English Sharing - IELTS Listening

Last Saturday, my friend N and two students came to my placefor the IELTS Listening mock test. Of all four sections, in my opinion Listeningis the easiest. The pronunciation of the speakers is crisp and clear. If one stayscalm and listens carefully, getting a 7 should be a piece of cake.

There are a few problems I find with the three of them:

• Spelling errors. In the Listening test, you are givenplenty of time. Check your spelling carefully before you submit your answersheet.
• Singular and plural forms. If the answer shouldbe in plural, do not miss the “s”.
• Content words. If the answer expects an adjective, do not use a noun or verb. Even though you have the meaning correct, the answer is stillwrong.
• End consonants. In this particular mock test, a Britishpostal code ST8 4XJ was given. All mistook “eight” as “A”. Pay attention to theend consonants.
  

All of the above are minor in the sense that they do not hamper communication.  However, the devil lies in the details.

There are also issues with the familiarity with national/regionaldifferences in English and word variations. For example, “node point 5 metre”means “0.5 metre”. One panicked when she heard “node point” and missed thenumeric value thereafter.  There arebound to be words you have not come across. What you do not know, you do notknow and there is nothing you can do. Stay calm and keep focused. We are notasking for perfect scores.

Postscript: I have been organising these mock tests forthree weeks. Last week was the first time the students showed up. I understandeveryone is busy but if this is not one’s priority, then do not expect goodscore in the examination.  I told myhusband perhaps I should have charged a fee (instead of offering my service forfree) and the students might have taken it more seriously.

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