Lecture Note Listening Module

IELTS with AHSAN

 IELTS Listening

Listening Part-3
Part-3 usually includes discussion of several speakers on one or two specific topics.
The speakers will usually comment on different issues, provide specific information.
▪ Speakers are introduced at the beginning of the talk and usually require test
takers to address them by the accent or voice tone for the rest of this part of
Listening test.
▪ Extensive use of synonyms and paraphrasing is very common in this part.
▪ Distractors are frequently used to incorporate incorrect information within the
speech.
▪ Answers to questions are often discussed at length which means the first
answer you hear is not always correct.
Functional Language
You need to follow the dialogue and be familiar with a variety of functional language
for offering, making a suggestion and expressing a preference as these will help you
to do this.
Commonly used Functional Language:

Suggesting Agreeing

We could… Ok, fine..

Why don’t we… That sounds good..

I think we ought to… I am with you on that..

How about… Absolutely..

Why not…

Shall we…

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 Asking for agreement
Is that OK with you?
Agreed?
Does that seem fair to you?
Are you OK with that?
Does that suit you?
Shall we…

Disagreeing
I’m not sure that’s the best idea..
Actually, I’d rather…
To be honest, I think we should…
To be hones, I’d really rather not…

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 Part-3 Strategies

❖ Recognize the voice tones

Listen to the part-3 audio properly to be able to recognize different voices clearly.
Differentiate the voices of the speakers into groups according to their role in the
discussion. For instance,
✓ Teacher / Student
✓ Male / Female
✓ Tourist / Tour Guide
First few sentences of the discussion audio of part-3 usually do not carry any answers
within. These sentences are introductory and helps you to understand the speakers’
roles and their voice tone.
❖ Utilizing Keywords Properly
You need to use keywords to effectively solve part-3 of listening module.
First you need to identify proper keywords from the questions.
➢ While focusing on the underlined keywords in the question, it is also
important to keep the question in mind because some of the keywords in
the options or the complete option itself may be paraphrased in the audio.
❖ Get a proper understanding of the full question
Try to get an overall understanding of the question in the preparation time. This will
help you to determine the context of the question as well as familiarize yourself with
the pattern.
❖ Be aware of the next question
Remember that while listening to the audio, you have to be quick enough to move
your eyes over all the questions as well as options so that you are aligned up well
with the audio and there is no chance of skipping a question.

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 Key Notes

❖ Don’t panic if you miss anything

Don’t panic if you are unable to understand anything or miss the answers to a
question. You are allowed to make up to 5 mistakes for band 8.
➢ Panicking will only increase your chance of making more mistakes.
❖ Always follow the instructions
Try to follow the given instructions for each question types. Specially for the ‘fill in
the blanks’ type questions.
✓ No More than Two Words
✓ No More than Two Words And/Or a Number
❖ Work on Question Booklet
Always write your answers on question sheet first and then transfer them to the
answer sheet after the listening audio ends.
➢ Writing directly on answer sheet can’t save your time as you think, it’s a
completely suicidal strategy for Listening module.
❖ Be Aware of Spelling
Make sure you wrote the spelling of each answer correctly.
➢ Both American and British spellings are correct. However, try not to mix
them up in a single sentence.
❖ Be Aware of Grammatical Correctness
Every sentence needs to be grammatically correct in IELTS. Hence, always check
your answer with the context of full sentence of the question.
➢ A plural word, misplaced article or inappropriate preposition can cost you
valuable marks.
❖ Read the questions well in advance
Utilize the times given for checking the answers within different parts of listening
module.
➢ Make sure you have read at least 25% of the questions in advance before
the audio allowed you some time for that part.

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❖ Use ALL CAPITAL LETTERS
It is highly suggested to use FULL CAPITAL for both Listening and Reading
modules. Some may find it irritating to write full words in capital, so practice enough
to overcome this feeling.
➢ Additionally, be careful about time management while you transfer your
answers in the given 10 minutes as writing FULL CAPITAL may cost you
some extra time.
Writing ALL CAPITAL will help you more than you know!
✓ You won’t need to worry about Proper Nouns
✓ No worries about sentence capitalization
❖ Practice on Exam Conditions
Make sure you are practicing listening module exactly as you are expecting in the
test day.
➢ Don’t cheat with yourself while you are marking the answers.
➢ Complete the full test in one continuous session.
➢ Always use headphones.
➢ Don’t pause the audio in the middle of the test.
➢ Don’t rewind during the test.
➢ Make sure to analyse and work on your mistakes after each test.
➢ Practice transferring answers within 10 minutes.
❖ Difference in British & American English
Vocabulary
The most noticeable difference between American and British English is vocabulary.
There are hundreds of everyday words that are different.
For example,
▪ Brits call the front of a car the bonnet, while Americans call it the hood.
▪ Americans go on vacation, while Brits go on holidays, or hols.

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 ▪ New Yorkers live in apartments; Londoners live in flats.
➢ Fortunately, you can usually guess the meaning through the context of a
sentence.
 Be familiar with British Vocabularies
British English use some specific vocabularies for regular items. As the chance of
hearing at least one/two parts of your Listening test in British accent is too high, you
should get used to with regular British vocabularies.
➢ Practice hearing from audio sources that use British accents. For instance,
BBC, British movies or series etc.

American English British English

Truck Lorry
Airplane Aeroplane
Line Queue
Field Pitch
Uniform Kit

Collective nouns
Collective nouns are used to refer to a group of individuals.
➢ In American English, collective nouns are singular.
For example,
▪ staff refers to a group of employees;
▪ band refers to a group of musicians;
▪ team refers to a group of athletes.
Americans would say, “The band is good.”
➢ In British English, collective nouns can be singular or plural.
For example,
▪ “The team are playing tonight” or
▪ “The team is playing tonight”

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Auxiliary verbs
The most common auxiliary verb difference is shown in the use of ‘shall.’
➢ Brits sometimes use shall to express the future. For example, “I shall go
home now.”
➢ Americans will say “I will go home now.”
In question form,
▪ The British English is, “Shall we go now?”
▪ American English is, “Should we go now?”
 American English use helping verb ‘do’ to express lack of obligation, “You do
not need to come to work today.”
 British English drop the helping verb and contract not. “You needn’t come to
work today.”

Past Tense Verbs

Verb American Past Form British Past Form

Learn Learned Learnt/Learned
Dream Dreamed Dreamt/Dreamed
Burn Burned Burnt/Burned
In the past participle form,
➢ Americans English use “–en” ending for some irregular verbs.
For example,
American version is, “I have never gotten caught”
British English is, “I have never got caught.”
❑ Americans use both got and gotten in the past participle. Brits only use got.

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Spelling

British Form American Form

Colour Color
Labour Labor
Favour Favor
Aluminium Aluminum
Speciality Specialty
Cosy Cozy
Realisation Realization
Nought Zero
Z (Zed) Z (Zee)
❖ Try to predict the answers beforehand
Predicting the type of answer for ‘fill in the blank questions’ can help you big time
in Listening module. As the audio is played once only, knowing what you are
looking for, can give you an edge while concentrating on answering the question.
❖ Be careful about changes in information
Changing the information or opinion is very common in IELTS Listening test. You
will hear the speaker say something and then correct it immediately afterwards.
This is frequently done in Part 1 & 2 of Listening module. So, you need to be careful
about the changes they might make.
➢ Note that, the change may include paraphrasing so you must be cautious about
the language usage in Listening test.
➢ Sometimes the language of change is used to distract your attention and not
to change the actual answer.
❖ Avoid jumping to conclusions
Don’t fix any answer immediately after someone mentions it within the speech.
Distractors and language changes are frequently used to trick you.

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