The IELTS General Exam

Listening and Reading Elements

Listening

After the bizarre speaking exam, comes the even stranger listening section.

In this room, you are seated in a little booth and told categorically not to look at anyone else, communicate or even breathe too loud! The usual exam scare-mongering tactics used by the special breed that are ‘invigilators’.

Some poor unfortunate person put his headphones on without being told to do so and was barked at immediately. Once the instructions were read aloud, we were told (not asked) to put our headphones on and then to input our login details. 

One of the strange things about this test is that everyone has to complete it at exactly the same time, regardless of how long it takes you. You have to wait for everyone else. I found this really odd but as you will see in my blog about the IELTS writing exam- it is quite important. 

Accessibility Features

Logged in, you then listen to some generic instructions about the test, including some useful accessibility features (font size, volume and background colours can be adjusted). Then each section in turn is explained further.

The listening test was extremely similar to those I rehearsed when using the access to the premium IELTS materials, which I would highly recommend if you are revising for this exam.

The speakers, in my opinion, gave instructions and had discussions at a reasonable pace. This provided enough time to answer the questions.

Make sure you use the minute before anyone starts to talk to read through the prompts and sentences. More often than not it gives an indication of the words you may be expected to fill in. 

Throughout my revision, one element which let me down on practice tests was anything to do with maps or diagrams. Not because this is particularly difficult, I am just useless with both of these!

So low and behold, I had a lovely map in my exam in which I had to use the directions to label different parts of an island. 

The listening section took about 30 minutes in total to complete as you cannot rush ahead. 

The sections in my listening test included: 

• A tour guide speaking to guests about a particular island in New Zealand. 
• A lecture about fashion through time, based in New Zealand.
• Directions using a map of an island.
• A conversation between two students about their presentation for their degree.

Three Important things to remember

1. You only hear each instruction, discussion or lecture once so make sure you read the instructions or look at diagrams and maps carefully before the speaker begins so you have an expectation of the information you will complete. 
2. Wait for the speaker to finish parts of their speech as they may give you what seems like the answer and then change the information e.g. Is Mr Smith booked into Room 456 which is a double? Yes that’s correct. Oh wait, no, they are full. He is in Room 42 which is a single room. 
3. There is time to check answers at the end of the listening section- make sure you use this to ensure you have not missed anything out. 

Reading

Perhaps my favourite section of the exam- apart from the fact that I was finished after 22 minutes and had to wait until 60 minutes was up to move onto my Writing aspect. 

I enjoy reading and would class myself as a very proficient reader, reading fluently and taking new information on board fairly quickly. I am also fortunate enough that in my job, I support children regularly with reading comprehension strategies and therefore, I have built a wealth of my own over the years.

Addressing Concerns

For many, this is a daunting section of the exam. One comfort I would suggest you take is that the large majority of answers are multiple-choice, and therefore some of the thinking is taken away from the answer. 

Another concern people have, which I have noticed from other feedback, is the fair amount of reading per section to conquer in an hour, as well as the varied questioning.

Again, the soundest advice I can give is to ensure that you use the IELTS premium access you will have once booked onto an exam to revise. I would also recommend that you practice reading during any spare time you have. Whether this be a fiction or non-fiction piece, an online blog or a newspaper- this is all fantastic practice to improve your fluency and lexical capacity. 

Many questions in the IELTS reading exam require you to have a good awareness of synonyms (words which have a similar meaning to another) to answer questions correctly. This is a skill which again can be supported by reading more and searching online for lists of common synonyms. This will also help you to prepare for the writing exam. 

The most difficult questions for me when I was revising for the reading exam, were the ‘True, False, Not Given’ or ‘Yes, No, Not Given’. I practised this section the most during my revision and then didn’t even get to use all of this rehearsal in the exam as they didn’t pop up! Other than that, this exam was fairly represented in the practice materials.