Best IELTS Listening Strategies | How I get Band 9 every time

Hi there! It's Asiya. I've taken the IELTS exam four times and every time I achieved Band 9 in IELTS Listening. Even when my overall score was 7.5, I still got a 9. Actually it was 7.5 because the Listening score pulled up my overall score. In this video I want to share with you all my strategies for both the paper-based and computer-based versions of the exam. I want to talk about the most difficult types of tasks and just share some tips you should know. Okay, let's get started! before we talk about the strategies let me quickly tell you about the exam format first of all ielts listening is absolutely the same in ielts academic and general training it includes four sections and lasts for 30 minutes you need to answer 40 questions questions at the beginning are easier than questions at the end but i personally find section number three the most challenging even more challenging than section number four of course it may be different for you how are your scores calculated each correct answer is worth one point and you don't lose any points for incorrect answers and actually i found a more detailed table with scores than what you usually see here it is if you answer between 23 and 25 questions correctly you get a six if you answer 30 or 31 questions you get a seven 35 and 36 will bring you an eight and actually if you answer one question incorrectly you still get the top score and if you answer two or three incorrectly you get 8.5 if you take a paper-based exam you'll be marking your answers on the question sheets and then you have 10 minutes at the end to transfer and check your answers that's plenty of time but if you take a computer-based exam you select your answers on the screen and they're already in the system so you're only given two minutes to check your answers at the end in the past before the rio exam started you were given a short demonstration task but from 2020 it was removed and if you take some old practice tests it's still going to be there keep it in mind during the real exam you will hear instructions and then the recording starts straight away okay now let's talk about the strategies i think you understand well that how many questions you can answer correctly depends on how many words you know and how well you can understand the recordings that's clear but even people who understand everything that is being said are not guaranteed to answer all the questions correctly and that's because ayat's listening is pretty intense and it seems like you're expected to listen and read and write all at the same time and that's really challenging once you miss something like that's it it's gone it will never be repeated but i think the solution lies in managing your time and knowing exactly when to listen and when to read then you don't have to do both at the same time here is what i do once the test starts you are free to move between pages between sections as you wish you don't have to listen to the command to move to the next set of questions as soon as it starts i quickly look at the type of the task and i just start reading and memorizing questions as many as i can like everything from the first section and then once then i start answering questions and as soon as i've answered the last question of the first section i stopped listening because in the recording there will be usually one one last sentence that doesn't give you any new information you need then they will tell you now you have some time to review your answers and you get some time and then they say oh now you have some time to read questions from the next section so i dedicate all this time to reading questions from the next section and then i'm able to read them all to highlight keywords to try to memorize options and then when the recording starts i know my questions much better so it's easier for me to select the correct information from the recording i hear if you simply rely on the instructions and you listen to the command read questions from the next section you will not be able to read them all i tried i read pretty fast in english now but there is no way i can do it particularly in section number three where you get those multiple choice questions where the question itself is quite long and then you you have usually six options which are also quite long and you need to choose two correct options so if you haven't read all of that you won't be able to find them of course in order to understand what time you can dedicate to reading you need to know the exam format very well so you need to take several practice ielts listening tests take the official tests several of them are available for free and i've linked all of them in my ielts study plan in the description so take those tests and just try to find all the time you can to read questions and as i read them i highlight keywords that will help me to find the correct options during the test and i in the paper-based exam i also cross out incorrect options straight away if i hear something and i see that this option is incorrect i just cross it out straight away because later for example if i miss the correct answer but i crossed out two incorrect options then i have a 50 chance to guess correctly right uh of course in a computer-based exam you can't cross out anything you can highlight keywords but in order to do that you need to select the word click the right button on your mouse and then select highlight it takes a bit too much time and in a computer-based exam i actually don't highlight anything i just try to find and memorize keywords and different options so from this point of view taking a paper-based exam is a little bit easier what should you do after the recording stops in the 10 minutes during the paper-based exam and two minutes given during the computer-based exam well of course in a paper-based exam you transfer your answers to the answer sheet you're given a lot of time for that you should also review all the questions you missed that's the time to do that and even if you missed it during the recording try to read it again and decide what the answer is based on what you remember sometimes it's possible to do that if you don't remember anything just take your best guess mark any answer and in a computer-based exam you can actually mark sections to review you simply click a box to review and then after the test you can see which questions you should go back to in a paper-based exam you simply put question marks it's not a problem you should also review the spelling of all the words you wrote down in full just to make sure it's correct because if the spelling is incorrect it's an incorrect answer simple as that and i don't think it's worth checking other answers in a computer-based exam because you simply don't have time for that in a paper-based exam there is one more thing to keep in mind the correct answer format sometimes you're given a number of options a b c d and each stands for one word for example school field park something else and you must answer the correct letter b and if you write down field it's an incorrect answer be careful about that it's not a problem in a computer-based exam because you simply click on the correct option now i want to tell you about four sections of the ielts listening exam why do you need to know that well because each section comes with its own types of questions and if you know what those are it's easier for you to anticipate what's coming and it's easier to navigate your way through the listening section okay ielts listening includes four sections number one it's a dialogue on a general topic for example someone calls to inquire about a job opportunity or someone calls an estate agent to inquire about different flats they have for rent or someone wants to join a club and wants to know more about their activities and usually you are given notes and you need to fill in missing words in the past section 1 always included a task where you need to write down either a word that is spelled out for example a surname or a street name and those would never be spelled the way you expect or a number a telephone number or a slab number and the flat number would be something like 21b and you don't normally expect the flat number to include a letter as well right so there is always like a bit of a trick in this task but actually when i took the test in 2020 i didn't have this question now section number two that's a monologue one person is talking and you learn about a tour you can take around the town or for example you join a company and you hear more about the company or you hear about how you should use the library and that's where you may get a map those are tricky and i actually have a practice task if you want to know more about them instead of a map you may get a matching exercise for example you hear about a company and you're given a list of surnames of its employees and a list of responsibilities and you need to match employees with their responsibilities in both types of tasks the difficulty is that you have very little time to find the answer before you can you have to move on to the next one section number three that's again a dialogue usually two people are talking in a more academic environment for example two students are discussing their university project and that's where you get multiple choice questions so you get a question and for example four options you need to choose one that is correct or six options and you need to choose two which are correct the difficulty is that you have a lot to read that's where you have to do most of your reading section number three and that's why you need to find time in order to be able to do that section number four uh is also academic but it's a monologue usually it's a university lecture and here uh you need to know more words in order to be able to understand everything but i actually find that you have a bit more time for each answer than in sections number two or three so it's not that bad now let's talk about some of the more difficult types of tasks the first type of task is missing words it may be presented in a number of different ways sometimes you get notes and some words are missing sometimes you get a flow chart or a table whatever it is you always see those gaps and sometimes you need to write down words yourself you may read write down no more than one word or a number or not more than two words or a number then your answer may consist of one or two words and you should anticipate what kind of word you're looking for is it gonna be a noun or a verb what kind of meaning it should have for instance you have this sentence the number of ways in recent years what are we looking for a verb right what kind of verb something that would describe the change in numbers perhaps it either increased or decreased and then if you know that it's easier for you to find the answer remember that when you write down the word the sentence should become grammatically correct and that can help you decide whether your noun should be singular or plural and what form of the verb you should use spelling matters all your answers should be spelled correctly and you can write down all your answers in capital letters that's a good thing to do if your handwriting is a bit difficult you can use it in both computer-based and paper-based exams but if you don't use all capital letters then if you get someone's surname or a name of a street you have to capitalize the first letter the next type of task is multiple choice questions that's where you get a question and four options with one correct answer or six options with two correct answers in the last two exams i took i got six options with two answers this one is more difficult because you have more to read more options and then when you hear the dialogue they will discuss all the options and what matters is what they say about each of them so if you take a paper-based exam when you're reading those questions highlight keywords then you can quickly find which option they are discussing and then you listen to what they say and if it's not the correct answer you hear it's not the correct answer cross it out straight away because they will not come back to this option and it seemed to me that answers tend to lie in the middle of each discussion i mean the first option they mentioned is usually not the correct one and the last one is not correct either because in ielts they tend to give you a little bit of time to mark your answer before moving on to the next question but of course the order is not guaranteed but you should try to memorize keywords and listen to each option the next type of question is maths it's used in the second section of the listening test so there will be one speaker talking about everything on the map and usually questions come in order so you're given a number of questions let's say from number 10 to number 15 and each question stands for an object and then on the map some locations are marked like a b c d and you need to find where each object is located so usually they will talk about object number 10 first then number 11 number 12 and so on so it's a little bit easier particularly if you miss one answer it doesn't have to mean that you miss all others because they will mention the next object and then they will tell you where you should go for maps you should always find the starting point usually that's the entrance or it's at the bottom of the map and you should also learn compass directions when they say go to the south or north west you should understand what it means i have a practice task for maps i will link it in the description now let's talk about the differences between ielts listening computer-based and paper-based well first of all in a computer-based exam you always get your earphones which means you can hear everything really well i remember when i was not very confident i always increased the sound a lot and it made the difference in a paper-based exam it seems like more and more centers use earphones too but not all of them when i took my paper-based exam in london i was in a huge room with dozens of people and speakers and i couldn't hear it well at all next in a paper-based exam you need to transfer your answers to the answer sheet and you get 10 minutes for that that's very generous it means you have quite a lot of time to check your answers to think about answers you missed in a computer-based exam you only get two minutes so you can review a few questions but not many in a paper-based exam you actually have to think about the correct format for your answer that whether you need to write down a word or a letter in a computer-based exam you don't have to think about that but you have to be quite a confident computer user because sometimes you just click on the correct answer it's easy sometimes you need to type words while listening or drag the correct option to the correct place and imagine if you put it on the wrong place you need to undo it while still listening and of course if you want to take the computer-based exam you must practice and learn the interface before you take it because the first time first i almost missed one of the questions all together because i didn't scroll down the page and then i expected that the page would turn to section two itself and it didn't because i needed to click to do that but now you can take the full computer-based practice test on the idp website and it's exactly like the real exam it's linked in my ielts study plan in a paper-based exam you don't have to think about dragging things and so on you just use your pencil you can cross out incorrect answers very quickly you can underline keywords in a computer-based exam you do have a function to highlight words but each highlighting requires a few clicks and it's just too much time and effort so i don't do that at all and i find that crossing out incorrect answers is really really handy so think which format is better for you perhaps you've noticed that so far i've been talking about strategies for ielts listening but of course your success rate depends on how well you can understand the recording on the first place and i actually have a separate video where i talk about different techniques that help you develop your ielts listening skills it's gonna be right on the screen and all the links to preparation materials are in my ielts study plan thank you for watching me today good luck with your preparation and your exam bye

Channel: Fastrack IELTS

Views: 587,127

Keywords: ielts, ielts exam, ielts test, ielts exam preparation, ielts preparation, how to prepare for ielts, ielts tips, Fastrack education, fastrack ielts, fastrack asiya

Id: EvXSJAQXjro

Length: 22min 26sec (1346 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 30 2020