Listening
Maps, plans and cutaway diagrams, and the labels that are already there to help you. With a practice exercise.
Labelling a diagram in IELTS listening asks you to add labels to a picture, a map, a plan or a cutaway drawing. Some labels are given and some are numbered blanks for you to complete.
Candidates find these harder than they need to be, because they look at the blanks and ignore the labels already printed. Those existing labels are the map: they tell you the vocabulary the speaker will use and roughly where each answer sits.
How they work
Six things that are true of every version of this question type.
Blank 1 is answered before blank 2. If you hear something matching blank 3 first, you have missed one and should move on.
They show the register the speaker will use. If a coffee machine already says heater light and filter holder, expect that level of technical vocabulary.
Above, below, beside, opposite, to the left of, at the end of. In map questions these do most of the work.
Maps normally show an entrance or a north arrow. Fix your starting point before the recording, or every direction will be reversed.
Diagram labels are usually one or two words. Check the instruction line, because a longer answer is wrong even when it is accurate.
Look at each blank and ask what could go there. A blank on a can is a part of a can; a blank on a floor plan is a room.
Method
Six steps, five of them in the pause before the audio.
Before anything else. A cross-section of an aerosol can needs different vocabulary from a floor plan, and knowing which prepares you for both.
They prime you for the words you will hear, and they often surround the blanks you have to fill.
On a map, the entrance or the you-are-here mark. On a diagram, the top or the outside. Speakers describe from a fixed point.
Follow 1, 2, 3 across the picture with your eye. That is the route the speaker will take.
As you come in, on your right, directly opposite, further along. These phrases mark the moment an answer arrives.
Some candidates rotate maps to match their own orientation and lose track. Use the orientation as printed.
Practice
This is the transcript of a short recording about the floor plan below. Read it, then answer the questions.
From the waiting area, go up to the end of the corridor and turn right. Interview Room 5 is the one on the right-hand side, standing on its own off that second corridor.
Do not go into the rooms along the top of the plan. Rooms 2, 3 and 4 are being used for marking today, and Room 1, immediately above the waiting area, is closed.
1Which room is the speaking test in?
Interview Room 5. The directions are sequential: to the end of the corridor, then right. Room 5 is the only one described as standing on its own off the second corridor.
2What is Room 1 used for today?
It is closed. Rooms 2, 3 and 4 are being used for marking. Room 1 is separately described as closed, and mixing the two is the trap.
3Before the recording starts, what should you do first?
Work out what it shows and find the entrance. Speakers describe from a fixed starting point, and without one every direction is ambiguous.
4Which language signals that an answer is coming?
Position and movement language. At the end of, on your right, directly opposite. In map questions these phrases carry the answers.
5The instruction says NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS. Your answer is reception waiting area. What do you do?
Write waiting area. Choose the two words that answer the question. Three words is marked wrong even when the meaning is right.
Almost always because the starting point was not fixed before the recording began. It is a preparation problem rather than a listening one.
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Reading a transcript lets you go back. On the day the recording moves on whether or not you have found your place.
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Yes. Blank 1 is answered before blank 2, so if you hear something matching a later blank you have missed one.
Maps, building floor plans, and cutaway drawings of objects such as machines or containers. All work the same way.
They show you the vocabulary the speaker will use and help you locate the blanks. Reading them in the pause is the most useful preparation you can do.
Position and movement: opposite, beside, at the end of, on your right, further along. In map questions these phrases carry the answers.
Yes. Labels are usually one or two words, and an over-length answer is marked wrong even when it is accurate.
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