6 Ways to boost your IELTS Listening Band Score from 6 to 8 Band

After having a brief of how the questions appear in the IELTS exam’s actual listening test and how they are classified in different parts, students must be aware of ways to tackle them. This module of the test includes the audio recordings played only once. You will not hear them twice; therefore, I will reveal a few secret tips to boost your scores of IELTS Listening and get a perfect band 9.

 

Time Management

During the listening exam, my students frequently comment that they don’t have enough time to look at the questions or write responses. In the listening exam, it is critical to use your time carefully. Because all students have the same amount of time, students who manage their time well will receive higher grades than students who do not. Take note of how much time is given to you in the instructions: “Now have some time to look at questions 20 to 24” OR “Now you have half a minute to check your answers. ”When it comes to time management, understanding questions quickly and knowing what to listen for is essential.

Be attentive

However, the IELTS Listening difficulty rises as the students proceed with questions, but the examiner also allows cracking answers using indicators and plugins. The examiner uses certain words like however, but, finally, that helps anticipate the speaker’s idea. Try to acquire a sense of what’s going on. You’ll get a short introduction before each part, which is essential to note. It appears for example: ‘Now, you’ll hear a chat between…’ or ‘Now, you’ll hear a lecture on…’ Be aware that this information is not mentioned on the question paper.

Please note who is speaking, why they are talking, and where they are located. Such parameters will make the rest of the tape much more accessible for students to comprehend.

Avoid Distractors

Being attentive and avoiding distractions works hand in hand because the examiner induces several types of distractors in the IELTS Listening Test. Distractors are most commonly seen in dialogues, where one speaker says something and the other speaker corrects him or her. In order words, you’ll hear two different versions of the identical piece of information. One is correct, and the other is erroneous, and if you don’t pay attention, it’s obvious to write the incorrect one. Another example of the examiner distracting students is by setting traps using similar keywords the wrong way in the audio. These distractors may cause you to make dumb errors on the test, so be prepared to deal with them on test day. Avoid them to improve your IELTS Listening scores.

Have Patience

The examiner plays the audio once; therefore, make sure to understand the idea, listen to the correct word in their singular or plural forms, have eyes peeled on questions, and most importantly, write the correct spellings. Doing all such tasks at once can make students impatient. They also tend to lose on listening to some part of the recording and hence miss on questions. You can also be on their part, so be patient whether you miss one question as there is a long way to go. You have the rest of the questions to respond precisely to boost your listening test bands.

Instructions

As mentioned earlier, Instructions are essential to answer the correct way. If you do not follow the examiner’s prescribed guidelines, your answer will not be given attention while marking.

Correct Spellings

Writing the answers to your IELTS listening module with correct spellings is as essential as getting them right. For instance, the speaker in the audio meant ‘principal’, but the answer is incorrect when you write ‘principle’. You heard the examiner right yet misinterpreted the meaning. Some most commonly repeated words appear in the IELTS exam; practice them to avoid errors such as incorrect spellings.

The students can point out these mistakes while practicing for the IELTS exam to improve listening scores. However, be aware of the types of questions appearing in the IELTS Listening section for a perfect band 9.

Wait a minute, Do you need 8+ bands in IELTS Listening? 

If yes, How many questions must be correct?

IELTS Listening Band Calculator
must read – Mastering IELTS Listening

Each Question carries 1 mark
Marks obtained	Bands
39-40	9
37-38	8.5
35-36	8
32-34	7.5
30-31	7
26-29	6.5
23-25	6
18-22	5.5
16-17	5
13-15	4.5
11-12	4

Now that you know how many marks you require as per the band desirability. The following is the IELTS exam question list, and you may encounter some of them in your actual IELTS test. Jot down the ones you find easiest to score as per your overall IELTS band requirement.

Types of Questions appearing in the IELTS Listening test

Although there are only four parts to the listening test, the types of questions differ for every exam. The students may encounter some of the following mentioned questions in their real IELTS test.

• Form completion | Note completion | Summary completion
• IELTS Listening Sentence completion
• Table completion
• Flow-chart completion
• Matchings
• IELTS Listening Multiple choice questions ( MCQs )
• Map labelling | Diagram labelling

[carousel_slide id=’16536′]