IELTS Listening: you don't need a teacher

It's difficult for teachers to help students with the listening test. The only 'technique' that students need to get used to is reading ahead: using the breaks to read the next section of questions before the recording starts.

Apart from that, it's a matter of practice. Listen to as much English as you can, do as many of the Cambridge past papers as possible, and analyse your mistakes carefully. You don't really need a teacher for this.

Comments

[Ankit joshi]

hi Simon sir, question related to time in listening how to tackle them ?

[Syd]

expense vs spending vs expenditure

Are these words interchangeable ?
Are they always uncountable ?
eg. government expenses ? expense?

[harry]

wi

[Bittu]

Ielts group

+91 9726241695

Text me to join group

[Sunita]

@Syd
"Spending" and "expenditure" are often interchangeable. "Spending" is rarely plural. "Expenditures" (in the plural) corresponds more closely to the usage of "expenses".

"Expenses" and "outgoings" may sometimes be interchanged.

These are useful words for IELTS writing so worth studying in detail:

https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/spending

https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/expenditure

https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/expense

As an uncountable noun, these refer to (the idea of) spending in general, whereas the plural refers more to the individual amounts actually spent.

cost vs costs works on much the same basis

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=expenditure%2C+expenditures%2C+outgoings%2C+outlay%2C+expense%2C+expenses%2C+spending%2C+spendings&year_start=1960&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cexpenditure%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cexpenditures%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Coutgoings%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Coutlay%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cexpense%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cexpenses%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cspending%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cspendings%3B%2Cc0