Overview

The duration of the IELTS Listening test is 30 minutes. For a paper-based test, you will be given an extra 10 minutes to transfer your answers to an answer sheet. For a computer-delivered test, you will be given 2 minutes to recheck your answers.

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There are 4 sections in the IELTS Listening test and the difficulty level of the test increases for each section. Each section has 10 questions, and so there are 40 questions in total. Each question carries 1 mark.

The examiner gives you time to look into the questions before you start listening to the recording that is played and in the end, you will have time to review the answers that you have written.

The listening tests will be of the same type for both academic as well as general training categories.

To answer these questions, you might need to have a good understanding of the monologues and conversations to interpret them and write the answers, as the words in the audio and questions might not be exactly the same.

Be cautious about the word count limit and instructions. As some of these instructions would specify whether your answer should be a word, two words, a number or numbers.

There are four parts to the IELTS Listening test:

- Conversation between 2 people: social context.

- A speech or talk with just one person: social context.

- Conversation between up to four people: educational or training context.

- A talk by one person on an academic subject.