TIPS FOR IELTS 1.

Listening

Part 1 listening practice numbers, names, addresses and dates

The focus of this lesson is on avoiding silly mistakes in part 1 listening. If you require a band score 7 or above, you should really aim to get 10 out of 10 here as the questions only get harder. However, it can be surprisingly easy to make mistakes in this part if you are unprepared. To help you out, I describe some of more problems and explain how to listen more effectively for numbers, names, addresses and dates the questions everyone should get right. There is a full part one listening practice at the end.

Telephone numbers
There are one or two points to consider when you are listening to a telephone number in English.

0 is pronounced oh and you are most unlikely to hear zero if there is a double number, we say double 7 we dont say the numbers one by one, rather we read them in groups of 2 or 3. So 13554684616 would be said 13double 5 468-46-16

Addresses
House numbers
When you are listening for an address, you should expect a number and a street name. Typically, the number comes before the name of the street, for example

13, Fairfax Street

Types of different roads

If you have to write down the name of a road, the name will either be spelled out for you or be a common English word that you should be able to spell, eg

34, Bishop Street

or

48, Ormondroyd Street, thats O-R-M-O-N-D-R-O-Y-D

You should also make certain that you can spell the different words that we use for roads, these are:

Road Lane Street Avenue You should also be prepared to write down letters and numbers for the postcode (what Americans call ZIP code). In the British system, these come at the end of addresses and combine a series of letters and numbers, eg 14, Fairhill Road York YO1 7AH

The spelling of names

If you see you need to write out a name, you can expect that the family name will be spelled out letter by letter. This can sometimes cause problems for candidates (even high-level ones) who cannot automatically recognise the names of the letters in English perhaps because they missed out on learning English at the very elementary level and their sounds do not match their names. The ones which most frequently cause trouble are:

a as in say e as in teeth i as in eye x as in ex-wife y as in why

Dates
There are a number of different ways in which say and write down dates. The most common system is:

the 25th of October speaking

25 October/25th October writing

If you have to write down a date and there is a word limit of one word/two words, you should not write down the and of. It does not matter if you put the month before the date.

A common trap
Quite often you will hear more than date/time/number and the one you need is not the first one you hear. To make it harder, sometimes the speaker gives one piece of information and then goes back and corrects it. In this case, make sure you write down the second correct version.

Predict the type of answer

Part of the skill in this exercise is predicting what type of answer you are listening for. In this example, you should see that 3 requires a date, 5 the spelling of a name, 6 the spelling of an address, 7 a telephone number and 10 a longer number for a credit card.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Type of van required _____________ Preferred make of van ______________ Date of collection ________________ Length of hire ________________ Name: Justin ________________ Address ___________________, Toronto Telephone number: _________________ Driving convictions: ________________ Identification to be provided: _____________

10. Card number: 10. ______________________

The practice
While you can do this online, I strongly suggest you download the question sheet as part of the skill here is making notes as you listen.