The four parts of the Listening test
The test has 40 questions in 4 parts and takes about 30 minutes. Each recording is played once.
- Part 1: a conversation between two people in an everyday situation, such as booking a room or registering for a course. Usually form or note completion.
- Part 2: one speaker in an everyday context, such as a tour guide or a radio announcement. Often a map or plan.
- Part 3: two or three speakers in an academic setting, such as students discussing an assignment with a tutor.
- Part 4: a lecture on an academic topic, usually with note completion.
On the computer-delivered test you get 2 minutes at the end to check answers. On paper, you get 10 minutes to transfer answers to the answer sheet. As a rough guide, about 30 correct out of 40 gives band 7.
IELTS Learning has 88 Listening practice sets covering all four parts, with forms, maps and plans, multiple choice, two- and three-speaker discussions and lectures.
Accents you will hear
Our recordings use British voices. The real test can include speakers with a range of accents, such as British, Australian, North American and others. Students in Kathmandu often grow up with English from films, YouTube and teachers with very different accents, so they adjust well, but Australian and Scottish vowels can still surprise first-time listeners.
To broaden your ear, mix our sets with podcasts, radio and lectures from different English-speaking countries.
Spelling and numbers: where easy marks disappear
Many students lose two or three marks a test here, which can be the difference between 6.5 and 7.
- Spelling counts. "Accommodation", "necessary", "environment" and "Wednesday" are common errors. Keep a personal list.
- Letter names. When a speaker spells a name, the letters that cause trouble are often E/I, G/J, A/R and V/W (especially if you merge V and W in your own speech).
- Numbers. Thirteen and thirty, fifteen and fifty: listen for the stress at the end of "thir-TEEN".
- Dates and times. Learn how British speakers say "the twenty-first of March" and "half past six".
- Plurals. If you hear "tickets", "ticket" is wrong.
- Word limits. "NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS" means three words is wrong, even if the meaning is right.
Map and plan questions
Maps unsettle a lot of students, partly because the vocabulary of direction is rarely practised. Before the audio starts:
- Find "You are here" or the entrance.
- Notice what is labelled already: roads, buildings, a car park.
- Prepare the language: opposite, next to, at the far end, on the left as you enter, diagonally across.
Practise by describing a route you know in English, such as walking from Ratnapark to New Road, or around Patan Durbar Square, using that vocabulary.
Answers come in question order
In almost every Listening section, the answers follow the order of the questions. If you miss question 14, do not stay there. Move your eyes to question 15, listen for it, and guess question 14 later. Students who freeze on one missed answer often lose the next three as well.
Use the reading time before each section to underline keywords and predict the type of answer: a name, a number, a place or a noun.
Practising with headphones in a noisy valley
Kathmandu is not quiet. Horns, construction, a neighbour's television, festival music in Tihar: all of these break concentration. That is actually good training, because a test room has its own small noises too, but you still need a fair chance to hear.
- Use over-ear headphones for full sections; earbuds are fine for vocabulary.
- Practise at a fixed time when your house is calmest.
- If your connection is patchy, wait until it is steady before starting a section, since a buffering recording is not a fair test.
- Never pause or replay during practice sections. Replay only afterwards, while you check answers.
Common errors and how to fix them
- Writing what you expect, not what you hear. Distractors often mention one answer and then correct it ("Tuesday, no, actually Thursday").
- Ignoring grammar in note completion. The gap must fit the sentence grammatically.
- Losing focus in Part 4. Lectures need stamina. Practise full Part 4 recordings regularly.
Your mistakes are saved in the Mistake Notebook so you can review them by question type. When regular sets feel comfortable, try the harder Charged sets for band 7+.
Register free to try a sample Listening set, and browse more practice tests when you are ready for more IELTS Listening practice.