In IELTS the listening comprehension is designed to assess your ability to understand spoken English and is the same for all candidates. There is a pre-recorded tape which lasts for about thirty minutes. There is a total of about forty questions. There are four sections in the test. Each section may contain two or three linked passages of two to three minutes each, or one longer passage of about five minutes. The passages get more difficult as you progress through the tape.
The earlier sections use situations in which you may find yourself on first arriving in an English-speaking country, when you need 'survival English'. These include finding your way around, following directions, giving and taking down information, making arrangements etc. Section 1 is always in the form of a dialogue between two or more speakers, while section 2 is a talk or some information given by one person at a time.
In the later sections the topics usually concern education and training. Here you may have to do the kind of thing you will need to do in an academic environment - listen to pre-recorded information, listen to lectures, pick out relevant key information from a dialogue and so on. Again, section 3 is a dialogue or discussion, while section 4 is a single voice giving a talk or lecture.
So you will hear monologues and dialogues. You will hear male voices and female voices. You will also hear a variety of accents. You will hear the passages once only, as in most situations in real life.
You are given a booklet. This contains all the instructions and questions with space to write your answers.
