IELTS Simon

IELTS Listening: video lesson

Have you seen the video lesson that I published here a few years ago?

Check it out and feel free to ask any questions about the lesson in the comments area below.

IELTS Listening: how to use practice tests

It's a good idea to do practice tests (e.g. using the Cambridge IELTS books) in preparation for the listening exam. Here's some advice to help you benefit from doing practice tests:

1. Your score is not the most important thing
The important thing is what you have learnt by doing the test. Were there any new words or phrases that you can learn? What did you find difficult? Did any of the questions trick you? In other words, what do you need to do to improve your score?

2. Check how accurate your answers are
Be strict with yourself; every grammar or spelling mistake is important. For example, if the speaker says "The library has a collection of newspapers", you must not write "collection of newspaper".

3. Get into the habit of moving on
If you missed something, forget about it and move on. Always prepare for the next question rather than worrying about a previous question. When you are given 30 seconds to check your answers, use the time to look at the next section instead.

IELTS Listening: 'food and the brain' gap-fill

Watch the following short video, and fill the gaps in the summary below it.

If you can't see the video, listen to the recording below.

Click here to listen

Fill the gaps to complete these sentences:

1. The weight of a dehydrated brain comes from from fats, proteins, amino acids, _____ _____ micronutrients, and glucose.
2. Omega-rich foods, such as nuts, seeds and fatty fish, are _____ _____ the creation and maintenance of cell membranes.
3. Proteins and amino acids affect the way we feel and behave. Neurotransmitters _____ _____ that affect mood, sleep, attentiveness and weight.
4. A diet with a range of foods helps maintain a _____ _____ of brain messengers, and keeps your mood from getting skewed in one direction or the other.
5. The human brain uses up to 20% of our _____ _____, even though it only accounts for around 2% of our body weight.

IELTS Listening: are you 'putting in the hours'?

If you want to get a better score in IELTS listening, the most important thing is to do lots of listening practice. You need to put in the hours!

To "put in the hours" means "to do the necessary amount of hard work". But let's use this phrase more literally by considering how many practice hours you are actually doing every day or every week. Do you know how many hours you spent listening to English yesterday, or last week?

Maybe you could keep a record of the time you spend listening to English this week, and maybe you can try to increase this listening time next week. A person who listens to 10 hours of English per week is probably going to improve much faster than a person who only manages 30 minutes.

IELTS Listening: 'oceans' gap-fill

Watch the following video and fill the gaps in the sentences below it.

If you can't see the video, here's an audio version:

Click here to listen

Fill each gap with a maximum of two words and/or numbers:

1. In reality, how many oceans are there? _____

2. What percentage of Earth’s surface is covered by water? _____

3. When viewed from space, the ocean is by far the planet’s _____.

4. What figure is given for the total volume of water in the ocean? _____

5. The ocean also contains over 99% of the world’s _____.

IELTS Listening: mastering part 1

Part 1 is supposed to be the easy part of the listening test. It is almost always a simple gap-fill exercise with basic information about some kind of booking or appointment.

But does this mean that you don't need to practise part 1? No.

I recommend doing lots of practice for part 1. You should be aiming for 10 out of 10 in this part of the listening test because you will probably lose points in parts 2, 3 and 4.

In fact, a good idea would be to focus only on part 1 until you regularly get 10 out of 10. Get as many of the official Cambridge books as you can, and do all of the part 1 questions.

Don't move on to parts 2, 3 and 4 until you master part 1.

Note: there are some official listening tests samples on this page.

IELTS Listening: small changes to the exam

Have you heard about the small changes that have been made to the listening test this year? There's no need to worry, but it's best to be informed!

Here's what the official IELTS website tells us:

..........

From 4 January 2020, some small changes are being introduced to the instructions and layout of the paper-based Listening test:

• We will be changing the word ‘Sections’ to ‘Parts’ – The paper-based test will now be divided into Part 1, 2, 3, 4.
• We will be removing the Part 1 example.
• We are also removing the page number references.

..........

Note: Perhaps the only change that may affect you is the second one. You'll need to be ready to start question 1 straight away.

IELTS Listening: synonyms and opposites

Often you don't hear the exact words given in the question. Instead, you hear a synonym, a similar word, or an opposite. For example, if the question contains the word difficult, you might hear too hard or not easy.

Try the following exercise (from Cambridge IELTS 4, page 85). The speaker explains the problems involved with 4 different school science experiments.

Listen and choose the correct problem for the 4 experiments.

Click here to listen

A) too messy
B) too boring
C) too difficult
D) too much equipment
E) too long
F) too easy
G) too noisy
H) too dangerous

Experiment 1: ______
Experiment 2: ______
Experiment 3: ______
Experiment 4: ______

IELTS Reading and Listening scores

Students often ask how many correct answers they need (out of 40) to get a band score of 7 in the reading and listening tests.

According to official IELTS guidelines for academic* reading and listening:

• Band 6 is about 23 out of 40
• Band 7 is about 30
• Band 8 is about 35

Note:
The score needed for each band can change depending on the difficulty of each test. If you have a really difficult test, the score needed for band 7 might be 28 or 29. If the test is easier, you might need to score 31 or 32 to get a 7. Click here to see the banding guide on the official IELTS website.

*General reading is scored differently.

IELTS Listening: gap-fill about Isaac Newton

Watch the following short video and then fill the gaps in the summary below.

If you can't see the video, listen to this audio recording:

Click here to listen

Summary:

Isaac Newton was renowned for his expertise in 1)_____, 2)_____, 3)_____ and theology. His Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy was published in 4)_____ .

Newton’s first law is named the law of 5)_____.
His second law relates to 6)_____.
His third law states that for every action there is an 7)_____ and 8)_____ reaction.

Newton also invented the first 9)_____ telescope, he devised the theory of 10)_____, and he is credited with the invention of the mathematical study known as 11)_____. He is considered to have had one of the greatest scientific 12)_____ in history.

IELTS Listening: 'cities' topic

Listen to the following recording and complete the summary below.

Click here to listen

There are more people living in cities than in ______ areas. Urbanisation is the defining phenomenon of this century; half of the world’s population is urban. Many people are enticed from rural areas by the ______ of a better life. We need to improve living conditions for the urban poor by providing adequate ______, clean water and ______.

One key to making cities ______ better is good planning. Planners need to ______ cities to make them beneficial for all citizens. Cities need green transport and green ______; they need to be energy ______ and pedestrian- ______, with housing and jobs to ______ people to come to live there.

IELTS Listening: 'work experience' transcript

Here's the full transcript for the listening exercise in last Tuesday's lesson. The speaker talks quickly, so it's useful to see exactly what she says.

Click here to listen

I wanted to spend a little bit of time today talking about the importance of work experience as you're considering different management programmes. Now this will vary a lot school by school. So some schools actually will have a minimum number of years of required work experience, so you should enquire with all the schools that you are interested in, sort of, what their recommendations are.

At Stanford specifically, we don't necessarily look at a certain number of years of work experience, but what we’re really looking for are your leadership examples that you’re able to draw from in your life. And as a result, some people actually come to us a little bit earlier on in their careers.

So, most years we might even have, you know, one or two students who come directly after university, but they’ve got incredibly strong leadership examples to draw from: maybe it is from being involved in student government, or clubs, or organisations, or starting a non-profit organisation, or having been involved in a family business growing up. So they’re able to draw and refer to those leadership experiences in the classroom.

IELTS Listening: 'work experience' gap-fill

Listen to the following talk by a director from Stanford Business School.

Click here to listen

Fill the gaps in the sentences below:

1. Some schools have a ______ number of years of required work experience.
2. Stanford applicants should demonstrate examples of ______.
3. Some students can ______ from their experiences in student politics, clubs, a non-______ organisation or a ______ business.

Tip: If you have more time, you could try to transcribe the whole recording.

IELTS Listening: listening as research

Here's a nice way to combine listening practice with topic research for the writing or speaking test:

• Choose a writing or speaking topic.
• Search for online videos on that topic.
• Note down any good vocabulary ideas that you see / hear in the videos.

For example, to get some ideas for the 'genetic engineering' writing topic, I watched a few videos on YouTube. Here's a link to a short, useful presentation about genetically modified food:

Click here to go to the video (it's only 3 minutes long).

If you watched the video, answer this question:

What is a transgenic organism?

IELTS Listening: singular or plural?

Students often tell me that they find it hard to decide whether an answer should be singular or plural, especially when they aren't sure whether or not they heard the "s" on the end of a word.

Try the quick exercise below. For each sentence, decide whether we need the singular or the plural, or whether you think both would be acceptable.

1. Bring two forms of .......... (identification, identifications).
2. You may use your own .......... (pen, pens) in the exam.
3. Please park between the .......... (line, lines).
4. Entry is only permitted to registered .......... (student, students).
5. The lecturer will leave plenty of .......... (time, times) for questions.

IELTS Listening: are you doing these things?

Are you doing the following things in order to prepare and practise for the IELTS listening test?

1. working through as many of the tests in the official Cambridge IELTS books as possible
2. doing the listening test samples on the official IELTS website here
3. analysing any mistakes that you make when doing the above tests
4. listening to difficult parts of each test several times, until you hear and understand all of the correct answers
5. checking the written transcripts (at the back of the Cambridge books) carefully for any questions that you found difficult
6. noting new words and any spellings that you got wrong
7. listening to as much English as possible to improve your ear (not just IELTS tests, but news reports, documentaries, talks, presentations, interviews, films, TV programmes etc. that you find on the Internet)

If you're doing all of these things, keep going! You might not notice it, but your listening will be improving gradually.

IELTS Listening: check your spelling

Here's an easy way to check your spelling for the IELTS listening test:

• Find the listening test answers at the back of one of the Cambridge IELTS books.
• Record yourself reading the answers aloud (e.g. read the list below).
• The next day, listen to the recording and try to write the words down, with correct spelling.
• Check your answers.

For example, here are some of the listening answers from Cambridge IELTS 14. Record yourself reading this list, and then test your spelling tomorrow.

1. furniture
2. museum
3. direction
4. floor
5. predictable
6. fuel
7. shoulder
8. festivals
9. comets
10. instruments
11. thermometer
12. telegraph
13. microphone
14. exhibition
15. carnival
16. parade
17. opera
18. clarinet
19. Olympics
20. speech
21. cabins
22. tools
23. heavy
24. marble
25. camera

Out of 25, how many words did you spell correctly?

IELTS Listening: multiple choice exercise

Listen to the following talk about unemployment, then answer the multiple choice questions below. Make sure you read all 3 questions carefully before you start.

Click here to listen

1. A year from now, the unemployment rate will be

A) fairly good
B) not as high in California
C) very high for the country as a whole

2. One problem is that

A) employees cannot work for more than 33 hours per week
B) employers will extend working hours instead of hiring new staff
C) there are too many part-time workers

3. If the economy begins to improve

A) more people will be discouraged from looking for work
B) people will think that there are more job opportunities
C) there will be an expansion of the workforce

IELTS Listening: underlining keywords

Here are the two questions (from Cambridge IELTS 14) that I showed you last week. This time I've underlined the keywords.

21. How will Rosie and Martin introduce their presentation?

A  with a drawing of woolly mammoths in their natural habitat
B  with a timeline showing when woolly mammoths lived
C  with a video clip about woolly mammoths

22. What was surprising about the mammoth tooth found by Russell Graham?

A  It was still embedded in the mammoth's jawbone.
B  It was from an unknown species of mammoth.
C  It was not as old as mammoth remains from elsewhere.

..........

Use the transcript below to answer the following questions:

1. What are the answers to questions 21 and 22 above?
2. Which keywords in the transcript give us the answers?
3. Did my underlining in the question choices help?

Martin: We thought we needed something general about woolly mammoths in our introduction, to establish that they were related to our modern elephant, and they lived thousands of years ago in the last ice age.

Rosie: Maybe we could show a video clip of a cartoon about mammoths. But that’d be a bit childish. Or we could have a diagram, it could be a timeline to show when they lived, with illustrations?

Martin: Or we could just show a drawing of them walking in the ice? No, let’s go with your last suggestion.

Tutor: Good. Then you’re describing the discovery of the mammoth tooth on St Paul’s Island in Alaska, and why it was significant.

Rosie: Yes. The tooth was found by a man called Russell Graham. He picked it up from under a rock in a cave. He knew it was special — for a start it was in really good condition, as if it had been just extracted from the animal’s jawbone. Anyway, they found it was 6,500 years old.

Tutor: So why was that significant?

Rosie: Well the mammoth bones previously found on the North American mainland were much less recent than that. So this was really amazing.

IELTS Listening: reading and underlining

Before you hear the recording, you have some time to read the questions and underline key words (the words that you intend to listen for).

Which key words would you underline in the questions below?
(from Cambridge IELTS 14)

..........

21. How will Rosie and Martin introduce their presentation?

A  with a drawing of woolly mammoths in their natural habitat
B  with a timeline showing when woolly mammoths lived
C  with a video clip about woolly mammoths

22. What was surprising about the mammoth tooth found by Russell Graham?

A  It was still embedded in the mammoth's jawbone.
B  It was from an unknown species of mammoth.
C  It was not as old as mammoth remains from elsewhere.

..........

Tip: Don't underline words that are repeated in each choice (e.g. mammoth). Only underline the words that show you the specific differences between each answer choice.

IELTS Listening: tourism numbers

Tourism and tourist information are common topics in the listening test. Here's a short video that I found about the tourist centre in my own city, Manchester:

If you can't see the video, listen to the recording below:

Click here to listen

Quick exercise:
The speaker mentions the numbers below. What do they refer to?

• 77,000
• 5.5 billion
• over 1 million
• 3rd
• over 800,000

IELTS Listening: notice the 'keywords'

I've just been doing listening test 4 in Cambridge IELTS book 14.

As usual, I'm keeping a record of the 'keywords' that give us the correct answers. Here are some keywords from section 2, questions 11 to 16:

Note: Did you know that "have a dip" means "go for a swim"?

IELTS Listening: 'children' topic

Here's an interesting video that someone sent me the other day. I think we could get some good ideas and vocabulary from it, perhaps for topics related to children and education.

I haven't had time to pick out the good vocabulary from the presentation. Maybe you could help me to do that, by sharing your notes in the 'comments'.

IELTS Listening: the 'noticing' skill

Every time you listen to something in English, you have an opportunity to improve your vocabulary knowledge (or 'repertoire'). You might hear a new word or phrase, or you might learn something about how a word is used.

For example, I was pleased to see the following comment below last week's listening lesson:

"I didn't know the meaning of 'urge' before this video, thanks Simon!"

This is the kind of 'noticing' that leads to improvements when you're learning a language. Keep your ears and eyes open, and develop your noticing skills!

IELTS Listening: quick vocabulary exercise

Here's another short talk from ted.com. If you find it interesting, watch it through to the end. If not, just try the quick vocabulary exercise that I've made below.
...

...
Complete the phrases that the speaker uses in the first minute of the talk.

1. pay _____ to something = take notice of something
2. my mind _____ = I lost concentration
3. take _____ = go to sleep for a short time
4. drift off into a _____ = start thinking about something unrelated
5. have the _____ to do something = feel a strong desire to do something

IELTS Listening: multiple choice difficulties

Multiple choice questions in the listening test are always difficult. I can think of four reasons for this:

1. There's a lot of information in the question choices, so there's a lot to think about while you're listening.
2. Some of the choices might be similar.
3. All of the choices might be mentioned in some way.
4. Synonyms or paraphrasing may be used instead of the words that you see in the choices.

Here's a good example from Cambridge IELTS book 10, page 12.

Which TWO facilities at the leisure club have recently been improved?

A) the gym
B) the tracks
C) the outdoor pool
D) the indoor pool
E) the sports training for children

Click here to listen

Which two answers did you choose? Did you experience any of the four difficulties that I mentioned above?

IELTS Listening: multiple choice practice

Watch the first 3 minutes of the video and answer the questions below. Watch with subtitles if you find it difficult. You might also like to watch the rest of the presentation if you find the topic interesting.

1. The speaker states that

A) speaking a language is a critical skill
B) babies are language learning geniuses
C) adults cannot learn a new language

2. The speaker’s tests on babies involve

A) training them to respond to a sound change
B) training them to recognise the sounds of all languages
C) training them to respond to a panda bear

3. The speaker describes babies as 'citizens of the world' because

A) they understand everything they hear
B) they can recognise the difference between the sounds of any language
C) their listening skills are as good as adults’ listening skills

IELTS Listening: working on your mistakes

Are you really working on your mistakes and learning from them?

Whenever you make a mistake in a practice test, you have the opportunity to make a small improvement. But this will only happen if you analyse the mistake carefully, comparing your answer with the correct answer in order to understand what went wrong.

Perhaps you made the mistake because of a particular word or phrase. Perhaps you misunderstood something, or missed a key detail because you were stuck on a previous question. Or perhaps you couldn't keep up with the speed of the recording and the amount of information. If you want to make progress, you need to find out what the problem was.

Take the time to analyse your weaknesses and learn from them.

IELTS Listening: answers with dates

The following situation often confuses people:

• The question asks you for a date
• The speaker gives a day, month and year (e.g. 16th July 2019)
• But the instruction tells you to answer with one word and/or a number

I agree that this is confusing. However, my advice is simple: write 16th July as your answer, without the year. This is the answer that the IELTS people want.

So, make sure you write the day (number) and the month. Only put the year if the question asks for it (e.g. which year...?) or if the instruction allows you to include more than one number.

IELTS Listening: diagram gap-fill

Questions 23 to 25
Complete the notes on the diagram below. Write no more than three words and/or a number for each answer.

Click here to listen

(Source: official IELTS DVD)

IELTS Listening: interesting lecture

I was searching for a video related to yesterday's reading passage, and I found the following lecture. It's a presentation about how to improve your English accent, so I'm sure that many of you will find it interesting and useful.

Tip: if you want to learn more about sentence stress in English, skip to minute 28.30 and you'll see a good illustration.