Listening Tips for IELTS

Instructions are played at the beginning of the test along with a sample question. After that, you can read section 1 questions, and listen to section 1 and answer them.

IELTS Listening section is for 40 minutes (30 min + 10 min)

• Four recordings (two conversational, two monologues).

• 40 questions total.

• You hear each recording once.

• Question types: multiple choice, matching, labeling diagrams, short answers, form completion.

• Timing: roughly 30 minutes listening + 10 minutes to transfer your answers to the answer sheet.

Key points to remember:

• Each section gets progressively harder.

• Each recording is played once—no second chances.

The IELTS Listening test contains 40 questions. Students need to answer the questions and for each correct answer, they are awarded one mark. Scores out of 40 are converted to the IELTS nine-band scale. Scores are reported in whole and half bands.

Absolute score of 9 bands in IELTS Listening exam is only possible if you have outstanding listening skills. For getting 9 grade in IELTS Listening - practice active listening techniques such as predicting answers and taking detailed notes. 

To get good score in IELTS Listening, you must know the test format very well. This is the main thing. You need to use good strategies to find correct answers. Check all the different question types. Before audio starts, always mark the keywords in the question paper. Then listen carefully for these words. Sometimes they will say synonyms (different words with same meaning), so be careful.

To get good marks in IELTS listening, you need to practice daily. You can hear English news, podcast, or people talking. Try to write notes when you listen and guess what they will say next. Also learn new English words from daily topics. If you do this daily, your listening score will go up slowly.

Avoid these kinds of things. If answer is "Monday" and you write "Mon", it is wrong. You must write full spelling. The computer or examiner will mark it as incorrect if you use short forms.

Listening is one of the scoring modules in IELTS if practiced wisely. There are various sources from where you can practice and score a higher band. Firstly, practice is a must. Books like IELTS official Cambridge series, Barron's IELTS Super back and many more. Listening to podcasts and watching movies, Watching English news, and talking in English regularly would improve the skills as well as your confidence till you reach the date of your exam.

IELTS is an international exam so you might hear a variety of different accents in the recording for the Listenibg module. You should have good practice for all the accents before you take the exam, because it might become a hindrance in getting a good band. Understanding different accents might become a challenge but it can be overcome by listening to different podcasts, watching movies and news. This would help in improving your listening skills for various accents.