15+ Tips For IELTS Listening Test To Get 9 Bands

IELTS (International English Language Testing System) is a globally known and recognized test that measures students’ English language proficiency.

There are a total of four modules in the IELTS exam;

• Listening
• Reading
• Writing
• Speaking

IELTS listening is the easiest and most scoring module, so in this blog, I will discuss tips for ielts listening that you can follow for the best score. 

Whether you’re a first-time test taker or aiming to improve your previous score, these tips will help you develop the necessary skills and confidence for this section.

There are a total of 4 sections and 40 questions in the listening and let’s learn the best tips for IELTS listening.

What Is IELTS Listening?

IELTS listening is said to be the easiest module of the IELTS exam. In this module, you will be given 4 recordings and have to answer 40 questions.

In this module, there are 4 sections, each containing 10 questions. You will be given a total of 40 minutes for this section. 30 minutes are for listening recordings, and 10 minutes are for transferring your answers to an answer sheet.

There are 6 different types of questions in the IELTS listening module.

Sections of IELTS listening exam

IELTS listening section 1

In this section, you will listen to a conversation between two people.

IELTS listening section 2

There will be a person talking about something on the radio or local channel and providing details about that.

IELTS listening section 3

In this, you will be listening to a group discussion between students or teacher and students.

IELTS listening section 4

In this section, there will be a person giving a lecture about a topic. This section is said to be the toughest section of IELTS listening, so you are advised to listen to this section with full concentration.

Let’s shift to the tips for Ielts listening without wasting any more time.

12 Basic Tips For IELTS Listening Test

Before going into detail about this topic, I will share some basic tips for the IELTS listening test that everyone should know.

If you are busy and don’t have the time to read a full blog, then you can read these tips and have basic information about this test module.

So, these are some basic tips for listening tests-:

1. Work on your vocabulary; if you have a strong vocabulary, then you can easily get good scores on your listening tests.
2. In your listening test, you have the advantage that you can read the question before listening to the recording, so first read the questions and then look for the answers in the recordings.
3. After giving all the answers, check your silly mistakes; many candidates lose scores on their test due to these mistakes.
4. There is no negative marking in the listening test, meaning if you give a wrong answer, your points will not be deducted, so attempt every question and don’t leave a blank answer.
5. Always check the word limit for the answer to a question and then write a reply based on that limit.
6. Don’t make spelling mistakes; recheck every complicated spelling before submitting an answer; these spelling mistakes are the reason for the low scores of many candidates.
7. In the listening test, you will have a time limit of approximately 30 minutes, so don’t waste your time and try to give answers quickly.
8. You will get some plural questions in this test, and the singular answer to that question will be wrong, keep that in mind; this is one of the most common mistakes that candidates make.
9. To practice your listening, you can watch some English Shows; Friends is one of the best shows if you want to practice your listening.
10. After watching English shows, if you want to practice your listening more, you should watch English News; This will help you improve your listening in a better way.
11. To improve your listening, another one of the best tips for IELTS listening is listening the podcasts. In podcasts, the natural English speakers speak with their original accent which will be useful for you to understand the natural accent.
12. Engaging yourself in English conversations will also help you speak and understand English and help you to improve your listening.

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Other Helpful Tips for IELTS listening Test

Above I have shared some basic IELTS listening tips. Now let’s discuss some other important IELTS listening tips.

So, here are some tips for the IELTS listening tests that will help you to get high scores in your listening tests.

Improve your general listening skills

To get good scores on the IELTS listening test, don’t focus on your listening only for exam purposes.

Most of the candidates practice listening tests in such a way so that they can clear this exam. They understand the question types and start learning the answers to them.

This is not 100% correct; this method is enough if you only want to get an average score. But these techniques are not enough if you want to get 8 or 9 bands. You must focus on your overall listening skills to get good scores.

There are many methods to improve your overall listening skills; I have already discussed some above in this blog.

Watching English shows and movies to improve your listening skills would be best.

The shows and movies will help you to improve these skills in a fun way, but if you want a more efficient way to improve your general listening skills, then the English news is best in that case.

This is also one of the best tips for Ielts listening that can help you to score well in the IELTS exam.

Prepare to hear a potential answer 

The next tip is to be ready to hear a potential answer; when you listen to the recording in the test, you can get a potential answer to the question.

There can be an answer that you think will be correct. But later in that recording, you can get the answer to the question.

Many times, a candidate answers a question based on half of the recording they heard.

And due to this, their answer got incorrect because the real answer to the question was in the second half of the recording. So, don’t answer the question too quickly.

I know you have read some tips to save time, but what will you do with your saved time if you have given the wrong answers to the questions?

So, yes, focus on the time, but don’t get so obsessed with saving time that you start giving wrong answers to the questions.

This is another one of the best tips for Ielts listening that can help you to score good in the IELTS exam.

Practice By Listening Lectures

This is one of the most important tips of this blog; if you do not work on it, then all the other tips I shared in this blog can’t be that helpful.

At the blog’s beginning, I say that you can practice your listening tests by watching English shows and news.

Those tips will also help you a lot in your preparation.

But if you want to prepare for your IELTS exam more effectively, you should use English lectures.

There are a lot of British and American accent lectures available on the internet that you can use for your practice.

Select some lectures from the internet and then practice by listening to them. Listen to those lectures and try to answer self-driven questions about that topic. If you feel this method is complicated, you can do another thing.

You can find some listening sample tests on the internet; those sample tests are entirely designed for practicing listening tests. So, those sample tests will help you a lot in your preparation.

This is also one of the best tips for Ielts listening that you must follow to score high in IELTS listening.

Don’t lose attention

When your listening test starts, you will listen to some recordings in this task. We have already discussed what type of recordings you will listen to.

You must listen to these recordings carefully with total concentration, don’t lose your attention even for a second.

If you lose your attention while listening to these recordings, even for a moment, something important can get skipped at that moment.

And when you check the questions, you will think that question is unrelated to the recordings. It will have a terrible impact on your scores. So, while listening to any of these recordings, stay focused.

Sometimes, during listening to the recording, candidates subconsciously get stuck on a word and start thinking about it and forget to listen to the recording after that word.

You will not get a second chance to hear that recording, so stay concentrated and listen to the whole recording.

If you hear any complicated word, just don’t get stuck on that; move further; you don’t have enough time to think about a word at that time. You can think about it while giving answers to the questions.

This is also one of the useful tips for Ielts listening that you must follow to get a high band score in the IELTS exam.

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Don’t write answers too quickly

Now, you will say that above I said that you don’t have enough time and now I am saying that don’t write answers too quickly. Let me explain what I want to say.

Some candidates try to answer questions in this test while listening to recordings; they do not hear the complete recording. But it is wrong. 

Sometimes in recording, they give you wrong information in a sentence which they correct in the next sentence.

For example -: If the recording is about a conversation between two people, the first person may give some false information, and then the second person corrects that incorrect information.

First-person: His name is XYZ.

Second person: No, you’re mistaken; his name is ABC.

So, as you can see in the example, the first person said something, and the second person corrected him.

If you answer the question while listening to the recording, you can respond by hearing the first sentence, and your answer can get wrong.

That’s why you don’t write answers too quickly. You have limited time to answer those questions, but you can’t give wrong answers to save time.

Because, in the end, what matters are your answers. So, Yes, try to answer the question quickly, but not that much that you give a wrong answer.

After knowing the best tips for IELTS listening, here is additional information for you that will help you to understand how to get 8 or 9 bands in IELTS listening.

How Do You Get 8 or 9 Bands in IELTS listening?

Before moving further in this blog, let’s first analyze the grading system of the IELTS listening system.

Knowing how you got scores on this test and how these scores decide your bands will help you plan your strategy for the IELTS listening task.

If you think about it, then the format of the IELTS listening task is not that complicated. The candidate will listen to four recordings, and then they have to give answers to 40 questions. For every correct answer, the candidate will earn one score.

The advantage that candidates have in this test is that there is no negative marking, so your score will not decrease if you give the wrong answer.

In the end, candidate scores will be decided based on their correct answer, and they will get scores out of 40. Based on these scores, their bands will be determined. The table below will help you understand how bands got calculated based on the candidate’s scores.

And this is how you got bands based on your scores.

Conclusion

The IELTS Listening section is an important module of the IELTS exam, and with the right tips and consistent practice, you can improve your listening. 

You can improve your listening skills by understanding the module and following the tips like developing strong listening skills, building vocabulary, and practicing effective note-taking techniques. 

Regular practice is also one of the important tips for IELTS listening that you must follow to score 9 bands in this module. 

As this is said to be the easiest IELTS module so you should focus on getting a high score in this module. 

If you still have any queries or questions related to the tips for IELTS listening, you can contact our experts. You can also let us know through comments, and our experts will revert you as soon as possible.

For more content like this, keep visiting CourseMentor™. We wish you good luck with your exam.

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