50 percent of your listening score depends on one single question type the other 50 is determined
by three other types of questions do you wanna know which let me show you my strategy for these
questions and you'll be able to immediately apply what you learn in practice it's Asiya
let's get started [Music] there are four parts in IELTS listening each consists of 10 questions
I've checked tons of official practice tests and found out that in every one of them part one and
part 4 questions belong to a single question type feeling the blanks of missing words arguably this
is the most important type of questions because 20 out of 40 questions in your test are filling
the blanks how do they look in IELTS listening there may be two possible wordings write one
word and or a number for each answer or just write one word for each answer unlike in IELTS reading
in listening you're never required to look for two or three words the important question here
is what is actually one word can you answer a table no these are two words it should be just
table not the reverse just reverse don't include articles in your answers if an article is needed
to make the sentence grammatically correct it will be written in the question sentence how about a
little practice have a look at these questions with me first so number one create a cover for n
it kind of answer are you looking for well we know it's a noun beginning with the vowel sound
like an apple or an umbrella number two build the tallest you see the article the is already
there number three make a we're looking for a noun beginning with a consonant sound a table
a university now listen to the recording and find the answers hello children's engineering workshops
oh hello I wanted some information about the workshops in the school holidays sure I have
two daughters who are interested the younger ones Lydia she's four do you take children as young as
that yes our tiny Engineers Workshop is for four to five year olds what sorts of activities do they
do all sorts for example they work together to design a special cover that goes round an egg
so that when it's inside they can drop it from a height and it doesn't break well sometimes it does
break but that's part of the fun right and Lydia loves building things is there any opportunity
for her to do that well they have a competition to see who can make the highest tower you'd be
amazed how high they can go right but they're learning all the time as well as having fun for
example one thing they do is to design and build a car that's attached to a balloon and the force
of the air in that actually Powers the car and makes it Move Along they go really fast too okay
well all this sounds perfect the first answer is egg We're Not Gonna read the transcript together
but if you wanna read it go ahead and pause the video now the other answers are Tower and call
let's continue talking about the answer formats what if you have a currency on numbers
have a look at questions number two and nine in this task I've cut out questions from three to
eight if you're wondering where they are ready so can you give me an idea of how much this will cost
I've got about 360 photos I think we charge 195 pounds for 300 to 400 photos for the basic service
any other information I can give you uh a long little take we aim to get the copying done in 10
days fine right well I'll get the photos packed up in a box and post them off to you the answer
to question two is 195 pounds but you don't need to write down the currency if you look carefully
the sign of British pounds is already there right after the question number question number nine is
10 days our task allows us to write one word and or a number so we should include both 10 days
what about the dates have a look at this question the cottage is available for week beginning
have a listen and write down the answer my name's Tom some friends of ours rented Granary cottage
from you last year and they thought it was great so my wife and I are hoping to come in May for
a week what date did you have in mind the week beginning the 14th if possible I'll just check
I'm sorry Tom it's already booked that week it's free the week beginning the
28th though for Seven Nights in fact that's the only time you could have it in May oh
okay it's free the week beginning the 28th of May you only need to write down 28th I know you may
be thinking what if I just write 28 without the th honestly I haven't found an official
confirmation if this is acceptable there is only one correct answer provided so if you have a date
try to write it down with the th to be on the safe side next Spelling counts if you make a typo this
means your answer is incorrect on the good side both British and American spelling are acceptable
you may find answers like this to practice with a c is American and within s is British or color
and color with or without the you sometimes there are even two words movie and film
here the key sentences think up an idea for a five minute movie and then film it
although in the recording to film is a verb both answers are correct a movie is more American and
a film is British okay questions in part one are easy because they cover everyday
English topics how do you approach a more scientific monologue or lecture in part form
my first tip is carefully read the questions and highlight keywords when you see a task like
this pay attention to the title and subtitles they can tell you what it's all about they can
also help you navigate when you're listening to the recording you'll hear about the dodo bird
the history description and reasons for extinction or why disappeared notice that some points don't
contain any questions they are just following the recording and the main tip is try to predict
the answers this means you should look at each question and think about what you're looking for
for example the first point history 1507 Portuguese ships transporting What stopped
at the island any ideas all the next 1638 the Dutch established a what on the island we know
it's a noun beginning with a consonant what could they establish some keywords are repeated While
others are paraphrased looking at the first two questions what words will be repeated
well Portuguese ships we may hear ships from Portugal the Dutch you can't really change these
words so you hear them again and the years too conversely words like transporting or established
can be paraphrased easily right to transport is to carry to be loaded with to establish is to set up
to found to begin something now look at question 38 we're talking about dodo birds their sense of
enable them to find food what could it be you may even be able to guess the answer straight
away now go ahead pause the video and read the questions 31 to 38 carefully highlighting the
keywords and trying to predict the answers we'll skip the last two questions to save some time
ready to hear the recording answer questions 31 to 38. one of the most famous cases of Extinction is
that of a bird known as the dodo in fact there's even a saying in English As Dead As the dodo used
to refer to something which no longer exists but for many centuries the dodo was alive and well
although it could only be found in one place the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean
it was a very large bird about one meter tall and over the centuries it had lost
the ability to fly but it survived happily under the trees that covered the island
then in the year 1507 the first Portuguese ships stopped at the island the sailors were carrying
spices back to Europe and found the island a convenient stopping place where they could
stock up with food and water for the rest of the voyage but they didn't settle on Mauritius
however in 1638 the Dutch arrived and set up a colony there these first human inhabitants of the
island found the dodo birds a convenient source of meat although not everyone liked the taste
it's hard to get an accurate description of what the dodo actually looked like we do
have some written records from Sailors and a few pictures but we don't know how reliable these are
the best known picture is a Dutch painting in which the bird appears to be extremely fat
but this may not be accurate an Indian painting done at the same time shows a much thinner bird
although attempts were made to preserve the bodies of some of the birds no complete specimen survives
in the early 17th century four dried parts of a bird were known to exist of these three have
disappeared so only one example of soft tissue from the dodo survives a dodo head
Bones have also been found but there's only one complete skeleton in existence
this single dodo skeleton has recently been the subject of scientific research which suggests
that many of the earlier beliefs about dodos may have been incorrect for example early accounts
of the birds mention how slow and clumsy it was but scientists now believe the birds strong knee
joints Would Have Made It capable of movement which was not slow but actually quite fast
in fact one 17th century sailor wrote that he found the birds hard to catch
it's true that the dodo's small Wings wouldn't have allowed it to leave the ground
but the scientists suggest that these were probably employed for balance while going
over uneven ground another group of scientists carried out analysis of the dodo's skull they
found that the reports of the lack of intelligence of the dodo were not borne out by their research
which suggested the bird's brain was not small but average in size in fact in relation to its
body size it was similar to that of the pigeon which is known to be a highly intelligent bird
the researchers also found that the structure of the bird's skull suggested that one sense
which was particularly well developed was that of smell so the dodo may also have been
particularly good at locating ripe fruit and other food in the Island's thick vegetation
okay let's have a look at the answers so the first paragraph of the transcript is just an
introduction then the date 1507 the first Portuguese ship stopped at the island just
as we predicted these words were repeated they were caring or transporting spices that's what
we use in cooking and if you wanted spice as an uncountable noun it's correct too next they
didn't settle on Mauritius however again the year 1638 and the Dutch arrived and set up a colony
to set up is to establish actually if you answered a settlement this is correct too even though we
haven't heard the word settlement we've only heard the Portuguese didn't settle on Mauritius
nevertheless the meaning is the same and both answers are correct next the Dutch painting
so these words are repeated suggests the bird was fat 34 the soft tissue that survives is ahead 35.
the single dodo skeleton so that's the word from our question the answer is a bit further
though the bird's strong knee joints Would Have Made It capable of movement which was not slow
but actually quite fast the word capable is repeated and Rapid is replaced with fast 36.
dodo's small Wings wouldn't have allowed it to leave the ground this means the bird couldn't fly
they were used for balance or balancing both are correct 37 the bird's brain was not small but
average in size 38 have you guessed that this is the sense of smell that how dodos find food
so how many questions out of eight could you answer let me know in the comments of course it's
easier to predict some answers than others but for most of them you can go as far as to figure
out what kind of world you're looking for if only you had enough time and here is the next tip I
checked and in the test there was just enough time for me to read all the questions not to analyze
them however you get 30 seconds in the end of part three to review those senses I think it's better
to spend this time on reading questions from part four and if you include all the instruction time
you have almost two minutes you could spend on reading and analyzing questions from part four
if you're wondering if you are allowed to switch between different parts of the listening test yes
in both computer-based and paper-based IELTS you can switch between different parts at any
moment what have we learned so far half of your IELTS listening score depends on just
one type of question feeling the blanks Parts 1 and 4 consist of questions of this type only in
Parts two and three you can find three other types of questions these are multiple choice
questions and either a matching information task or a map I have separate lessons about
each of them all the videos are linked in the description but I would suggest starting with
multiple choice questions you can learn how to tackle them best and do some practice in this
video here thank you so much for watching me today good luck with your preparation and your exam bye