Your Guide to IELTS Listening: Prepare, Listen, and Check

The IELTS Listening test assesses your ability to understand main ideas, detailed information, opinions, purpose and attitudes of the speakers, as well as your ability to follow the development of ideas.

The Listening test has four parts. You will listen to 4 recordings in your Listening test and need to answer 40 questions based on these recordings.

In this clip taken from Episode 4 of our IELTS Prepare by IDP video podcast, our IELTS Experts give strategies for answering the questions in the IELTS Listening test.

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Hear from our IELTS Experts as they discuss the Listening section of the IELTS test. Our video podcast host Rocco Nigro is joined by Andy Watts from E2 Language.

Andy has been working in English Language education for 24 years. She taught English classes, including Academic English and IELTS preparation, in Vietnam and Australia.  She is now the English Language Content Manager for E2 Test Preparation.

Watch the full episode and more on IELTS Prepare by IDP: a 10-part video podcast series.

There is a 3-part process on things you need to do: before the recording plays, while the recording plays, after the recording plays. 

1. Prepare

It's really important to be familiar with every possible type of question even before you do the test. This is where your test preparation comes in: familiarise yourself the Listening section and the IELTS test in general. You can take practice tests to become even more familiar with the different types of questions you will encounter in the test.

During the test day itself, think about the things that you need to do before the audio starts playing. Read the instructions or the questions very carefully. Don’t lose marks because you didn’t follow the instructions. 

Read through the questions thoroughly but quickly. Why:

• this gives you information about the topic and order of the main ideas.

• you can underline and highlight keywords that you need to listen for. This will help you know when the next question is coming up.

• this helps you predict possible answers -- but still ensure you double check the questions or instructions and listen carefully to the recording.

2. Listen

Follow the questions while you listen. This helps you keep track of where you are in the recording and know what you should be listening for.

Look at the keywords in the questions and avoid distractors (or things that seem like the right answer but are in fact, wrong). Don’t choose the first answer you hear and stop listening – the speaker might say something that means that your answer is wrong.

Keep your focus. Maybe you miss an answer, maybe you don’t understand a word or sentence, or maybe your mind just wanders for a second. When this happens, try not to panic. Go back, listen for the keywords and focus on answering the question.  

3. Check

After the recording stops, make sure you: 

• Check your answers quickly.

  • Check your spelling.

  • Check your grammar.

  • Check that you followed the instructions. (For example, if the instructions say to only use one word; or in a completion type question: does it need to be a plural word or a singular word?)

• For any answers that you didn't get: try to make your best guess.

• Clear your mind and refocus for next part. 

Try the E2 Language guided IELTS short course

Start a free trial of the guided short course for either IELTS General Training or IELTS Academic.

The course includes:

• Guided Reading, Listening, Writing, and Speaking overviews

• IELTS score estimator

• Practice questions, video lessons, sample responses, live classes, and much more

• Available free for 14 days, exclusively through the IELTS by IDP app

You can access the IELTS Guided Short Course With E2 Test Prep by downloading the IELTS by IDP app.

Tune in to the full episode of our IELTS video podcast and learn more about the Listening section of the IELTS test, covering question types and preparation strategies.

The IELTS Prepare by IDP Vodcast, or video podcast, covers everything you need to know about the test.

During this 10-part series, you’ll learn about the IELTS test structure, how to prepare, what to expect on test day and more.

Each episode includes an interview with a different IELTS expert, who answers test taker questions and provides valuable advice on how to approach the test.