listening techniques

1. Read the questions and underline the most important words.

2. Think about the differences between a, b, c, if they are not obvious.

3. Indicate what you think is the correct answer the first time you listen.

4. Confirm your thoughts the second time you listen.

1. Take a few seconds to read and get an understanding of the topic.

2. Learn about word families and sentence structures and think what type of word you need to put in the gap.

3. Watch out for expressions, collocations, phrasal verbs, etc.

4. Write the same words as you hear in the passage.

5. Write something the first time you listen. Confirm and listen for general meaning the second time you listen.

6. Mind you spelling. Is your word in the correct form, for example if it’s a third person verb, did you remember to ass an ‘s’ to the end ( very common mistake with Latin Language based learners)!

1. Read through the 2 questions and underline the key words (ignoring the a, b, c options).

2. Some words from the listening deliberately try to distract you from the correct answer. To avoid these ‘distractors’, I suggest covering the a, b, c options until you have listened to the passage.

Then, after listening once and still not looking at the options, decide what you think might be the answer to the question.

The look at the a, b, c options and see if one option is similar to what you thought.

Confirm this the second time you listen.

1. Underline the most important words (A-H).

2. Learn the meanings of words related to emotions before the exam.

delighted, relieved, grateful, etc.

Write words and vocabulary related to the underlined words (left column first).

This should help you locate the information you need and help you remember the main ideas for each option.

3. The first time you listen write every letter you think might be correct next to the speaker.

Listening Part 1 (Multiple choice)

Listening Part 2 (Sentence completion)

Listening Part 3 (Multiple choice)

Listening Part 4 (Multiple matching)

Listening (about 40 minutes)

The C1 Advanced Listening paper has four parts (30 questions). For each part you have to listen to a recorded text or texts and answer some questions. You hear each recording twice.

Also, tests your ability to follow and understand a range of spoken materials, such as interviews, radio broadcasts, presentations, talks and everyday conversations.

Tips and Techniques