IELTS Listening: multiple choice tips

Last Tuesday I asked you to think about how to deal with difficult multiple choice exercises, particularly in section 3 of the listening test. People shared some great tips in the comments area below the lesson, and I'll try to summarise their advice (and mine) here.

First, some general practice tips (when practising at home, not in the test)

1. Do as much multiple choice practice as you can.
2. Practise multiple choice questions in isolation. In other words, when you're working on multiple choice exercises, don't do any other type of question; work ONLY on multiple choice.
3. Create your own collection of multiple choice exercises. For example, if you have several of the Cambridge IELTS books, you could photocopy all of the multiple choice sections and put them together in one document. This will make it easier to follow tip 2 above.

Analyse your performance very carefully

1. Listening, understanding and following: Try listening to each multiple choice recording without looking at the questions. Stop the recording any time you don't understand something or feel that you're not really following what the speaker is saying. Before you worry about the questions, it's a good idea to assess your own listening ability in this way; perhaps your ability to understand and follow fast speech needs work.
2. If you have problems when you listen without the questions (point 1 above), you need to increase the amount of general listening practice that you do. In other words, your brain needs more exposure to the English language.
3. If you don't have a problem with understanding and following (point 1 above), you can start doing the practice exercises below.

Add variety to your practice. Here are some possible practice exercises:

1. Do multiple choice sections without any preparation time at all, and see how well you do.
2. Try the opposite of exercise 1: give yourself plenty of time to read and fully understand each question and all of the choices.
3. Allow yourself to underline only one key word in each question and in each choice. See if you can get the answers by focusing on those key words only.
4. Allow yourself to listen to the recording more than once. Did you get the right answers the second time or the third time?
5. After each exercise, analyse any difficulties that you had, and identify the exact points where you went wrong.

Finally, here are some test tips (i.e. what to do during the exam)

1. Try to get ahead of time. Several people commented that they start reading the section 3 multiple choice questions during the breaks in sections 1 and 2. If you're really confident with the first two sections, this is a good idea.
2. Underline or circle just one or two key words in each question and in each choice. When listening, try to focus only on those key words.
3. Remember to listen for synonyms and paraphrasing. You won't always hear the exact words from the questions or choices.
4. Have the next question in mind. Keep an eye on the key words for the question below the one that you're trying to answer.
5. Keep your mind on the task, and make sure you're following the recording.
6. Touch your pen on any key words that you hear, and keep confirming that you are in the right place.
7. If you miss something, move on and find your place as quickly as possible by listening for a key word.

Quick summary: do lots of practice, experiment with exam techniques, and analyse everything!

Comments

[AZ]

*NEED HELP URGENTLY*

In this task, past tense is used but no time is given.
http://ielts-simon.com/ielts-help-and-english-pr/2011/06/ielts-writing-task-1-selecting.html

However, this task is written in present tense

http://ielts-simon.com/ielts-help-and-english-pr/2011/10/ielts-writing-task-1-table-exercise.html

So, how to differentiate the usage of tense in task 1

[Oleg]

http://ielts-simon.com/ielts-help-and-english-pr/2017/06/ielts-writing-task-1-verb-tenses.html

[he li]

@Simon Thanks for sharing. I took the ielts exam on 21st this month. Although i didn't know the band, I feel I performed better in section 3 of listening test this time,I mean it seemed that i could control the situation in section 2 or 3(multiple choices), because i just took full advantage of various vacancy time to read the questions and choices, and thought what they are,not just easily circling key words.

[Vahideh]

Thanks, Simon.I will try it tomorrow and I'm sure that it will work

[Ravinder pal Singh]

Thanks Simon!

[do the lam]

thanks you !!

[Jasmine]

I wanna appreciate you as I learnt from your technique how to answer the diagram questions in listening.
Thank you Simon

[Simon]

I'm glad you found this lesson useful guys!

[ilkin]

Hi Simon,
Thank you for sharing tips.
I agree with all of them in particular with the "touching pen". It really works. I started to do this even with the Section headings, example answers, and for all bullet points, dots and etc.

And I would like to add smth as well. Don't Panic and Don't Feel Finished! Especially, when you fell that you are on the right path. For example, when I acknowledge that I have two right sections behind, I forget that I need 8 from listening :)

Hope on 1 December I will be enough lucky :)