The four parts
The Listening test has four parts, 40 questions and lasts about 30 minutes. You hear each recording once only.
- Part 1: a conversation between two people in an everyday situation, such as booking a course or reporting a lost item. Usually form or note completion: names, dates, phone numbers, addresses.
- Part 2: one speaker on an everyday topic, such as a tour guide or a radio announcement. Often includes a map or plan to label, or multiple choice.
- Part 3: a discussion between two or three speakers in an education setting, such as students talking about an assignment with a tutor. Opinions shift, and speakers agree and disagree.
- Part 4: a lecture by one speaker on an academic subject, with no break in the middle. Usually note or summary completion.
In the computer-delivered test you get 2 minutes at the end to check your answers. On paper you get 10 minutes to transfer answers to the answer sheet.
IELTS Learning has 88 Listening sets covering all four parts and every common task type, recorded with British voices.
Getting used to British and other accents
Kolkata students often grow up with a mix of Indian English, American films and series, and some British media. The IELTS recordings use a range of native-speaker accents, often British, and sometimes Australian, North American or others.
Common difficulties include:
- Dropped "r" sounds in British English: "water", "car" and "four" end without a clear "r".
- Connected speech: "want to" becomes "wanna", "next day" sounds like "nex day".
- Weak forms: small words like "to", "for" and "of" are said very quickly.
- Different words: "flat" for apartment, "car park" for parking lot, "timetable" for schedule, "postcode" for PIN code.
Our British-voiced recordings help you tune in, and listening daily to British podcasts or radio for 15 minutes builds that familiarity naturally.
Spelling and numbers: the easy marks you can lose
A correct answer spelled wrongly is marked wrong. So is an answer over the word limit.
- Letters spelled aloud: practise the alphabet in British English, especially "a/e/i", "g/j" and "double t". Many speakers mix up "e" and "i" when listening fast.
- Numbers: "fifteen" versus "fifty", and "thirteen" versus "thirty", differ in stress. Phone numbers may use "double five" or "oh" for zero.
- Dates and money: know how "the twenty-third of March" and "four pounds fifty" sound.
- Plurals: if the speaker says "tickets", write "tickets", not "ticket".
Map and plan questions
Many students find Part 2 maps hardest. Before the audio starts:
- Find "you are here" or the starting point.
- Note the compass and key features: the entrance, roads, a river or car park.
- Learn direction language: "opposite", "next to", "at the far end", "go past", "on your left as you enter", "in the north-east corner".
Follow the speaker with your finger or cursor. If you lose one label, look ahead to the next; answers follow the question order.
Answers follow the question order
In IELTS Listening, the answers come in the same order as the questions. Use this.
- Read ahead during pauses so you know what comes next.
- If you miss question 14, do not freeze. Move your attention to question 15 and guess 14 later.
- Listen for signposts: "Now, moving on to...", "The second thing to consider...".
Our sets follow this order exactly, as in the real test.
Practising in a noisy Kolkata day
Kolkata is a lively city to practise listening in: traffic horns on the bypass, conversations on a crowded local train, festival sound systems. That noise is a reason to practise properly, not an excuse.
- Always use headphones, ideally the closed kind that block outside sound. The computer-delivered test also uses headphones.
- Daily short practice: one part per day, around 8–10 minutes, fits a metro ride or a tea break.
- Weekly full test: all four parts in one sitting, no pausing, no replaying.
- Review with the transcript: after marking, listen again and spot exactly where you lost each answer.
For band 7 you typically need around 30 of 40 correct. Our Charged Listening sets, with faster speech and trickier distractors, help if you are aiming higher.
Try a free set
Try a free Listening set on our practice tests page, or register free to take the full sample mock. Full Access, ₹999 for 2 months, unlocks every Listening set including Charged practice.