IELTS Listening6 Steps to a band 9
IELTS Listening Band 9 - There are quite a few advanced ways in which you can boost your IELTS Listening score, but here are the most basic things you can do to…
IELTS Listening Band 9 – There are quite a few advanced ways in which you can boost your IELTS Listening score, but here are the most basic things you can do to see a rise in your bands.
Read on to find out what the 6 MAGIC STEPS are to help you get 9 band in IELTS Listening.
As the listening subtest is often said to be the easiest of the lot, it might not be such a bad idea to make the best out of it in order to witness your overall band go up.
2) Practice writing while listening: There are a number of occasions where you can get 2 answers right next to each other on the audio so taking your attention off the conversation being played to just write down the answer might end very badly for you. So practice writing down words with your attention still intact and on the audio being played.
3) Answer prediction: It is often the case that the context of the audio being played is way too familiar to you and the answer there might just be obvious. If this is the case, then go right ahead and make a rough note of that answer, because there are sometimes cases where what we predict is exactly what the answer is. We can also use the ‘untested’ information in the listening question booklet, to analyse & predict the possible answers.
4) Develop your focus: Listening to a 30-minute conversation can often be tiring and it is easy to lose concentration. However, losing your concentration amidst any other subtest in IELTS can still be something that can be recovered from, except the listening test. As the audios are played only once, a five second lapse in focus will probably result in missing 2 answers at least. So work on your focus and try to hold it down all the way till the end.
5) Learn to leave the missed ones, but fill in an answer anyway at the end: Students often get hung up on an answer that they have missed due to some reason and this is exactly why they will probably miss the coming answer as well. So learn to let the missed ones go. Do not get hung up on it and focus on the ones that are coming up next.
6) Pay attention to the pitch of the speaker: There is a good chance a lot of the answers carry a special emphasis on the audio. The speakers tend to slow down or stress more when approaching the answers and with enough experience and practice, you can detect these sudden changes too. Eventhough, this is not something to be relied upon completely, this technique is very handy when mastered. Thus only use it to confirm your answers and never to spot them alone.