What you just listened to is an example listening task that gives you
an idea of what to expect on the IELTS exam.
The IELTS exam is a globally recognized English language exam, which you can take if you need to
provide a certificate of your English proficiency when you go to a university in the UK, Australia,
Ireland, New Zealand, Canada and a number of institutions in The United States as well.
IELTS tests your listening, speaking, reading and writing. In this lesson we’ll focus on the
listening part. You can use this lesson to test your listening skills, whether
you’re planning on taking this exam or not. The IELTS listening test consists of four
recordings (or sections). Section #1 and #2 use everyday English,
while #3 and #4 use academic English. Sections #1 and #3 are a dialogue between two or more people,
and recordings #2 and #4 are monologues, meaning it’s just one person speaking.
From now on this video breaks down into three parts.
First you’ll listen to an audio recording that Ethan and I made that corresponds to section #1.
Then, we’ll learn more about the listening part of this test.
After that, we’ll move on to another recording, a monolog that corresponds to section #2.
If you give us some love by watching this video from beginning to end,
subscribing, liking and sharing it with a friend
we’ll make sure to do another lesson with sections #3 and #4. How does that sound?
In the exam you will have some time to look at the questions before you listen to the recording.
It’s important that you take advantage of this opportunity
and read the questions along with the options. This way you’ll be more prepared to anticipate
the answers as you listen to the recording. In this recording, I play a customer who’s
booking a coach ticket to London. Ethan plays the agent that is selling me this ticket.
Take a look at the 4 questions that you’ll answer while you’re listening to the recording.
We’ll keep these questions on screen for a few seconds,
but pause for as long as it’s necessary for you to read each question in detail.
Let's start with the recording.
Share your answers with us down in the comments. We’ll share the
correct answers in the pinned comment. What you just saw, is just a shortened
version of what you can expect in section #1. But, on the day of the test, you’ll take
30 minutes to do the listening tasks for the #4 sections and answer 40 questions.
Depending on how many of those 40 questions you get right, you'll get a band score from 1 to 9. A
test with between 26 to 30 answers right is going to be good enough for most institutions, although
a higher score might sometimes be required. Now, here’s a tip for preparing for the IELTS
listening test. Start preparing well before the test. Don’t make the typical mistake you’ve seen
at your school or university, where on the day before the exam everybody is revising,
learning, memorising in the hope that’ll give them a chance. That will not work in an exam like this.
You have to use the weeks or months before the exam to listen to as much English as possible.
If you haven’t checked them out already, or if you didn’t know, we have two podcasts, the RealLife
English podcast and Beyond Borders. Download The RealLife English app and listen to them there. You
could listen to them on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or any other podcast platform. However, if you listen
to them on our app, you also get transcripts, so that means that whenever you don’t understand
a word, you can check the transcription and in that way discover a new word, or clarify doubts
with your listening. You can click up here or the link down in the description to download it now.
Okay, let’s now move to the next recording, which, as I said earlier, corresponds to section #2 of
the IELTS listening test. You’ll hear me introduce an amusement park. But, first take a look at the
questions for this listening task. You can pause to look at each question along with its options.
That brings this video to the end. I hope you enjoyed it.
Remember to share your answers in the comments below and if you want to check the right answers,
you'll find them in the description below. If you want to continue on the topic of
international exams, watch this recent lesson we've made with Josh MacPherson.
Josh is an English teacher specializing in helping students prepare for the TOEFL exam
and Duolingo English test, two of the many proficiency exams used by universities and
other institutions in English-speaking countries.