The four sections, and how they escalate
Section 1 is a conversation between two people in an everyday situation: booking something, joining something, reporting something. It is the easiest section and it is almost always form or note completion, which means names, numbers, dates and addresses. Everything in Section 1 is a mark you should be taking.
Section 2 is one person speaking about a local, non-academic topic. A tour of a facility, an induction talk, a description of a new service. The question types widen here to multiple choice, matching and map labelling.
Section 3 is a discussion between two, three or occasionally four people, usually students and a tutor talking about a project. This is where most candidates start dropping marks, because you now have to track who said what while the speakers agree, disagree and correct each other.
Section 4 is a single academic lecture with no break in the middle. It is the hardest section and it is nearly always note completion, following the structure of the talk from beginning to end. The final point of the lecture is almost always tested, so the temptation to relax in the last minute is expensive.
How Listening is marked
One mark per question, 40 in total, converted to a band. There is no partial credit and no penalty for a wrong guess, which means a blank answer is strictly worse than a guess. Leaving anything empty is throwing away a free chance.
Spelling counts. If you hear the answer, understand the answer and write it with a letter missing, you get nothing. Either British or American spelling is accepted, but a mixture within one word is not a spelling.
Word limits are enforced literally. If the instruction says no more than two words and you write three, the answer is wrong even when the correct words are among them. Hyphenated compounds count as one word, and numbers written as digits count as one.
What the recording is doing to you
IELTS Listening is built around correction and contrast. A speaker gives a time and then changes it, quotes three prices and picks one, says a class used to be on Tuesday and has moved to Thursday. The first thing you hear is very often not the answer.
Learn the signals: actually, in fact, sorry, it used to be, or rather, on second thoughts. Every one of them means the information immediately before it is about to be replaced. Section 1 and Section 3 lean on this heavily.
The other habit worth building is reading ahead. You get a short pause before each section to read the questions. Use it to work out what kind of word each gap needs before you hear anything: a number, a day, a job title, a plural noun. Knowing you are listening for a day of the week is most of the work done.
Raw score to band, for listening
Indicative only. IELTS equates every live version separately, so the raw score needed for a given band moves by a mark or two between papers.
Listening
| Correct out of 40 | Band |
|---|---|
| 39 to 40 | 9 |
| 37 to 38 | 8.5 |
| 35 to 36 | 8 |
| 32 to 34 | 7.5 |
| 30 to 31 | 7 |
| 26 to 29 | 6.5 |
| 23 to 25 | 6 |
| 18 to 22 | 5.5 |
| 16 to 17 | 5 |
| 13 to 15 | 4.5 |
| 10 to 12 | 4 |
| 8 to 9 | 3.5 |
| 6 to 7 | 3 |
| 4 to 5 | 2.5 |
The same table for both modules
Listening is identical for Academic and General Training, and so is its conversion. Reading is where the two modules diverge, and the difference is large enough to change your result.
Work out your overall band from four scoresPractise it now
This is the listening paper from Academic Practice Test 1. Everything is free and nothing needs an account.
Section 1
Membership enquiry, Riverside Community Sports Centre
You will hear a woman ringing a sports centre to ask about joining. First you have some time to look at questions 1 to 10.
In the real test the recording plays once and you cannot pause it. Use pause while you are learning the format, then stop using it a fortnight before your test date.
Questions 1 to 10
Complete the form below. Write ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.
Riverside Community Sports Centre — new member enquiry
- 1
Name: Anita
Maximum 1 word
- 2
Address: 14 Road
Maximum 1 word
- 3
Postcode:
Maximum 2 words
- 4
Occupation: nurse
Maximum 1 word
- 5
Class of interest: aerobics
Maximum 1 word
- 6
Class now runs on evenings
Maximum 1 word
- 7
Membership type chosen:
Maximum 1 word
- 8
Cost per month: £
Maximum 1 word
- 9
Induction takes about minutes
Maximum 1 word
- 10
Member must bring a
Maximum 1 word
IELTS Academic Practice Test 1. Your answers are stored in this browser as you type, so a refresh will not lose them. Nothing is sent anywhere until you press submit.
Five things that move your listening band
- 1
Predict the word class before the audio starts
In the reading time, mark each gap with what it must be. A gap after the word costs needs a number. A gap after on needs a day or a date. You will catch answers you would otherwise have heard and not recognised.
- 2
Write while you listen, not after
There is no time to reconstruct an answer from memory once the speaker has moved on. Write in the gap as you hear it, even if you are unsure, then fix it in the transfer time.
- 3
Never let a missed answer cost you the next one
The single most damaging Listening habit is staying on a question you have missed. The questions follow the order of the recording, so a few seconds spent looking backwards can lose you three more. Cross it out, move on, guess it at the end.
- 4
Practise spelling the answer types that repeat
Days, months, common Nepali and British surnames, accommodation, restaurant, receipt, February, Wednesday. A short spelling list of the words that actually appear in Section 1 is worth more than a long vocabulary list.
- 5
Track speakers by role in Section 3
Before it starts, note who is who: two students and a tutor, say. Then mark answers with an initial as you go. Questions asking what one speaker thinks are usually surrounded by distractors from the other speaker.
Mistakes that cost the most marks
- Writing the first number or day you hear, before the speaker corrects it.
- Going over the word limit because the sentence sounded better with an extra word.
- Leaving blanks. There is no penalty for a wrong answer, so a guess is free.
- Copying an answer with the printed word already in the gap, producing a duplicate such as aqua aerobics aerobics.
- Losing concentration at the end of Section 4, where the last point of the lecture is almost always a question.
- Practising with pause and rewind right up to test day, then meeting a recording that plays once.
Common questions about IELTS Listening
- How many correct answers do I need for band 7 in Listening?
- Around 30 out of 40, though it moves by a mark or two between test versions. Band 6 sits around 23 and band 8 around 35.
- Is IELTS Listening the same for Academic and General Training?
- Yes. The Listening and Speaking papers are identical for both modules. Only Reading and Writing differ.
- Do I lose marks for wrong answers?
- No. There is no negative marking, so never leave a question blank.
- Does capitalisation matter?
- No. Answers are accepted in upper or lower case. Many candidates write everything in capitals to avoid ambiguity between letters, which is perfectly acceptable.
- How much transfer time do I get?
- On computer-delivered IELTS you get two minutes at the end to check your answers, because you are typing directly into the answer field. On paper you get ten minutes to copy from the question paper to the answer sheet.
Reviewed 2026-07-28. Test format and scoring information is checked against ielts.org and the two providers operating in Nepal.