IELTS Listening practice: how to follow all four parts

How the four parts fit together

When you do IELTS Listening practice, the order of the questions matters more than how many there are. According to ielts.org, 'the questions are in the same order as the information in the recording', so the answer to question 1 always comes before the answer to question 2. That rule is what lets you recover when you lose your place, and most of the method in this guide builds on it.

The format is simple. The paper has four parts with 10 questions in each, 40 in total, and the British Council says each correct answer earns 1 mark. You hear two conversations and two monologues, each played once only. IELTS Academic and General Training use the same Listening test, so one practice routine covers both.

• Part 1: a social conversation in an everyday setting.
• Part 2: a social monologue, with one speaker on an everyday topic.
• Part 3: a conversation between two main speakers in an educational or training situation, for example two students, sometimes guided by a tutor.
• Part 4: one speaker on an academic subject, like a lecture.

What each part makes you track

Across the four parts you move from catching single facts to following an argument, and your practice should shift the same way.

Part 1 is the most concrete. It is a conversation in a social setting, so the answers are typically details one person asks another for: a name that gets spelt out, a phone number, a date, a price, a street address. The difficulty is precision. You have to catch the exact form, including spellings and numbers read digit by digit, and notice when the second speaker questions or changes something.

In Part 2 the second voice disappears. One speaker talks about an everyday topic, so nobody interrupts to slow things down or ask for a repeat. If the questions include a map or plan, practise tracking location words such as opposite, next to, behind and at the far end. Speakers signal a new topic with phrases like 'moving on to' or 'the other thing to mention', and those signals tell you which block of questions you are now in.

Part 3 brings back two main speakers, but now they discuss study or training. The answers are less often single facts and more often positions: who prefers which option, what they agree on, what they decide to drop. Track the speaker as well as the words. In multiple choice, one student may mention an option that the other then rejects, so a word you hear is not always the answer.

Part 4 is one speaker on an academic subject, like a lecture. Read the questions before the audio starts and use them as a map of the talk. Listen for the words a lecturer uses to move between points (first, on the other hand, the main reason, as a result), because each one tells you a new answer is coming.

When a speaker changes the information

The first version of a detail you hear is often not the answer, especially in conversations. Speakers correct themselves and each other, and a fact that changes once usually changes for a reason.

In Parts 1 and 3 there are two voices, so a change usually comes from the other speaker: 'No, sorry, it's the 14th, not the 4th', or a question that makes the first speaker think again. In Parts 2 and 4 nobody else is there to correct the speaker, so changes come from the speaker revising their own statement: 'The tour used to start at 9 am, but this term it starts at 9.30 am instead.' In a monologue, listen for contrast words such as but, instead, in fact, now and no longer, and treat whatever follows them as the likely answer.

How to recover after missing an answer

When you miss an answer, the worst thing you can do is keep listening for it. The questions follow the order of the recording, so once the speaker reaches the content for question 6, the answer to question 5 has gone and the speaker will not repeat it. Every second you spend waiting for it puts question 6 at risk too.

• Keep your eyes one or two questions ahead of the one you are answering, so you always know what comes next.
• If you hear the answer to a later question, accept that the earlier one has passed. Leave the gap and move your attention forward.
• Use the main content words in the next few questions as anchors. When you hear one, you know exactly where you are again.
• Fill any gaps with a sensible guess during the check at the end. A blank cannot earn a mark.

IELTS Listening on computer: type it right the first time

On computer, you lose the transfer time that paper candidates get at the end. IDP says computer candidates get no extra time to transfer answers and have only 2 minutes to review at the end of the test. On paper, ielts.org lists approximately 30 minutes for the test plus 10 minutes to transfer your answers to an answer sheet, and the same page confirms that the Listening test is the same in Academic and General Training, so this timing applies to both versions.

That changes how you practise. You type each answer while the audio plays, so spelling, plurals and the word limit have to be right as you enter them. Two minutes is enough to scan for blanks and obvious typing errors, but not enough to rethink a whole part.

Use the reading time before each part starts to predict what each gap needs (a number, a name, a plural noun, a place) and to note the first word you expect to hear. If you practise on paper but plan to sit the test on computer, type your answers in at least some full practice runs, with no transfer time and a strict 2-minute check.

Diagnosing a practice test by part and by cause

A raw score tells you less than knowing where you lost the marks. After each practice test, label every wrong answer with its part and one of three causes.

Then count the errors by part. If your errors bunch in Parts 1 and 2, check the details first: spellings, numbers and plurals. If they bunch in Parts 3 and 4, practise following opinions and the structure of a lecture. An IELTS practice test with answers only helps if you review it this way, because the answer key alone does not tell you which of these problems cost you each mark.

Turning a practice score into a band estimate

A raw score out of 40 means little until you set it against the published anchors. IDP gives four reference points for Listening: 16 out of 40 for band 5, 23 for band 6, 30 for band 7 and 35 for band 8. The exact raw-score cut-offs vary between test versions, so treat these anchors as guides rather than fixed lines.

In this example the test-taker lost 8 of their 11 marks in Parts 3 and 4, so practising discussions and lectures is the fastest route to 30. Treat any practice result as an estimate; only an IELTS test result gives you a band.

For a quick starting point, the free IELTS level test covers Reading and Listening in 20 minutes and gives an estimated score range. For full timed practice in the format of the real test, use the full mock tests in a pass, then review each one by part and by cause.