Listening
Dates, figures, spelled-out names and the answers people write down wrongly. With a practice exercise.
Numbers and details in IELTS listening account for a large share of Section 1, and they are the easiest marks in the paper to win or throw away. The listening itself is rarely the problem; writing the answer down correctly is.
Names and places are usually spelled out for you, which means the mark depends entirely on whether you can follow letters at speed and write them accurately while the recording continues.
Writing them down
Six things that catch candidates out.
One thousand is 1000. Half a million is 500,000. One million is 1,000,000. Write the figure rather than the words: it is faster and less error-prone.
In current usage a billion is 1,000,000,000 in both British and American English. Older material sometimes claims otherwise; it does not any more.
Five point six is 5.6. A quarter is one fourth. Both appear in news-style recordings, and both are easy to mishear under pressure.
Section 1 almost always spells a surname or a street. Write the letters as you hear them and do not try to guess the word.
Surname, other names, telephone number, occupation, marital status, qualifications, date of birth, nationality, address. Section 1 draws from this list constantly.
My number is 833 6634, sorry, that is the old one. The second version is always the answer.
Method
Six habits, and the last is the one that saves marks.
25 rather than twenty-five. Faster to write and impossible to misspell, and both are accepted.
In spoken English, the pairs that go wrong most are M and N, S and F, B and P, and G and J. Practise those specifically.
Type it roughly and tidy it in the two minutes at the end. Fussing over an answer while the recording runs is how the next one gets missed.
A telephone number is a string of digits. A date is a day and a month. A price has a currency. Knowing the shape helps you catch it.
Corrections are built into the test, and the version you hear second is the one that counts.
Dates written consistently, numbers without stray spaces, names capitalised. Small tidying, real marks.
Practice
This is the transcript of a short news bulletin. Read it, then answer.
Good evening and welcome to the six o'clock news. Tonight's top story: a second earthquake in six months has struck Japan. Preliminary reports claim that up to 1,100 people are missing and damage is estimated at over seven hundred thousand dollars.
Unemployment figures released today show a slight decrease, at 5.6 per cent, a 0.3 per cent drop on last year's figure of 5.9. Finally, the weather: temperatures on the east coast reach a high of 30 degrees tomorrow.
1How many people are missing?
1,100. Eleven hundred. Writing the figure rather than the words is faster and removes the risk of a spelling error.
2What is the estimated damage?
$700,000. Seven hundred thousand. Large numbers spoken aloud are where most errors happen, which is why writing figures pays.
3What is the current unemployment rate?
5.6 per cent. 0.3 is the size of the drop and 5.9 is last year's figure. All three numbers appear within one sentence, which is deliberate.
4Tomorrow's high temperature?
30 degrees. Thirty and thirteen are among the commonest confusions in the listening test, because the stress pattern is the only difference.
5A speaker gives a phone number, then says sorry, that is my old number. What do you write?
The second number. Self-correction is a deliberate feature of the test, and the version given second is always the answer.
Thirteen and thirty, fifteen and fifty. These pairs cost marks at every level of English, and the only fix is deliberate practice on them.
The complete IELTS course on IELTStestONLINE has video lessons on every question type, many more exercises like this one, and your own support tutor you can ask when an answer does not make sense. Take a look at the complete course
A transcript lets you reread. In the test the numbers arrive once, inside a sentence with two other numbers beside them.
IELTStestONLINE keeps every score you get in one place, gives you an estimated band as you work, and assesses your writing and speaking against the four criteria so you can see where you stand before test day. See what full membership includes
Figures. Both are accepted, but figures are faster to write and cannot be misspelled, which matters when the recording is still playing.
Because the test is checking whether you can follow letters at speed. Write the letters as you hear them rather than guessing the whole word.
Thirteen and thirty, fifteen and fifty, and similar pairs where only the stress differs. They are worth practising deliberately.
The second version is the answer. Speakers correcting themselves is built into the test on purpose.
Write what the question needs. If the gap already shows a dollar sign, the number alone is enough, and repeating the symbol wastes a word.
Full membership
Section 1 is where the winnable points are. Finding out how many you drop, and why, needs your answers looked at rather than just counted.
IELTStestONLINE assesses your writing and speaking against the four IELTS criteria, instantly and as often as you like, using a system built by a former IELTS examiner and examiner trainer. It keeps every score in one place with an estimated band, and it carries no advertising.
See what membership includesQuick question, 10 seconds
Where do you want to study or move to?
When are you planning to go?
How far along are you?
Want free IELTS practice sent to you?
Optional. Leave it blank and your answers are still counted.
Thanks. That helps.
Back to your practice.