First and foremost, what I have to remind you is that a listening task is similar to a reading activity. You’ll be exposed to a STORY, and you’ll have to make sense of it to answer the questions.
This listening test is 40 minutes long, consisting of 4 tasks. I’ll show you part of the mock test available on Cambridge’s website to help you navigate it. Pay close attention to the test instructions. Do not try to open the booklet or the screen before you’re told to; otherwise, you may be disqualified.
The recording starts with the test instructions. Whenever you hear, “Now open your question paper and look at part 1”, do it fast. You’ll get 5 precious extra seconds to read through the questions. This is what part of part 1 looks like:
You’ll see 3 different extracts, with 2 questions for each one. They are either 1-minute monologues or interviews. When you are practicing at home, grant yourself some time to read and familiarize yourself with the instructions. They will be exactly the same in all the tests. However, just skip the instructions, once you are fully aware of what you have to do in each part.
After that, read the questions and underline keywords to help you glance at them and quickly remember what the question was about. After the instructions for the exercise have been played, you’ll have 15 seconds of silence to read the questions between each extract, and 5 seconds between the audio’s repetition. To avoid confusing myself, I read the questions in these 15 seconds so that I can keep the information fresh in my brain. If any clarification or confirmation is needed, I use the 5 seconds to do it.
Beware of the distractors. There will be plenty trying to confuse you. Remember that most of the answers will not use the same wording you will hear.
One of the notable differences between my paper-based and computer-based experiences is that I practiced much more with paper, thus, I was faster at reading and underlining on paper. On the screen, it took me longer because I practiced only once, as Cambridge provides just one digital mock on their website. Perhaps, if you have more digital versions of it, you can master it as well. Having practiced listening a lot, underlining the words was not an issue for me on the test day since I used the time to my advantage.
If you are a fast reader, you may be able to read all the questions while you are listening to the instructions and during the first 15 seconds. As I am a slow reader, I preferred to break it down. However, it is entirely up to you and what works best for you.
Listen to everything and then check your answers. When you start practicing listening, read the transcripts, or listen and read along. It will help you not only identify the key phrases to answer the questions correctly, but also to get the hang of it. It goes without saying that the listening activities further provide you with good language use examples. Keep that in mind.
Transcript:
One of the most challenging questions for an advanced learner is identifying someone’s opinion, attitude or feeling because you will have to look for small elements that support your answer. C2 proficiency may bring that in the listening and reading sections. Work on it, you’ll need it. Pay attention to tone, keywords that would indicate the person’s opinions, and sometimes reading between the lines.
In this exercise, the correct answers are 1C and 2B.
Part 2
I know it is repetitive, but familiarize yourself with what you have to do in each task. You don’t need to know the task number, but when you look at it, you’ll need to know what you are supposed to do.
For part 2, you need to know that the words you read are not the same as the ones you’ll listen to. However, they are similar, and the words or short phrases that are missing will be spoken in the monologue.
Pay attention to the topic so that you can activate your background knowledge, or, if you don’t know what it is, the rubrics may explain it to you as you can see in this example.
It’s a good idea to predict what part of speech the word you need is. You’ll have 45 seconds to read all the 9 questions. Here, I just provided you with 4 examples.
After listening to it for the first time, you’ll have 10 seconds and the recording will be repeated. Personally, I simply enjoy completing texts. That’s why it was not a huge challenge for me. Yet, I am aware that it may cause serious trouble for other candidates. Remember that your answers will have to be exact.
If you struggle with it, scrutinize the tapetranscripts so you understand the logics of the exercise. To practice more, you have plenty of mock tests and there’s an app called Tedict or/and Mediadict that uses fill-in-the-gap exercises with TED talks and YouTube videos. It’s crucial to expose yourself to a wide range of topics and accents.
This listening task is a longer piece, yet all the questions are in order. So do not panic. If you couldn’t answer at first, relax and try to get it the next time.
The words underlined are the answers to the questions. Did you predict the part of speech correctly? Were you able to get the word? Why (not)? Reflecting on the whys is also important for your language learning journey.
Part 3
To my mind, this is the most challenging task, considering most of the listening activities are long and by the time you get to this part, you’ll have endured almost 4 hours of “mental rally”, I mean test. It is easy to lose focus and fall for a distractor, so be extra careful! Tiredness is the reason why I’d suggest you practice under exam conditions. It is an endurance. Your body and your mind need to learn how to focus, stay focused, and re-focus when needed.
Don’t beat yourself up if you make more mistakes here. Do well in the other ones and compensate for your “tiredness”, if necessary. The procedure for this task is the same as part 1. As this is a long listening with 5 questions to be answered, you’ll have 1 minute to read all the questions and answers, and 10 seconds before the audio is repeated.
This one is usually a conversation. As far I can remember, between two very different voices so that you can’t get confused. What I did was to listen and answer 3 questions and when the audio was to be repeated, I looked at the last 2 questions. Remember, I am a slow reader and I needed to find a way to help my brain.
Transcript:
Answers 16B 17A
Part 4
The layout of this task may be confusing at first. It consists of 2 tasks in which for each speaker you have to answer both questions. Take a look:
For this part, it is not unusual to find questions about the speaker’s feelings, attitude and opinion in task 2.
You’ll have 45 seconds to read all the questions and answers. There’s a pause of 2 or 3 seconds between each speaker. It’s not much time. That’s why I’d recommend the 10 seconds before the repetition, should you need to read everything again.
There are two ways of tackling this task. The first one is listening to the recording the first time you answer task 1 and then in the repetition you focus on task 2. I preferred answering both tasks at once, even if I ran the risk of missing some information of the other speaker. With practice, you can do both. Believe me! At first, I struggled too.
If you’re doing the test on paper, you’ll be granted 5 minutes to transfer your answers. When doing it online, the computer will store your answers automatically.
Answers: 21F 22E 23H 24B 25G 26E 27H 28A 29C 30B
Points to remember:
- Familiarize yourself with instructions
- Read the transcripts
- Predict what part of speech the word you need is
- The answers will not be worded the same