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IELTS practice overview

Listening

Listen once, follow the sequence, and respect the instructions

IELTS Listening has 40 questions across four parts and typically takes about 30 minutes. The contexts move from everyday social situations to educational and academic material.

The four-part structure

  1. Part 1A conversation between two speakers in an everyday social context.
  2. Part 2One speaker in an everyday social context.
  3. Part 3An educational or training discussion with multiple speakers.
  4. Part 4One speaker presenting an academic subject.

A useful practice approach

Use preparation time to predict what kind of answer belongs in each gap, then follow the recording's order without trying to replay missed moments. Check spelling, grammatical form, and every authored word or number limit.

Prepare for each response format

See one-pass strategies, common traps, and original examples in the Listening question-types guide.

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