Exam Guidelines for IELTS Listening
The IELTS exam has a part that checks the listening ability of the candidates. The candidate will have to pass the listening part, regardless of choosing the IELTS academic or the general test. The candidates can be made to hear phone conversations or lectures or anything in the listening passage. The passages can be of different accents, and the candidates need to listen to the passage and answer the questions in forty minutes. The detailed guidelines are provided are.
All the candidates have to appear for the IELTS listening exam irrespective of the general or academic IELTS tests. No specialist knowledge is required to pass the exam. There are four sections in this exam. The first and second sections are in a social context, and the third and fourth sections have academic context.
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The purpose of this IELTS listening exam is:
- understand main ideas
- follow logical arguments
- recognize opinions or attitudes
- find specific information (numbers, addresses)
Candidates need to be very accurate with their approach to this test, as they will have the chance to hear the recording only once and they will have to choose a correct answer.
Timing for IELTS Listening
The candidates will listen to the audio for thirty minutes, which will also include the time for reading the questions. At the end of these thirty minutes, more than ten minutes will be given to recheck and review the answers.
The candidates are given some time to read the question paper, before listening to the recording. Then while listening to the audio, the candidates can write the answers in the question paper. And in the last 10 minutes, they will copy the answers from the question paper to the answer sheet. They must assure that the right answer is written to the right question number. Check the answers before submitting the answer sheet. All these have to be done within 10 minutes after hearing the audio.
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Structure of IELTS Listening
The IELTS listening exam has four sections. Each one is more difficult than the previous one, that is, section 2 is tougher than section 1, and section 3 is tougher than section 2, and so on. Thus section 1 is the easiest of all and section 4 is the most difficult section. Each section consists of 10 questions. Therefore the total number of questions in these sections is 40.
Section 1:
This section is the easiest of all. It may have the audio of a conversation between two people. This will have a normal social setting. The candidates will have to listen for the person’s name, phone number, and address.
Section 2:
In this section, there will be a monologue, where only one person speaks, in a social setting giving details about services or facilities, or arrangements. Different types of questions can be expected in this section, and one very common type of question is filling in a table with correct information.
Section 3:
In this section, there will be academic content, where the audio can be of two or more people talking about things related to education such as college assessment, or post lecture-discussion. The maximum number of people involved in the audio will be four. The candidates need to keep a track of their opinion, attitudes, and will also have to keep a track of some factual information.
Section 4:
The last section of the IELTS Listening exam is the most difficult one, which has a monologue set in the academic context. This section is related to the previous section, that is section 3. Here, the audio will be informative on a set of IELTS Listening topics. There is no need to have detailed knowledge about the topic in advance. The candidate will have to note the factual information and identify the attitudes and opinions, to get the answers correct.
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Question Type in IELTS Listening
The IELTS listening exam is quite predictable, as the question pattern does not change much. There is a limited number of question types.
- Multiple Choice
The Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) is a very common type of question. There are several options of possible answers given for each question. The candidate must choose the most appropriate one for the question among the given options.
- Label a Map, Diagram and More
In this type of question, the candidates must listen to the verbal description very attentively so that he/they can associate it with the visual representation. This required the ability to follow instructions and directions or determine spatial relationships. These types of questions include form table summary completions, etc.
- Short Answers
This type of question is found to be difficult by some of the students, as they are required to find the words, appropriate for the questions, from the audio. The candidates will be given a certain word count limit for the short answer-type questions. They need to follow that, and cannot exceed the limit.
Marking Criteria
In the IELTS Listening Exam, every answer has 1 mark each. So the candidates are awarded 1 mark for a correct answer. The total score obtained by the candidates will be converted to a band score between 0-9. One can calculate the band score from the total number of the correct answer. In order to get the idea of IELTS band score, practice plenty of IELTS listening, under exam conditions.
All the aspirants of IELTS must practice plenty of IELTS papers because the only practice can make one clear the exam at one go. There is a need to be accustomed to hearing English with the techniques of the exams. They must practice the hearing of both monologs and conversations of 2 or more people, and also the conversation of educational content. They must also practice the methods of identifying the attitudes and opinions of the speaker/s. It is advisable to get used to the format followed by the IELTS exam, and on the final day of the examination, it is very important to read the instructions minutely before starting your exam. One should try and avoid making silly mistakes.
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