5+ Useful IELTS Listening Tips: Exam Pattern and Common Mistakes

IELTS Listening: The IELTS listening test can be challenging for many test takers. The section requires students to have good listening skills as well as proficiency in English writing. While you won’t be crafting formal essays, the test still assesses your ability to organise your thoughts and express them clearly. That said, it is crucial for one to hone their listening skills to ace the IELTS listening section. We have curated some of the best IELTS listening tips to help you hone your skills and secure better band scores in the IELTS 2024 exam.

What is IELTS?

IELTS Exam: The IELTS Exam is one of the most popular and widely taken English proficiency tests for non-native English speakers who wish to study abroad. IELTS scores serve as a testament to an individual’s English proficiency. Universities in English-speaking countries like the UK, Canada, and the US use these scores to assess a candidate’s readiness for thriving in an academic environment abroad. The IELTS exam 2024 is conducted by IELTS India in the Indian subcontinent. Therefore, Indian students aspiring to take the IELTS can reach out to IELTS India in case of any queries. 

There are two formats available for the IELTS exam: IELTS Academic and IELTS General Training. Both of these formats are intended for different purposes. For instance, individuals who wish to pursue their higher education abroad must take the IELTS academic test, while those who wish to move to English-speaking nations must sit for the IELTS General Training exam.

IELTS Listening: Exam Pattern 2024 

IELTS Listening mainly consists of various recordings that the examinee can only listen to once and then answer the relevant questions. The maximum duration of this exam is 30 minutes, during which the candidate has to solve 40 questions. It is challenging to understand how to improve your IELTS listening score, so you need to be familiar with the four subsections it comprises – 

• Part 1 – A conversation between 2 people 
• Part 2 – A monologue 
• Part 3 – An academic discourse between a maximum of 4 people
• Part 4 – A monologue based on an academic topic.

Most Useful IELTS Listening Tips to Help You Score Better in 2024 

Securing an above-average band score in the IELTS listening section can pose a major challenge to some. The feat may seem insurmountable at first but it is not something that cannot be overcome. With proper preparation and a dedicated study plan, you too can secure a good band score in the IELTS listening section. That said, we have curated some of the best IELTS listening tips to help you secure better band scores in the IELTS 2024 Exam. Have a look.

• The only sound way to improve your listening skills for the IELTS Listening section is to listen to English daily. You do not have to spend hours on that, only a few minutes will help you get a hold of it. You can listen to anything that’s in English while you are traveling or having breakfast or sitting idly. As every country has different accents, you should hear speakers from the UK, Ireland, the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia or South Africa.
• If you have gone through the format and tasks of the IELTS Listening section, you must have observed that the section consists of two conversations and two monologues. So, when you practice listening to it, make sure you hear both categories to know them well. You can take the help of Podcasts, TED Talks, Radio Broadcasts, and Interviews on YouTube. 
• Memorizing a few words with their meanings will not help you build a strong vocabulary. For this, you need to hear and read lots of English content regularly. Whenever an unknown word comes your way, note it down, look for its meaning and try to make a sentence out of it. Also check for its synonyms, antonyms, and collocations.
• Before listening to the audio, read the question and mark the relevant keywords. Try to predict which words or phrases will help you find the correct part of the text. Think of other ways to say these words. Analyze the synonyms and antonyms. Try paraphrasing the sentence with the keywords. Stay focused while you listen to the audio, do not let your concentration get distracted. Also, follow the instructions to your maximum. 
• Practice makes a man perfect, this quote is true in itself. Listen to various audio wherever and whenever you can. Do not sit idle, utilise your time by listening to English stuff. When you are not in the mood to study for other sections, open your mobile or laptop and search for relevant English content to hear. Practice the listening tests made for the IELTS Listening section. 
• Listening to English audio doesn’t mean only listening to them. Listen to them, take tests and see where you are lacking behind. Identify your mistakes and work on them till they become negligible.
• Take a good amount of time to analyze your performance and score better. Find what’s making you stay behind, is it vocabulary or grammar or something else? Redo your practice tests once you know your mistakes and avoid them in the next practice. 

Most Common Mistakes in IELTS Listening That You Must Avoid in 2024

The listening section of the IELTS exam is often considered one of the most challenging aspects of the entire exam. This is because it requires students to use not only their listening skills but also their English writing skills. That said, one of the hurdles that often cause students to lose their marks is spelling. One may consider the importance of spelling as insignificant, however, these are the little pitfalls that can impede your overall scores in the longer run.

This is why one must prioritise the importance of using correct spelling as much as they emphasise the importance of grammar and punctuation. Here are some of the most common spelling mistakes usually made by students in IELTS listening that you must avoid at all costs. 

Single and Double Consonants

Single and double consonants are often vilified in IELTS. This is because these seemingly innocuous words often cause test-takers to lose their crucial marks. This usually occurs when students stumble across single and double consonants close, leading to imminent errors. For instance, words like “across,” “recommend,” and “necessary” can trip up listeners who might accidentally omit a crucial second consonant. Conversely, double consonants followed by a single consonant can cause similar problems. Imagine hearing “apparent,” “exaggerate,” or “immediate” and having to quickly transcribe them under pressure. The temptation to add an extra consonant where none exists can be strong.

The challenge intensifies further with words containing two sets of double consonants. “Accommodation,” “assess,” “possess,” and “occurrence” are just a few examples. The rapid pace of the listening section and the pressure to capture details can easily lead to misspelling these words.

Adding Suffixes to Words

Another sneaky culprit for spelling errors in the listening section is adding suffixes like -ed, -ing, -er, and -est to verbs. These words can confuse you because, at times, the last consonant in the word needs to be doubled before adding the suffix. This can be a real brain-twister when listening at speed. 

Imagine hearing a sentence like “The deadline has passed.” Here, the “d” in “pass” gets doubled before adding “-ed” to form the past tense. Similarly, “She is always running late” requires doubling the “n” before adding “-ing” for the present continuous tense.

These doubling rules can trip you up if you’re not prepared. To conquer this challenge, get familiar with verb conjugation patterns and practice writing out verbs with different endings. This will help you recognise the doubling rules in action and transcribe them accurately during the listening test.

Irregular Verbs

These are the wild cards of the English language! Unlike regular verbs that follow predictable patterns for past tense and past participle forms (add “-ed”), irregular verbs have their own unique conjugations. “Write” becomes “wrote” (past tense) and “written” (past participle), while “break” becomes “broke” and “broken.” The best way to tackle these is to learn common irregular verbs through memorization and practice.

Examples:

• Listen for: “I saw a beautiful sunset yesterday.” (“Saw” is the past tense of “see”)
• Watch out for: “They have already eaten their lunch.” (“Eaten” is the past participle of “eat”)

Words Changing Form

Students often stumble across the hurdle of words that change their form. They usually make spelling mistakes while changing the form of words.

 For example:  When adjectives turn into nouns (absent to absence), nouns become adjectives (benefit to beneficial), verbs become nouns (maintain to maintenance), or nouns become verbs (success to succeed), spelling can change slightly. Be familiar with these transformations to avoid mistakes.

Double Duty Words

Double-duty words can often throw a bouncer or two at test takers as these are really dicey. These words can be both nouns and verbs, depending on the context, and a single misspelling can land you in an “out.” 

For example: Imagine the word “address.” As a noun, it refers to a location (your home address). But listen closely, and it can also be a verb, meaning “to formally speak to someone” (e.g., “The speaker addressed the crowd”).

Some other examples: 

• “Progress” can be the noun describing advancement (e.g., “There has been significant progress on the project”), or the verb meaning “to move forward” (e.g., “The team is progressing well”). 
• Similarly, “exhibit” can be a noun showcasing something (e.g., “The museum has a new dinosaur exhibit”), or a verb meaning “to display something publicly” (e.g., “The artist will exhibit her paintings this month”).

So that was all about the IELTS listening tips. Hope the blog has answered your queries regarding the topic.

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