4 tips on preparing for the IELTS Listening test

Hello, everybody.

Welcome to my first video

in a mini-series of IELTS test tips

that I’ve created alongside We Love IELTS,

Cambridge’s platform to help those that are preparing

for the IELTS test.

For those not familiar with the test, IELTS,

or the International English Language Testing System,

measures the language proficiency of people

who want to study or work

where English is used as a language of communication.

The test assesses your abilities in four key skills.

Listening, reading, writing and speaking.

And today, I’m giving you my four best tips

to achieve success in the IETS listening test.

But before we start,

just a reminder to say that if you’re new to the channel,

please don’t forget to click subscribe.

That way you’ll never miss out on any of our great videos.

So let’s begin by recapping

on what the listening paper consists of.

The listening test is the same

for both the academic and general training test.

There are four parts and a total of 40 questions.

The first two parts are set in social contexts,

while the other two are in academic contexts.

And you listen to each recording only once.

So that’s the structure of the listening paper.

Now, let’s get on to my tips.

My first tip is to expose yourself to a range of accents

in the build-up to test day.

The IELTS listening test features a range of accents,

including British,

Australian, New Zealand, American and Canadian,

so I always stress to my students

that it is absolutely vital

that they become as accustomed as possible to these accents.

You can do this in a variety of ways.

This could be listening to radio programmes and podcasts,

or watching television programmes from one

of the countries.

You could also search YouTube for further examples,

or you can use YouGlish to focus on how specific words

or phrases are said differently between British,

American and Australian accents.

Would you like to come over for dinner tomorrow night?

And you say, would you like to come for a walk?

We’re having a party tonight, would you like to come?

My second tip is to use audio scripts

when preparing for the test.

Okay, so let me start with an example, here.

So, my students will tell me, I did a listening practice,

and I say, that’s great.

They then say, I got 31 out of 40.

Great, I respond, 31 is a fantastic score.

But then, when I ask,

how did you get the other nine wrong,

they respond, I don’t know.

So my next question would be,

how can you ever improve if you don’t know

what you did wrong?

This is where using an audio script is important.

It allows you to both see the language

that caused you problems

and to become familiar with the style of the listening test.

And I always encourage my students to check

their answers using the audio script before looking

at the correct answers.

This means you’re able to self-correct,

which is always a good thing,

and get some extra reading practice.

My third tip is predicting answers.

For certain parts of the listening test,

you can try and predict the exact answers,

or you can predict the type of answer

that you’ll hear.

And you can do this

in the time you’re given before each listening starts.

You will hear a woman calling an insurance company

to report an accident.

First, you have some time to look at questions one to seven.

Of course,

while it is difficult to predict the exact answer,

doing this will also prepare your brain for the listening,

which is arguably more important.

Reading the questions and predicting answers means

that your knowledge of the topic is activated

and your brain becomes more ready to receive information

on that particular topic.

So when doing practice tests at home,

try to predict the answers as much as possible.

And finally, my last tip, keep calm on test day.

As I’ve mentioned before,

you only listen to each recording once,

which means you get one opportunity to select

an answer before moving on to the next question.

But this is where I see a lot of my students having problems.

When they realise they didn’t hear the answer,

they start to panic.

They check their answers,

listen again, check the answers again, listen again,

and just generally lose their calm.

My advice is keep calm, accept you did not hear it,

and continue on to the next question.

And then, you can just guess it at the end.

And of course,

remember you don’t lose marks for incorrect answers.

You don’t want to miss out on other answers and,

of course, other marks just

because you’re worrying about this one particular answer.

So again, when practising the test at home,

develop the habit of forgetting about answers you don’t know

and simply moving on to the next question.

Okay, let’s recap.

I really hope these tips help you when preparing

for your IELTS listening test.

Don’t forget, for more test tips and resources,

check out the We Love IELTS website.

The link is below the video.

And of course,

as mentioned before, if you’re new to the channel,

don’t forget to subscribe.

And finally, I’d also love to see your suggestions.

If you have any particular tips

or advice on how to prepare for the IELTS listening paper,

please comment below.

And I’ll see you next time for more IELTS test tips.

See you later.