. “Up to two words or a number” in the instructions means “more than 20” is okay as an answer.
8. “Up to two words and/ or a number” means “more than 20” is okay as an answer.
9. When you are allowed to open your paper, read as far ahead as you can in the paper before the first listening task starts, e.g. up to question 20.
10. Listen carefully for how many questions you will be tested on in the next extract and just read those questions, underlining key words.
11. The most important key words are those which might be different between what is said in the text and the question (“slowly” in “work slowly” because the speaker might say “work at a reasonable speed”, etc)
12. If you still have time before the recording starts, starting reading the instructions for the following recording.
13. If you still have time before the recording starts and it is a task with gaps, try to guess what kind of word or number could go in each gap.
14. You can usually guess what kind of word (noun, verb, adjective, adverb) or number (date, price, large number, etc).
15. You can often guess something more specific about the word or number that goes in the gap (that the date is between May and July, that the day is at the weekend, that the price if fairly low, etc)
16. You can sometimes guess exactly what goes in a gap from your knowledge of the subject, especially if it is your specialist area.
17. You can sometimes guess which multiple choice option (A, B, C or D) is correct, for example if you have visited the city which is being talked about.
18. You should usually have some idea about which multiple choice option is most likely before listening.
19. There is sometimes one multiple choice option which you can eliminate before listening.
20. If you still have time before the recording starts, think about how the key words might be rephrased (= said in other word) in the recording.
21. It’s worth listening carefully to the one example answer to get used to the voices/ accents that you will hear in the rest of the first listening.

While listening

22. There is usually a long introduction before the answer to the first question is said, during which you should listen carefully for the answer to the first question.
23. You should keep the first two or three questions in mind when you listen to the long introduction, in case you miss the answer to the first question.
24. The answers could come in any order, so you need to keep all the answers in mind all the time.
25. The answers are always in the same order as the questions on the question sheet.
26. You should just listen for the information without writing anything, then fill in the answers from memory in the time that is given to check your answers.
27. Make notes of everything you understand while you are listening.
28. With multiple choice questions you can always eliminate the other two options, because things contradicting those two things are always said in the recording.
29. With multiple choice questions you can often eliminate the other two options but sometimes the thing in one option will just not be mentioned.
30. If you have eliminated one option but have no idea which of the two remaining options is correct, you can just guess later when you have extra time to check your answers.
31. If you have eliminated one option but have no idea which of the two remaining options is correct, guess quickly while listening for the next answer, because your instinct is more likely to be correct at that time than later on.
32. For questions with gaps, you can fill the gaps with words from the listening, without the need to make any changes.
33. You sometimes need to change the grammar etc of the words in the listening to match the gaps on the question sheet.
34. If you write a word which isn’t in the listening but which has exactly the same meaning and fits the gap, you still get one point.
35. The words before and after the gap are almost always different in the actual listening, so you need to listen out for synonyms (“most of” for “the majority of”, “fees” for “cost”, “hand out” for “give out”, “a range of” for “a variety of”, “… for beginners” for “an Introduction to…”, “finding information” for “research”, “online” for “on the Internet”, “to split off” for “to separate”, “shorter” for “not as long as”, “not many” for “few”, “a danger” for “a threat”, “is made up of” for “consists of”), opposites (“descendants” for “ancestors”) or examples.
36. If you hear a word that is written in the questions, it is always a trick and so you can ignore it.
37. If you hear a word that is written in the questions, it is often a trick and so you need to listen very carefully to see if it is part of the right answer or not.
38. There are often phrases to warn you that dictation such as spelling names is coming (“Have you got a pen?”, “Just let me write it down”, “Can you spell that for me?”, “Not like the animal but with a Y. I mean…”, etc)
39. There are often phrases that show that the next thing that is going to be said won’t be the right answer (“It used to be the case that…”, “It is/ was commonly thought that…”, “It is a common misconception that…”, “…was/ were going to…”, “…was/ were planning to…”, “…was/ were thinking about…”, “….had arranged…”, “At first,…”, “We were supposed to…”, “We should have….”, “…claims…”, “To start with,…”, “Rather than…,…”, “Instead of…”, “My initial impression was…”, “Theoretically,…”, “In principle,…”, “In theory,…”, “Although we said…”, “The original plan was…”, etc)
40. There are often phrases that show that the last thing that was said wasn’t the right answer.(“…but in actual fact….”, “In reality,…”, “Actually,…”, “I meant to say…”, “My mistake”, “Sorry, I mean…”, “However,…”, “but…”, etc)
41. There are often phrases that show that the next thing that will be said will be the right answer (“Despite initial doubts,…”, “It is well known that…”, “There is general consensus that…”, “It is universally agreed that…”, “As you probably know”, “As you might be aware”, “There’s absolutely no doubt that…”, “As expected,…”, “As usual,…”, “As we agreed,…”, “I agree with…”, etc)
42. There are often phrases which show that the last thing that was said was the right answer (“And that is the case”, “And that is indeed so,…”, “…, which is what we decided”, “I hope that answers your question”, “So that’s what we decided to do”, “So that is what we settled on”, “…,which is correct”, “Let me (just) check. Yes, that’s right”, “and I agree”, “which is also my view”, “and it continues to…”, “and that remains the case”, “and that is still the situation”), etc)
43. You can listen to some extracts twice.
44. If you have some idea of what the answer might be, write something down while you listen for the next answer, because otherwise you will probably forget the answer before you next have a chance to write it down.
45. Don’t necessarily panic or give up if you think you missed an answer, as there is sometimes something after the answer that helps reinforce it (saying “Yes, on the top floor” after the answer “an apartment”, etc)
46. There is often a word or phrase to show that the topic is changing or that they are getting down to business which can warn you that you need to listen for the next answer (“So”, “Okay”, “Moving onto…”, “Turning to…”, “Right”, “Now, let’s talk about…”, “If we’ve finished that topic,…”, etc)

After listening to each extract

47. You aren’t allowed to turn the page and look at the next extract until they tell you to.
48. If you have answered all the questions in that section but the recording isn’t finished, quickly move onto reading the instructions and questions for the next extract (before they tell you to move on/ turn over the page).
49. Before you move onto the next task, quickly write something in each gap, maybe with a question mark if you aren’t sure that you got (exactly) the right answer.
50. Make sure all spelling and grammar is correct before you go onto the next page

Transferring your answers to the separate answer sheet

51. Use pen
52. Numbers can be written as words or as figures, but the latter is usually easier to do without making a mistake.
53. Units can be written as full words or as abbreviations or symbols, but you will get no point if you spell the full word wrong or if you use a symbol or abbreviation which is incorrect in English (using “centi” X instead of “cm” for “centimetre”, using “gr” X instead of “g” for “gram”, etc)
54. Any spelling, punctuation or grammar mistake means no point.
55. Write countries, nationalities, languages, months, days of the week etc with capital letters (“England”, “British”, “English”, “January”, “Monday”, etc)
56. Write proper nouns such as towns, names of streets, names of buildings, and names of works of art with capital letters (“Bristol”, “Oxford Street”, “The Empire State Building”, “The Tower of London”, “Sunflowers”, etc)
57. Make sure you include hyphens if they are needed (“door-to-door”, “brother-in-law”, “do-it-yourself”, “X-ray”, etc)
58. Some other compound nouns always need to be written as one word with no hyphen and no gap (“seafood”, “waterfall”, etc)
59. Other compound nouns, especially longer and more unusual ones, are written like two words with a gap and no hyphen (“car park”, “media room”, “sports centre”)
60. You should only add extra information if you are sure it’s correct, because wrong extra information leads to no mark. However, missing important information also leads to no mark, so putting extra words which you aren’t sure about in your answer or not is sometimes a bit of a gamble!
61. You lose one mark for each wrong answer, so if you aren’t sure it is better to leave a gap.
62. If the extra time after you’ve transferred all your answers, write something (anything!) for all the questions that you skipped.
63. If you have still extra time after you’ve transferred all your answers, check all your spelling and punctuation.
64. If you still have extra time after you’ve transferred all your answers, double check that all the words in the gaps fit grammatically, match the instructions (= aren’t too long), and make sense.
65. Only change your answers if you are absolutely sure they are wrong, because otherwise you are more likely to change a right answer to a wrong one than to change a right one to a wrong one.

Preparation for the IELTS listening test (at home)

66. The best preparation for the test is listening to lots of lectures such as TED.com.
67. Listening to the news is good preparation for the IELTS Listening test.
68. It is worth buying a specific books on IELTS Listening if this is your weakest paper.
69. The best preparation for the listening test is lots of IELTS exam practice listening tests.
70. When doing practice tests at home, always the tests all the way through without stopping, including transferring your answers to the separate answer sheet within the time given.
71. When doing practice tests at home, listen again to double check all your answers before checking with the answer key, including replaying tricky bits several times if you need to.
72. Before checking with the answer key, read the transcript to start checking your answers from there.
73. When you check your answers, make sure you understand why every other answer isn’t possible.
74. After checking your answers, read the transcript to check that you understand why anything else is wrong and to learn any words which you don’t know or don’t know how to pronounce.
75. After reading the transcript again, read and listen at the same time to get used to how the answers were pronounced in context.
76. Play and particularly tricky sections over and over until you can repeat them at the same speed and with the same pronunciation and rhythm as the recording, perhaps as “shadow reading” (= reading, listening and speaking all at the same time, trying to match the recording exactly).
77. Although it probably won’t help with your actual speaking, it’s worth practising pronouncing the differences between the answers in the test and similar-sounding words (“secondary” vs “secondly” vs “secondarily”, “curved” vs “carved”, “code” vs “cord”, etc) to help with your listening.
78. Then try shadow reading the whole listening test, or at least one full recording.
79. After learning all the vocabulary in a listening test (including its pronunciation), listen a few more times to the same recordings for revision purposes, e.g. once the next day, once the next week and once the next month on your mp3 player as you walk to the station.
80. You probably only need one book of practice exams, because you can just listen to the same listenings over and over again.
81. Don’t listen to the same listenings too many times, because then you will get too used to understanding every word and will be shocked the next time you do a new IELTS for the first time.
82. There is usually at least one Australian accent in the listening, so it’s worth getting used to them with Australian movies and radio (ABC Radio National podcasts etc).
83. All the other accents are British.
84. It can be useful to learn vocabulary that is likely to come up in the academic settings of the exam (“seminar”, “students’ union”, “PhD”, etc)
85. If you’re only familiar with American English, it can help to study British and American vocabulary differences (“cinema” for “movie theatre”, “mobile” for “cell phone”, “car park” for “parking lot”, “flat” for “apartment”, “return ticket” for “round-trip ticket”, “city centre/ town centre” for “downtown”, “rubbish” for “garbage/ trash”, etc)
86. Education vocabulary that is different in British and American English (“primary school” for “elementary school”, “secondary school” for “junior high school”, “fresher/ first year student” for “freshman”, “second year student” for “sophomore”, “maths” for “math”, “lecturers” for “professors”, “halls of residence” for “student dorm”, “term” for “semester”, “revise” for “review”, etc) is very likely to come up because the conversations often take place in an educational setting such as universities.
87. If you are particularly bad at spelling, it can be worth studying common spelling mistakes in English, or common spelling mistakes in IELTS (“bachelor” instead of “batchelor”, “environment” not “enviroment”, “questionnaire” not “questionaire”, “technical” not “tecknical”, “definitely” not “definately", “opportunity” not “oppotunity", “necessary” not “necesary", “occasion” not “ocasion", “success” not “succes", “independent” not “independant", “equipment” not “equiptment” etc).
88. Make sure you know how to pronounce numbers such as dates and times in English, including different ways of saying the same numbers (“the seventh of September”/ “September seventeen”, “twenty ten”/ “two thousand ten”/ “two thousand and ten”, “four p.m.”/ “four o’clock in the afternoon”/ “sixteen hundred hours”, “noon”/ “midday”/ “twelve p.m.”/ “twelve o’clock in the afternoon”, “seven forty five”/ “quarter to eight”/ “a quarter to eight”, “a half”/ “zero point five”/ “nought point five”, “one billion seven hundred million”/ “one point seven billion”, “a hundred fifteen”/ “one hundred and fifteen”, etc).
89. Make sure you know how to pronounce the alphabet including letters which sound similar to each other so that you can understand dictated spellings (“double” vs “W”, “double U” vs “W”, “B” vs “V”, “G” vs “Z”, “M” vs“N”, etc).
90. It’s worth learning symbols and abbreviations for units of money and measurements to avoid spelling and grammar mistakes in the exam, e.g. the symbols and abbreviations for kilometres, millimetres, kilogrammes, grams, litres, dollars, Euros, pounds (km, mm, kg, g, l, $, etc).

Check your answers with the answer key or as a class.

Ask about any tips or language which you don’t understand or aren’t sure about.

 

Suggested answers

Bold means not a good idea.

On the day of the exam

1. Do an IELTS Listening practice exam in the morning before the exam.
2. Listen again to an exam listening that you have done before on the way to the test, e.g. on your mp3 player on the train on the way to the exam.
3. Learn some vocabulary that you have got from previous listenings on the way to the test.
4. On the way to the test, have some English on in the background such as English music or music radio with an English-speaking DJ without concentrating on it, just to attune your ear to English/ turn on your “English brain”.

Before the tasks start

5. Although they are the same in each exam, you should listen carefully to the instructions before you are allowed to open the paper (just to get used to listening carefully to English and because there is nothing else you can do at that time anyway).
6. When you are allowed to open your paper, first underline important words in the instructions such as how many words and numbers can go in each gap.
7. “Up to two words or a number” in the instructions means “more than 20” is okay as an answer.
8. “Up to two words and/ or a number” means “more than 20” is okay as an answer.
9. When you are allowed to open your paper, read as far ahead as you can in the paper before the first listening task starts, e.g. up to question 20.
10. Listen carefully for how many questions you will be tested on in the next extract and just read those questions, underlining key words.
11. The most important key words are those which might be different between what is said in the text and the question (“slowly” in “work slowly” because the speaker might say “work at a reasonable speed”, etc)
12. If you still have time before the recording starts, starting reading the instructions for the following recording.
13. If you still have time before the recording starts and it is a task with gaps, try to guess what kind of word or number could go in each gap.
14. You can usually guess what kind of word (noun, verb, adjective, adverb) or number (date, price, large number, etc).
15. You can often guess something more specific about the word or number that goes in the gap (that the date is between May and July, that the day is at the weekend, that the price if fairly low, etc)
16. You can sometimes guess exactly what goes in a gap from your knowledge of the subject, especially if it is your specialist area.
17. You can sometimes guess which multiple choice option (A, B, C or D) is correct, for example if you have visited the city which is being talked about.
18. You should usually have some idea about which multiple choice option is most likely before listening.
19. There is sometimes one multiple choice option which you can eliminate before listening.
20. If you still have time before the recording starts, think about how the key words might be rephrased (= said in other word) in the recording.
21. It’s worth listening carefully to the one example answer to get used to the voices/ accents that you will hear in the rest of the first listening.

While listening

22. There is usually a long introduction before the answer to the first question is said, during which you should listen carefully for the answer to the first question.
23. You should keep the first two or three questions in mind when you listen to the long introduction, in case you miss the answer to the first question.
24. The answers could come in any order, so you need to keep all the answers in mind all the time.
25. The answers are always in the same order as the questions on the question sheet.
26. You should just listen for the information without writing anything, then fill in the answers from memory in the time that is given to check your answers.
27. Make notes of everything you understand while you are listening.
28. With multiple choice questions you can always eliminate the other two options, because things contradicting those two things are always said in the recording.
29. With multiple choice questions you can often eliminate the other two options but sometimes the thing in one option will just not be mentioned.
30. If you have eliminated one option but have no idea which of the two remaining options is correct, you can just guess later when you have extra time to check your answers.
31. If you have eliminated one option but have no idea which of the two remaining options is correct, guess quickly while listening for the next answer, because your instinct is more likely to be correct at that time than later on.
32. For questions with gaps, you can fill the gaps with words from the listening, without the need to make any changes.
33. You sometimes need to change the grammar etc of the words in the listening to match the gaps on the question sheet.
34. If you write a word which isn’t in the listening but which has exactly the same meaning and fits the gap, you still get one point.
35. The words before and after the gap are almost always different in the actual listening, so you need to listen out for synonyms (“most of” for “the majority of”, “fees” for “cost”, “hand out” for “give out”, “a range of” for “a variety of”, “… for beginners” for “an Introduction to…”, “finding information” for “research”, “online” for “on the Internet”, “to split off” for “to separate”, “shorter” for “not as long as”, “not many” for “few”, “a danger” for “a threat”, “is made up of” for “consists of”), opposites (“descendants” for “ancestors”) or examples.
36. If you hear a word that is written in the questions, it is always a trick and so you can ignore it.
37. If you hear a word that is written in the questions, it is often a trick and so you need to listen very carefully to see if it is part of the right answer or not.
38. There are often phrases to warn you that dictation such as spelling names is coming (“Have you got a pen?”, “Just let me write it down”, “Can you spell that for me?”, “Not like the animal but with a Y. I mean…”, etc)
39. There are often phrases that show that the next thing that is going to be said won’t be the right answer (“It used to be the case that…”, “It is/ was commonly thought that…”, “It is a common misconception that…”, “…was/ were going to…”, “…was/ were planning to…”, “…was/ were thinking about…”, “….had arranged…”, “At first,…”, “We were supposed to…”, “We should have….”, “…claims…”, “To start with,…”, “Rather than…,…”, “Instead of…”, “My initial impression was…”, “Theoretically,…”, “In principle,…”, “In theory,…”, “Although we said…”, “The original plan was…”, etc)
40. There are often phrases that show that the last thing that was said wasn’t the right answer.(“…but in actual fact….”, “In reality,…”, “Actually,…”, “I meant to say…”, “My mistake”, “Sorry, I mean…”, “However,…”, “but…”, etc)
41. There are often phrases that show that the next thing that will be said will be the right answer (“Despite initial doubts,…”, “It is well known that…”, “There is general consensus that…”, “It is universally agreed that…”, “As you probably know”, “As you might be aware”, “There’s absolutely no doubt that…”, “As expected,…”, “As usual,…”, “As we agreed,…”, “I agree with…”, etc)
42. There are often phrases which show that the last thing that was said was the right answer (“And that is the case”, “And that is indeed so,…”, “…, which is what we decided”, “I hope that answers your question”, “So that’s what we decided to do”, “So that is what we settled on”, “…,which is correct”, “Let me (just) check. Yes, that’s right”, “and I agree”, “which is also my view”, “and it continues to…”, “and that remains the case”, “and that is still the situation”), etc)
43. You can listen to some extracts twice.
44. If you have some idea of what the answer might be, write something down while you listen for the next answer, because otherwise you will probably forget the answer before you next have a chance to write it down.
45. Don’t necessarily panic or give up if you think you missed an answer, as there is sometimes something after the answer that helps reinforce it (saying “Yes, on the top floor” after the answer “an apartment”, etc)
46. There is often a word or phrase to show that the topic is changing or that they are getting down to business which can warn you that you need to listen for the next answer (“So”, “Okay”, “Moving onto…”, “Turning to…”, “Right”, “Now, let’s talk about…”, “If we’ve finished that topic,…”, etc)

After listening to each extract

47. You aren’t allowed to turn the page and look at the next extract until they tell you to.
48. If you have answered all the questions in that section but the recording isn’t finished, quickly move onto reading the instructions and questions for the next extract (before they tell you to move on/ turn over the page).
49. Before you move onto the next task, quickly write something in each gap, maybe with a question mark if you aren’t sure that you got (exactly) the right answer.
50. Make sure all spelling and grammar is correct before you go onto the next page.

Transferring your answers to the separate answer sheet

51. Use pen
52. Numbers can be written as words or as figures, but the latter is usually easier to do without making a mistake.
53. Units can be written as full words or as abbreviations or symbols, but you will get no point if you spell the full word wrong or if you use a symbol or abbreviation which is incorrect in English (using “centi” X instead of “cm” for “centimetre”, using “gr” X instead of “g” for “gram”, etc)
54. Any spelling, punctuation or grammar mistake means no point.
55. Write countries, nationalities, languages, months, days of the week etc with capital letters (“England”, “British”, “English”, “January”, “Monday”, etc)
56. Write proper nouns such as towns, names of streets, names of buildings, and names of works of art with capital letters (“Bristol”, “Oxford Street”, “The Empire State Building”, “The Tower of London”, “Sunflowers”, etc)
57. Make sure you include hyphens if they are needed (“door-to-door”, “brother-in-law”, “do-it-yourself”, “X-ray”, etc)
58. Some other compound nouns always need to be written as one word with no hyphen and no gap (“seafood”, “waterfall”, etc)
59. Other compound nouns, especially longer and more unusual ones, are written like two words with a gap and no hyphen (“car park”, “media room”, “sports centre”)
60. You should only add extra information if you are sure it’s correct, because wrong extra information leads to no mark. However, missing important information also leads to no mark, so putting extra words which you aren’t sure about in your answer or not is sometimes a bit of a gamble!
61. You lose one mark for each wrong answer, so if you aren’t sure it is better to leave a gap.
62. If the extra time after you’ve transferred all your answers, write something (anything!) for all the questions that you skipped.
63. If you have still extra time after you’ve transferred all your answers, check all your spelling and punctuation.
64. If you still have extra time after you’ve transferred all your answers, double check that all the words in the gaps fit grammatically, match the instructions (= aren’t too long), and make sense.
65. Only change your answers if you are absolutely sure they are wrong, because otherwise you are more likely to change a right answer to a wrong one than to change a right one to a wrong one.

Preparation for the IELTS listening test (at home)

66. The best preparation for the test is listening to lots of lectures such as TED.com.
67. Listening to the news is good preparation for the IELTS Listening test.
68. It is worth buying a specific books on IELTS Listening if this is your weakest paper.
69. The best preparation for the listening test is lots of IELTS exam practice listening tests.
70. When doing practice tests at home, always the tests all the way through without stopping, including transferring your answers to the separate answer sheet within the time given.
71. When doing practice tests at home, listen again to double check all your answers before checking with the answer key, including replaying tricky bits several times if you need to.
72. Before checking with the answer key, read the transcript to start checking your answers from there.
73. When you check your answers, make sure you understand why every other answer isn’t possible.
74. After checking your answers, read the transcript to check that you understand why anything else is wrong and to learn any words which you don’t know or don’t know how to pronounce.
75. After reading the transcript again, read and listen at the same time to get used to how the answers were pronounced in context.
76. Play and particularly tricky sections over and over until you can repeat them at the same speed and with the same pronunciation and rhythm as the recording, perhaps as “shadow reading” (= reading, listening and speaking all at the same time, trying to match the recording exactly).
77. Although it probably won’t help with your actual speaking, it’s worth practising pronouncing the differences between the answers in the test and similar-sounding words (“secondary” vs “secondly” vs “secondarily”, “curved” vs “carved”, “code” vs “cord”, etc) to help with your listening.
78. Then try shadow reading the whole listening test, or at least one full recording.
79. After learning all the vocabulary in a listening test (including its pronunciation), listen a few more times to the same recordings for revision purposes, e.g. once the next day, once the next week and once the next month on your mp3 player as you walk to the station.
80. You probably only need one book of practice exams, because you can just listen to the same listenings over and over again.
81. Don’t listen to the same listenings too many times, because then you will get too used to understanding every word and will be shocked the next time you do a new IELTS for the first time.
82. There is usually at least one Australian accent in the listening, so it’s worth getting used to them with Australian movies and radio (ABC Radio National podcasts etc).
83. All the other accents are British.
84. It can be useful to learn vocabulary that is likely to come up in the academic settings of the exam (“seminar”, “students’ union”, “PhD”, etc)
85. If you’re only familiar with American English, it can help to study British and American vocabulary differences (“cinema” for “movie theatre”, “mobile” for “cell phone”, “car park” for “parking lot”, “flat” for “apartment”, “return ticket” for “round-trip ticket”, “city centre/ town centre” for “downtown”, “rubbish” for “garbage/ trash”, etc)
86. Education vocabulary that is different in British and American English (“primary school” for “elementary school”, “secondary school” for “junior high school”, “fresher/ first year student” for “freshman”, “second year student” for “sophomore”, “maths” for “math”, “lecturers” for “professors”, “halls of residence” for “student dorm”, “term” for “semester”, “revise” for “review”, etc) is very likely to come up because the conversations often take place in an educational setting such as universities.
87. If you are particularly bad at spelling, it can be worth studying common spelling mistakes in English, or common spelling mistakes in IELTS (“bachelor” instead of “batchelor”, “environment” not “enviroment”, “questionnaire” not “questionaire”, “technical” not “tecknical”, “definitely” not “definately", “opportunity” not “oppotunity", “necessary” not “necesary", “occasion” not “ocasion", “success” not “succes", “independent” not “independant", “equipment” not “equiptment” etc).
88. Make sure you know how to pronounce numbers such as dates and times in English, including different ways of saying the same numbers (“the seventh of September”/ “September seventeen”, “twenty ten”/ “two thousand ten”/ “two thousand and ten”, “four p.m.”/ “four o’clock in the afternoon”/ “sixteen hundred hours”, “noon”/ “midday”/ “twelve p.m.”/ “twelve o’clock in the afternoon”, “seven forty five”/ “quarter to eight”/ “a quarter to eight”, “a half”/ “zero point five”/ “nought point five”, “one billion seven hundred million”/ “one point seven billion”, “a hundred fifteen”/ “one hundred and fifteen”, etc).
89. Make sure you know how to pronounce the alphabet including letters which sound similar to each other so that you can understand dictated spellings (“double” vs “W”, “double U” vs “W”, “B” vs “V”, “G” vs “Z”, “M” vs“N”, etc).
90. It’s worth learning symbols and abbreviations for units of money and measurements to avoid spelling and grammar mistakes in the exam, e.g. the symbols and abbreviations for kilometres, millimetres, kilogrammes, grams, litres, dollars, Euros, pounds (km, mm, kg, g, l, $, etc).

 

Brainstorming stage

Without looking above for now, brainstorm examples of the good tips below into the gaps given.

While listening

The words before and after the gap are almost always different in the actual listening, so you need to listen out for synonyms (“_______________” for “the majority of”, “________________” for “cost”, “______________” for “give out”, “________________” for “a variety of”, “________________” for “an Introduction to…”, “_______________” for “research”, “________________” for “on the Internet”, “__________________” for “to separate”, “________________” for “not as long as”, “________________” for “few”, “______________” for “a threat”, “______________” for “consists of”), opposites (“________________” for “ancestors”) or examples.

 

There are often phrases to warn you that dictation such as spelling names is coming (___________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________)

 

There are often phrases that show that the next thing that is going to be said won’t be the right answer (_______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________)

 

There are often phrases that show that the last thing that was said wasn’t the right answer.(______________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________)

 

There are often phrases that show that the next thing that will be said will be the right answer (____________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________)

 

There are often phrases which show that the last thing that was said was the right answer (______________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________)

 

There is often a word or phrase to show that the topic is changing or that they are getting down to business which can warn you that you need to listen for the next answer) ____________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________)

 

Transferring your answers to the separate answer sheet 

Units can be written as full words or as abbreviations or symbols, but you will get no point if you spell the full word wrong or if you use a symbol or abbreviation which is incorrect in English (using “centi” X instead of “______________” for “centimetre”, using “gr” X instead of “_____________________” for “gram”, etc)

 

Write countries, nationalities, languages, months, days of the week etc with capital letters (______________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________)

 

Write proper nouns such as towns, names of streets, names of buildings, and names of works of art with capital letters (__________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________)

 

Make sure you include hyphens if they are needed (__________________________

____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________)

 

Some other compound nouns always need to be written as one word with no hyphen and no gap (_________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________)

 

Other compound nouns, especially longer and more unusual ones, are written like two words with a gap and no hyphen (______________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________)

 

Preparation for the IELTS listening test

It can be useful to learn vocabulary that is likely to come up in the academic settings of the exam (__________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________)

 

If you’re only familiar with American English, it can help to study British and American vocabulary differences (“________________” for “movie theatre”, “_______________” for “cell phone”, “_______________” for “parking lot”, “_____________” for “apartment”, “___________________” for “round-trip ticket”, “___________________” for “downtown”, “______________________” for “garbage/ trash”, etc)

 

Education vocabulary that is different in British and American English (“____________________”for “elementary school”, “__________________________” for “junior high school”, “____________________” for “freshman”, “______________________” for “sophomore”, “________________” for “math”, “____________________” for “professors”, “_____________________” for “student dorm”, “__________________” for “semester”, “_____________________” for “review”, etc) is very likely to come up because the conversations often take place in an educational setting such as universities.

 

If you are particularly bad at spelling, it can be worth studying common spelling mistakes in English, or common spelling mistakes in IELTS (“_______________” instead of “batchelor”, “_________________” not “enviroment”, “__________________” not “questionaire”, “___________________” not “tecknical”, “________________” not “definately", “______________________” not “oppotunity", “_______________” not “necesary", “_______________” not “ocasion", “________” not “succes", “__________________” not “independant", “______________” not “equiptment” etc).

 

Make sure you know how to pronounce numbers such as dates and times in English, including different ways of saying the same numbers (“____________________”/ “September seventeen”, “_________________”/ “two thousand ten”/ “two thousand and ten”, “four p.m.”/ “_______________________”/ “sixteen hundred hours”, “noon”/ “midday”/ “_______________________”/ “twelve o’clock in the afternoon”, “__________________”/ “quarter to eight”/ “a quarter to eight”, “a half”/ “zero point five”/ “__________________”, “one billion seven hundred million”/ “___________________”, “a hundred fifteen”/ “________________________”, etc).