IELTS Listening practice
- By Derek
In each of our weekly newsletters, we ensure to include a nod to the vast majority of listening materials that will be helpful for the IELTS exam. We recommend podcasts and programs where you can listen to English conversations that are similar to the ones you’ll hear during the test. As you’re aware during section 1, you listen to a basic conversation between two people that takes place in an regular social situation eg. between a salesperson and a customer. In section 2, you listen to a monologue (one speaker) in a social situation eg. a guide talking to visitors about a tourist attraction. In section 3, you listen to a conversation between up to four people set in an educational or training setting eg. to a tutor and their students discussing transport. Finally, during section 4, you listen to a monologue about an academic topic eg. a university lecture about the extinction of sea mammals.
Some of our medics struggle with the listening part of the exam because they’re unfamiliar with the language and the vocabulary that the speakers are using. They mention that the conversations become faster and more difficult and, as you can see, this is no coincidence. The best weapon against this is to listen to as much English as possible, as often as possible. If you come across a term you don’t understand, look it up and try to use it in a sentence. When you are able, listen to academics debating a topic. Working to understand their discourse will give you the preparation you need to need to catch – at the very least – the gist of all 4 sections as quickly as possible. In time, you will see your scores rise dramatically – in fact some of our medics have reached the 9.0 (40/40) on the IELTS Listening exam.
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