Listening

Use the time before each section starts to read the questions and predict what you will hear. For every gap, ask yourself: what type of word fits here — a name, a number, a date, a place? If question 3 says ”£___ per month”, your brain is already primed to catch a price, and you won’t be distracted by other numbers mentioned nearby.

Watch out for distractors: speakers in IELTS recordings routinely correct themselves (“Thursday — no, sorry, Friday”) or mention several options before settling on one. The answer is almost always the final version. Never write the first plausible thing you hear and stop listening.

Finally, remember that answers come in order. If you realise the conversation has moved past your current question, let it go and catch up — losing one answer is recoverable; losing your place for a whole section is not.