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EXAM GUIDE LISTENING SECTION

Listening Section Format

No. of Text Task
Section Context
Questions Type Types

10 a conversation / giving or exchanging note completion
1 (usually 1 / 2 tasks) interview between information on an form completion
two speakers everyday topic
table completion
10 a monologue giving information on an
2 (usually 2 tasks) (occasionally everyday topic sentence completion
introduced by a e.g. on a talk show
second speaker) flow-chart completion

10 a conversation an educational or map labelling
3 (up to 3 tasks) between 2/3/4 training context diagram labelling
speakers
matching
10 an academic setting e.g.
4 (up to 3 tasks) a monologue a lecture / presentation / multiple choice
talk / speech

Time: 40 minutes (including 10 minutes to transfer your answers onto the answer sheet)
Marking: 1 mark for each correct answer

SECTION 1

is... a face-to-face or telephone conversation
about a topic of general interest
usually comprised of one or two tasks (there is a pause between tasks)
ten questions long WITH an example at the beginning

tests... your understanding of specific information (i.e. dates, everyday objects, places etc.)
spelling (all words must be spelt correctly)

spelling: if you are asked to write the name of a street, person, company etc., it will be spelt for you
you should be very familiar with the names of the letters of the alphabet to aid you in spelling what you hear

numbers: you may have to write down a year, phone number, part of an address etc.
remember that ‘0’ can be pronounced ‘oh’ or ‘zero’ when saying a phone number
when talking about money, we typically say amounts in the same way as in the examples below:
£4.50 = four pound(s) fifty / four fifty
$31.85 = thirty-one dollar(s) and eighty-five cents / thirty-one eighty-five
most years are pronounced in the same way as in the examples below:
1985 = nineteen eighty-five
2015 = twenty fifteen
(we put the first two numbers together and then the second two)
except for the years 2000 - 2009, example:
2000 = two thousand
2009 = two thousand and nine or two thousand nine
(we say the year as we would a number)
you can write dates in different ways and still get full marks:
3rd March, March 3rd, March 3 and 3 March are all considered the same two-word answer
for measurements, you can write either the whole thing or an abbreviation, for example:
25m = 25 metres = 25 meters

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