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Get Band 9 After Using These Listening Tips

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you've just found the Ultimate Guide to

IELTS listening this is the longest most

detailed most comprehensive guide to

IELTS listening on the internet it will

help you succeed by helping you

understand the test format tips and

strategies that only ban nine students

really understand we're also going to

show you where to find real IELTS

listing practice tests for free and how

to use those practice tests to

constantly improve your score to a band

9. and at the end we're also going to

give you one of our VIP IELTS listening

practice tests for free so all you have

to do is sit back watch this video and

get the score that you need for IELTS

listening

let's start off by talking about the

IELTS listening test format because bar

9 students understand things about the

format of the test and then adapt their

preparation to match that format the

IELTS listening test is the same for

General training and academic and band 9

students understand this and what they

do is they use a range of different

sources to practice with both academic

and general social situations to listen

to they expose themselves to all of

these different inputs which means that

on test day they are totally comfortable

with what they hear on test day you're

going to have to answer 40 questions and

the goal is to answer 40 out of 40

correctly so you need to understand the

test format so part one part two part

three part four as you go along these

four parts they progressively get more

and more difficult online students

understand this and what they do to

combat this is they will spend a lot

more time during the preparation on

Parts three and four because Parts three

and four really separate out the band

sevens from the band eights from the

band nines now normally band eight band

nine students are getting a hundred

percent of their answers correct in part

one and part two and then they really

focus their preparation on part three

and part four in order to feel a hundred

percent comfortable and know that

they're going to do well on test day and

band 9 students also understand the

different styles of listening script

that they're going to hear on test Day

part one part two part three and part

four are all different so let's look at

each of those parts part one is going to

be in a general or social setting with

more than one speaker normally two

speakers and often this will be someone

phoning someone else and then form

filling or taking down information such

as taking down a telephone number or a

license plate number or an address now

this is quite an unusual way to listen

to English in normal situations we are

not normally listening to someone

writing down a telephone number so the

best way to prepare for this and

practice this is actually use the

official listening test that you get

from Cambridge and I'll show you where

to find those for free later on in this

video but if you want to really nail

part one practice those get used to

those practice tests in part one and you

should be absolutely fine part two gets

a little bit more difficult on the

listening test this is where you are

again listening to a social or a general

situation but only one person is talking

at this time so this could be someone to

talking about their holiday or reviewing

a book or something like that so what

successful students do is they listen to

this type of social situation with one

person talking when they're practicing

their listening examples of this could

be a podcast where someone is just

talking by themselves on the podcast

they are excellent for practicing your

listening skills or there are many many

YouTube channels like this one where

there's one person talking to camera and

again this is great practice what I

would recommend doing is pick something

that you love pick a YouTube channel

that you love not a IELTS Channel

because IELTS is pretty boring or a

podcast that you love think of something

you enjoy listening to and when you are

on the bus or on your way to work or on

your lunch break you can just listen to

this and you are improving your ability

to do part two of the listening test

part 3 gets a little bit more difficult

again the context switches to an

academic context but don't worry you

don't have to be an academic person you

don't have to be at University studying

a very academic subject to do well in

this part remember academic and general

training exactly the same for the

listening test the key here for part

three of the listening test is you're

going to have to listen to multiple

people speaking at the same time so

where can you find that successful

students usually listen to podcasts so

there are lots and lots and lots of

podcasts out there where they will

invite guests on so two three four

guests and they will all debate a topic

again what I would recommend doing is

find a podcast either on your podcast

app or on YouTube where you have

multiple people discussing an academic

topic this could be history or science

or health anything that you are mildly

and interested in and really what you're

trying to do is differentiate between

the different accents the way that

people interject the way that people

show their opinion the way that people

agree with one another or disagree with

one another that's what you should be

thinking about when you're practicing

for part three of the listening test

part four is the most difficult part it

is an academic context and there is just

one person talking normally this will be

an academic lecture like someone giving

a lecture at a university a great way to

practice this is through TED Talks go on

to ted.com or go to their YouTube

channel and find some TED Talks that you

enjoy listening to that you think might

benefit you or you're just interested in

them and try and listen to how the

person gets their points across how they

stage what they're saying they are

probably going to use words like first

or firstly we're going to talk about

this and then we're going to talk about

that think about how they use this type

of language to make what they are

talking about clearer to you the

listener so now that we know what each

part comprises of and we know what's

going to come up in each part of the

listening test we need to now I think

about the types of questions that will

come up on the listening test because if

you know the context how many people are

talking in each part and you're

comfortable using the different types of

questions then you will be in a very

very good position to get a band 8 or

band 9 on test day because you know

exactly what is coming up you're not

stressed and you're going to feel very

comfortable and just listen get the

answer write it down and get the score

that you need now the most important

thing when it comes to the different

types of questions is to understand that

there are many different there are more

than 10 different types of listening

question that you might get for example

you might get a multiple choice question

you might get summary completion or you

might get labeling a map or filling in

information the key thing to remember

here is that they are asking you a

variety of different questions to test a

variety of different listening skills

therefore the biggest thing that you

should not do is just go into the test

and have one strategy for all the

different types of questions because

they're all very very different so what

we're going to do in this video later on

we're going to give you strategies for

all of the different types of questions

right now all you need to know is that

there are different types of questions

that require different strategies later

on in the video we're going to give you

those but keep watching because there's

some really important information coming

you will have to listen to the IELTS

listening test for 30 minutes this is

really crucial should understand because

many people for the first time in their

lives are listening to 30 minutes of

English continuously on test day you do

not want the first time that you ever

continuously focus on Listening to

English for 30 minutes you don't want

that to be test day many students that

we work with have great listening skills

but they lack the stamina the focus to

listen continuously for 30 minutes so

what can you do about that you need to

get used to listening and focusing on

what you're listening to for long

periods of time but what you should not

do is just on day one get some practice

tests try and listen for 30 minutes and

then what will happen is after five or

ten minutes you'll lose focus and then

you'll beat yourself up you'll be like

Oh I'm terrible I'm going to fail don't

do that all right imagine you are

running a marathon Race all right how

long is a marathon Race I don't know

exactly let's say it is 25 miles on day

one you don't go and try and run 25

miles you might run five miles then

eight miles then 12 then 16 then 20 and

then eventually you get to 25 you should

do the exact same thing when you're

preparing for the test what I would do

is get a little clock like this you know

put five minutes on and do some practice

tests or listen to a podcast or a TED

talk and be completely focused on that

actually listen to what the person is

saying and then the next day try and go

to seven minutes or ten minutes and then

the next day 12 minutes or 15 minutes

listening is just like a muscle you need

to build that up over time all right and

if you do that over the course of a few

weeks you will be able to 100 Focus for

30 minutes and that's what we need if we

want to buy nine if we miss one question

or two questions or three questions then

it's unlikely we're going to get that

score you need to be able to focus

completely for 30 minutes another common

reason why students don't do so well and

don't get a Band-Aid or about a nine is

because they're not used to listening to

recordings in English once on test day

you will only hear the listening once is

this because

Cambridge are horrible people and they

want you to fail no what are they doing

they are recreating real life in real

life if you go to university the

university lecturer is not going to

repeat themselves multiple times if you

get a job and someone asks you to do

something they're not going to repeat it

multiple times if you are at an airport

and you hear you know information about

your flight they won't do it five times

because you don't know what they are

actually saying many English teachers

spoil their students most English

teachers want their students to like

them so what they do is they'll play

recordings two three four times this is

like a mother or father spoiling their

child they want them to do well but they

need to get a little harsher in order to

get the child to actually perform and

not be spoiled that's exactly what you

need to get used to when you're

practicing when you're listening to

podcasts when you're listening to you

YouTube when you're practicing your

listening try to get used to listening

to things once and thinking about the

answer and what they said once then

after that you can check your answer you

can listen back but don't make it the

very first time on test day that you are

listening to things once because you

will get a very low score right these

are very very important headphones on

test day you will either be given a pair

of headphones like this or you will be

played the recording from a large

speaker in a room what I would recommend

doing is try to book the computer-based

test because on the computer-based test

you're going to be in a smaller room

with fewer people and you are going to

have headphones you're guaranteed to

have headphones on the computer-based

test I've done both both the paper-based

test on the computer-based test and

headphones dramatically improve your

focus so not so much it makes the test

easier it just makes it easier to hear

and it is a listening test so that does

improve your score if you live in a part

of the world that doesn't have computer

delivered IELTS tests and you must do a

paper-based test

try to choose the test center that is

going to have the best audio quality

available so what you can do is you know

when you're booking your test with IDP

or the British console whoever it is ask

them about the quality of the audio tell

them that you're worried about that and

if on test day and this does happen they

either you know give you a terrible set

of headphones or the recording is just

terrible quality or you're in a big room

full of people and you can't hear it

complain on test day if you do not

complain on test day it doesn't matter

you would not believe the number of

students that email us IELTS advantage

and say we had a problem with the audio

what can I do I don't know I'm not the

British console I'm not IDP you are

paying money to IDP you're paying money

to the British Council they don't

provide you with a good enough service

complain to them on test a big

difference between the reading test and

the listening test is with the reading

test you can manage your own time you

can go at your own pace but with the

listening test because you're listening

to a recording you must go at the pace

of the actual listening script this

means that there are no such thing as

time management tips or time management

strategies that are going to help you

I've worked with hundreds of bar nine

students who've got about nine on the

listening test and none of them deployed

any sort of time management techniques

or strategies on test day when it came

to the listening test what they did was

they became better at listening they

improved their listening skills they

became more aware of the different types

of listening question and they perfected

their strategy for each different type

of question if you do that then you will

not get lost you don't really need any

time management tips and that's what

we're going to help you with in the rest

of this video finally I have some good

news about the IELTS listening test when

you're listening to the people talking

in the IELTS listening test that is a

very unusual way of talking kind of like

I am talking to you right now I am

focusing on being as clear and as slow

as possible and that's what most of the

IELTS listening test is like it is not

like listening to real native English

speakers speaking to one another but

what I would recommend doing is not just

practice the IELTS listening test that

is important but it is kind of a easy

form of IELTS listening what I would do

is expose yourself to how real native

English speakers actually speak to one

another again using real forms of

English like podcast for example and

then that is going to give you a huge

Advantage because there's a saying you

know train hard fight easy it comes from

the Army all right when you are training

hard when you're listening to more

difficult English the IELTS listening

test will be really really easy so most

of the band 9 students that I work with

they are listening to native English

speakers talk all the time and that

makes the listening test very very easy

for them okay so now we know the format

of the test let's think about the

different tips and tricks that you can

use on test day to improve your IELTS

listing score tip number one for the

IELTS listening test is read the

instructions carefully especially when

it comes to word cont when you look at

the questions it might say something

like write only one word or write no

more than two words and or a number

often students get very confused about

this so let's show you exactly what this

means first of all every word counts so

even prepositions even articles they all

can't so for example airport that's one

word the airport that is two words at

the airport that is three words the only

exception to this are hyphenated words

such as X examiner that is one word so

if you see a hyphenated word that counts

as one all other words count as one okay

so I've created a nice little table for

you and you can just memorize this table

if you get confused on test day and use

it during your preparation so that it

becomes natural and second nature to you

and you don't even have to think about

it on test day so the instruction says

write one word a correct answer would be

for example airport because it's telling

you to write one word but if you wrote

the airport or air port two different

words that would be wrong so if the

instruction was write one word and or a

number Terminal 2 would be correct

because that is one word

the number also the number two would

also be correct there because it is one

word or a number in Terminal 2 would be

wrong because that is more than one word

and a number an airport terminal two

that would also be incorrect because

that is two words and a number so if the

instruction was write no more than two

words and or a number

Terminal 2 would be correct

2 would be correct and Heathrow Terminal

2 would also be correct because they are

all no more than two words and or a

number incorrect would be Heathrow

Airport Terminal 2 because that is more

than two words that is three words and a

number write no more than three words

outside Heathrow arrivals that is three

words so that would be correct outside

Heathrow arrivals tomorrow that is

incorrect because that is more than

three words now that might sound

confusing right now often students do

find that confusing the best way to do

that is just through practice all right

so when you're practicing and you see

some instructions like that be very

careful and think about it and you'll

get used to it like anything else don't

just look at that table and think that's

very confusing I won't be able to use it

you will if you practice it my next tip

is to try and and do the computer-based

listening test I have done both and I've

spoken to many many students that have

done both and they find the

computer-based test easier for many

different reasons now first of all it is

not going to dramatically improve your

score you're still doing the same test

but there are some practical

considerations that do make it a little

bit easier so first of all you have to

write less so because it is on a

computer screen for example it might be

multiple choice you just have to click a

b or c or there will be a drop down menu

where you will be able to pick the

correct option that is a lot less time

consuming and you just have to think a

lot less and you're reducing the number

of different things that you're doing at

the same time and that just makes it

practically easier a lot of students

have also commented that in the

paper-based test they constantly have to

you know be look looking up and looking

down and thinking about what they're

doing whereas it is far more natural for

them to be listening looking at a

computer screen I'm picking the correct

answers I don't know why but I agree

with these students I think it is just a

lot easier you're doing fewer things on

test day again that's what I think and

that's what a lot of students who got

about nine have said we've already

talked about this in the format part of

this video but because you have

headphones it is often a lot easier to

hear what the person is saying and it's

a listening test at the end of the day

the better you're able to listen to what

is being said the higher your score is

going to be also a lot of students have

just said that it's less stressful doing

the computer-based test because there

are fewer people in the room when I did

the test I think there were about seven

or eight people compare that with some

of the huge test centers where you know

there's 50 to 100 people all doing the

test at the same time in a big room some

people find that extremely stressful and

anything that causes stress is normally

going to lower your score and there are

other advantages to the computer-based

test which you will mention again later

in this video so the next one is if you

are doing the paper-based test use a

pencil all right because often they will

play tricks on you they will have traps

in there and you will have to change

your answer so what I would recommend

doing is use a pencil so that you can

easily change your answer again you

speed is very very important you're

going to have to go on to the next

question and you don't want to be

panicking and going oh how do I delete

this the fewer things that you think

about on test day the higher your score

is going to be probably the most common

question that we get asked is can I

write all in capitals and my answer is

very different from most of the teachers

that I see online so most of the

teachers will give you a yes or no

answer if you you actually go and search

on the internet there are very different

views on this and it's very difficult to

find the correct information on this and

what happens on test day is students

overthink this and again the more you

think the lower your score is going to

be you want all of your brain power

think of your brain as a computer or

think of your brain as a battery

everything that you think about drains

that battery so if you're going into the

test thinking should I use capital

letters or not capital letters or you

know should I put a capital at the

beginning of them it's draining your

battery and you're not going to spend

the time actually just listening and

getting the correct answer so make one

decision that will remove all other

decisions and that one decision is just

write all in capitals if you do that you

don't have to worry about it and then

you can focus on getting the score that

you need the next tip is about spelling

spelling is very very very important a

huge number of students that I've worked

with had great listening skills great

strategy they were ready to get about

nine but because they were spelling a

few words incorrectly they were getting

a lower score so here's a system that we

give our students number one when you

are practicing be very honest with

yourselves when you're giving yourself a

correct answer or an incorrect answer if

you spelled one letter wrong that is

completely wrong what a lot of students

do is they go very easy on themselves

and they say oh I spelled it incorrectly

but I'll give myself a tick I'll give

myself a correct answer I'll spell it

correctly on test day you probably won't

so be very honest with yourself secondly

look at all of your spelling mistakes

all the questions that you you got wrong

because of spelling and put those words

into a document set up a Google doc or

whatever you want on your phone or your

computer and call it spelling mistakes

you can do this with writing as well if

you're consistently making writing

spelling mistakes put those into your

dock so you'll have a document with all

the words that you spelled incorrectly

then what you do is you show the correct

spelling beside it and then you know

once a week or once a month you review

those you cover up the ones that are

correct and you try to spell those words

correctly over time you will notice

common words that you always spell

incorrectly and then you will remove

those spelling mistakes and improve your

ability to spell these words correctly

my next tip is probably the most

important one but the one that sounds

really obvious and not very useful your

job is to find the correct answer how is

that useful well your job is not to

understand every single word and

understand everything that is going on

in the listening test many many students

will do a listening practice test and

especially in part three and part four

there will be words or phrases or maybe

a whole sentence that you don't

understand and they will panic and

they'll think I don't understand this

and then they'll get all these questions

wrong again stress is your enemy you do

not want to be very stressed out and you

don't want to be second guessing

yourself you don't want to have very low

confidence just because you don't

understand certain words right I'm a

native English speaker I am an IELTS

teacher from time to time I will listen

to IELTS listening tests and there will

be a few words in there that I don't

understand the English language is huge

there are professors of English at

Cambridge University that will not know

some words in the IELTS listing test it

is not your job to understand every

single word it is your job to get the

correct answers so if you hear a word

you don't understand you can do two

things number one ignore it is it

essential that you understand that word

is it essential for helping you answer

the question if it's not forget about it

or number two you can guess the meaning

of that word from the context from the

words around it from the sentences

around it if it's crucial to help you

answer the question if you do that it

reduces stress and it improves your

vocabulary because you're going to

constantly be improving your vocabulary

by guessing the meaning of new words

guess what that is how you learn

languages and how you improve vocabulary

you hear words you don't understand you

guess what they mean you check it later

here and you have learned a new word so

when you hear a new word check back

later look at the script in the practice

test think about the meaning of that

word and then you're constantly

improving your vocabulary but if on test

day you do not understand something do

not panic the next tip that I have is

and I'm going to show you exactly what I

mean by looking at a real question is

prepare for the answers coming all right

if I did the test and I didn't prepare

for the answers coming and I'm going to

show you what that means in a second I

would not get up online what you want to

do is look at the questions and read

them before you hear the listening and

you will have time to do this and as you

practice with real practice tests you

will get used to this but let's go

through this question and think about

what we could do here and how that is

going to help us so the first thing that

we're going to do here is we're going to

think about the type of question that it

is so this is a sentence completion

question and they want one word only so

this is preparing your answers what type

of question is coming up and how many

words or letters or numbers are going to

have to be put in here the next read the

title the title is going to give you

context

this is going to help prepare your brain

for what is coming why do we have titles

in books why do we have titles in audio

books why do we have titles in anything

because it makes it easier for our

brains to digest something if we know

what is coming then there are different

subheadings here some 19th century

manufacturing transport retailing this

is going to help us understand where in

the listening we are it is going to help

or prevent us from getting lost then the

next thing that we can do is we can

think about the types of words that

might come up so for the first time

people's possessions were used to

measure Britain's blank so just by

looking at the sentence structure here

and thinking about the grammar this is

probably going to be a noun remember

it's only one word and then the next one

here developments in production of goods

and in so it's going to be something

similar to production of goods again

it's probably going to be a known and

when they are talking about production

of goods we know that the answer is

going to be in and around that area you

can also predict the answer that might

come up it's not always going to be

exactly what you predict but often the

case it is so for the first time

people's possessions were used to

measure Britain's wealth Prosperity GDP

so before you even listen to this you're

thinking of the types of answers that

might come up and that makes it much

easier to find the correct answer and I

actually checked the back of the book

and it is wealth and I haven't done this

test before so that shows you I promise

I didn't I'm not messing around

it was very very easy to predict that so

how do you develop that as a skill well

like any skill you practice it you

cannot just listen to that tip and then

do that for the first time on test day

you need to get used to every time that

you see a question preparing for it you

know what type of question is it how

many words or how many letters or how

many numbers am I going to put in there

what's a title what types of words might

come up predict the word that probably

will come up think about the staging

what will they be talking about when

they're talking about that answer and

that is really going to help you and

then on test day the band nine students

that I work with they don't even think

about those things they do them

naturally so the next tip is all about

Focus so we already talked about

listening to English for 30 minutes at a

time but let's talk about focus in a

little bit more detail because being

able to listen to something I'm being a

hundred percent focused on what you are

listening to are two different things

I'm sure that you have been listening to

your mother or your wife or your sister

or your brother or your husband or

whoever it is and they're talking and

you kind of lose focus on what they're

saying that sorry what they might get

annoyed with you a little bit for not

paying attention to them but as human

beings our brains do not 100 focus on

what we're reading or what we are

listening to you need to develop that as

a skill but the good news is is you can

develop it number one you've already

talked about that think about listening

and focus as a muscle so again get

yourself a timer focus on listening for

five minutes then the next day 10 then

15 then 20 and build it up as a muscle

the second thing is meditation

meditation is not only going to help you

with Focus but it's going to help you

with your mental health it's going to

help you with your general happiness and

it gives you a little bit of a break

when you're studying so often students

email us and tell us that you know their

test is next week or their test is in a

few days if that's the case you're

probably going to be studying and

practicing a lot a good way to break up

your practice sessions and your studying

sessions is to meditate there are many

many apps don't ask me which one there

are you know a huge number of apps that

you can use or if you know how to

meditate already do it for five or ten

minutes in between blocks of studying it

is going to improve your cognitive

ability your everything it is a very

very good practice to learn but it

definitely helps Focus another great way

to improve your focus is by reducing

stress on test day the number one reason

students get stressed is they don't

prepare enough they know that they're

going to fail or they might fail the

students that we work with on our VA

course that get a bond eight 8.59 they

normally go into the test and it's just

a normal day for them they don't feel

that much stress why because they are

100 prepared they have done so much

practice and learned all of these

strategies and practiced all of this to

the point where they know because they

have got a Band-Aid or about nine ten

times during real practice tests they

know all they have to do is just put

what they have learned into practice now

I'm not saying you have to join our VIP

course but do not do the test until you

are 100 ready you will know you're 100

ready by doing real practice tests under

exam conditions if you are consistently

getting the score that you need you're

not going to be that stressed but if you

need a band eight and you're constantly

getting 6.5 or 7

stop lying to yourself you're not

magically going to jump up and score on

test day it is better to delay your test

or console your test you know do it

later in the year wait a couple of

months and do it when you are totally

prepared that is going to mean that you

are not thinking about I'm going to fail

I'm going to fail you're just totally

focused on getting the score that you

need I've also worked with a lot of

students who couldn't focus and what we

did was reduce the number of

distractions in their lives

the big big distractions that we find

are number one social media we literally

got them to delete all social media from

their phones and we got them to install

bro you know browsers they couldn't

access Social Media Signs extreme but

you know these apps are designed to

steal your focus

another one is news and TV shows and

things like that especially the news we

have got students to just stop watching

the news because you don't want in the

back of your brain thinking about you

know who has bombed who or you know what

the stock market is doing or what

weather disaster happened this year

just eliminate all of that from your

life and you know when you combine those

two watching social media all day and

just getting news pumped into your brain

all day it's impossible to focus

another big distraction is people that

are draining people in your lives that

create more problems than they solve

people in your life that make their

problems your problems you don't want

those people in your life especially

when you're doing an IELTS test because

you know if you're a friend or your

loved one is having a huge issue in

their life and you have to fix it for

them you're not going to be able to

prepare for the test and you're not

going to be able to focus on test day

probably a good idea to cut those people

out for life you know but if you can't

do that sit down and explain to them

that you have a big test you need to

focus for a few weeks or a few months

and you know as a bonus they might leave

you alone entirely but social media news

and people with a lot of problems reduce

your focus so the next tip is focus on

the question that you're doing but think

about the next one coming up so what

does that mean so practically speaking

so for example this question the first

part of this question is about the 19th

century when they are talking about the

19th century you want to be totally

focused in on that part to get the

correct answer but you want to have part

of your brain thinking about main areas

of change manufacturing the Industrial

Revolution because when they start

talking about that that is your signal

that is the flag to move on to that part

and be totally focused on that part now

you might think that that's very

difficult and it is but let's think

about other areas of life where you do

that when you're driving a car you are

totally focused on the road in front of

you and maybe the car in front of you

but you're also at your periphery

thinking about what is coming in this

way what is coming in that way is that

kid going to you know ride their bike

right in front of me what's happening

behind me is someone going to Ramen

behind me if I break so you're 100

focused on the road in front of you but

you also have one part of your brain

thinking of other stuff you do this all

the time in normal life you need to

practice this before test Day by looking

at real questions and practicing this

technique it will feel strange and it

will feel difficult when you're doing it

but like anything else the more you

practice it the easier it becomes and

this is why practice doesn't make

perfect

perfect practice makes perfect when

you're practicing you're not just doing

tests that's what most students do they

just do tests do tests do tests they're

like why is my score not improving when

you are doing tests you are trying to

improve these things you're trying to

improve these techniques such as

preparing for the questions coming up

focusing on the question that you're

doing whilst thinking peripherally about

the question that is coming up the next

tip is you can get a question wrong and

still get about nine all right so you

can get up on nine and get one question

wrong why is this important

as I've said many many times

human brains are not perfect we're not

robots the robots have not replaced us

yet so you will lose focus from time to

time when I did the test the I got the

first question wrong I think so

the test was about to start and I was

looking out the window thinking about

what where I was going to go for a drink

after the test like I was not focused on

what I was doing and then the test began

and it was a license plate number and I

was like oh they're only going to say

this once and I've completely missed it

there are two things that you can do in

that situation eighty percent of

students if they missed the first

question would panic and think I'm going

to mess up my entire test uh let's just

let's just leave now let's just go to

the bar and get drunk now this is such a

stupid thing I'm stupid I'm going to

fail all my friends and family are going

to think that I'm dumb if you do that

you're pretty much guaranteeing that you

will fail to get the score that you need

what you should do instead is what I did

is just think that's fine I've got one

of them wrong but I need to focus for

the rest of them and get all of the rest

of them correct so if you get a question

that you either lose focus on or

especially in part four you might get a

question that is just really really

difficult don't beat yourself up and

don't obsess about this question guess

it put it down and then move on to the

next question the next tip for the

listening test is keep moving or you're

dead so I read a lot of books about

history especially military history and

the best people in the world are going

into a room and killing lots of bad guys

are the SAS the British Special Forces

they're amazing at going into rooms and

just killing everybody in there apart

from the hostages

and what they call the door

is the murder hole and their technique

is to move into the room get out of that

murder hole and just keep moving until

they are safe that is the exact same

technique that you need to use during

the listening test if you freeze in the

murder hole and you stop moving you stop

thinking about what you're doing you're

dead but if you keep moving and you keep

going and you keep thinking then you're

going to do very very well and you'll be

safe the next tip for the IELTS

listening test is always give an answer

even if you don't know so a lot of the

questions are going to be multiple

choice or you know choose a different

option even if you don't know you should

guess because you know if there's three

options you have a 33 and a third chance

of getting the right score now if we

want to buy nine we do not want to be

guessing you know most of the questions

we want to be answering them correctly

but even students that I've worked with

that have got about nine have made a

couple of guesses and still got about

nine so there is a strategy that you can

use that is going to help you give

educated guesses all right these are

strategic guesses they are guesses that

have a higher chance of getting the

correct score than just a third so the

first way that you can do this is

through elimination all right so let's

say for example you're doing this

question and you get stuck on question

23. in connection with modern

refrigerators both Annie and Jack are

worried about a the complexity of the

technology B the fact that some are

disposed of irresponsibly or C the large

number that quickly break down so let's

say they're talking about the technology

being very complicated and because of

this many of them break down but they're

not talking about how they are disposed

of and they're not talking about that at

all what you can do is you can eliminate

B and then make a guess is it going to

be a or c

now again you're only doing this with

questions that are very very difficult

or you lose focus or you get lost but

you've just increased your chances from

33 percent to 50 the next thing you can

do is prediction so if we look at this

example again for the first time

people's possessions were used to

measure Britain's wealth you can guess

from the context what the correct answer

is so even if you lost Focus let's say

you just started thinking you started

daydreaming about something while they

were talking about that I would write in

wealth it might be right it might be

wrong but if you write nothing you are

guaranteed a hundred percent that it's

wrong if you write in something at least

you have a chance the next tip is to use

the example recording to get used to the

voices get used to the accents and get

used to the question that they are

giving you so in some parts of the

listening test they will play an example

recording and they normally will be the

same people talking with the same accent

answering the same type of question so

for example it might be writing down a

telephone number so listen to that and

what it will do is not only will it help

you understand how to answer the

question it will help you tune in to

what the person signs like especially

their accent because sometimes the

accent can be quite unusual for you you

probably are not going to be able to

listen to every single English-speaking

accent in the world there are way too

many of them but if they do play this

example always carefully listen to it

because you wouldn't tune into the

accent especially if it is an unusual

accent the final tip is not to worry too

much about accents as I said before the

listening test is not like listening to

real native English speakers talk to

each other if you went into my local

coffee shop or my local bar you wouldn't

understand 90 of what is being said but

when I'm speaking to you I'm an English

teacher I'm speaking with a neutral

accent very clearly and very slowly that

is probably what you're going to hear on

the listening test it is much better to

spend your time

practicing and preparing the different

strategies

that we're going to talk about in the

rest of this lesson than it is to try

and perfect the listening of you know

the hundreds if not thousands of

different English-speaking Accents in

Ireland and the UK alone there are

hundreds of different types of accents

you're not going to get that you don't

need to worry about that on the

listening test familiarize yourself with

it you can listen to different podcasts

different news shows listen to the local

news in America Canada

UK South Africa Australia New Zealand

Ireland whatever you want to do but

don't worry too much about it people are

not going to speak in their very very

unusual accent in the listening test now

let's talk about common traps or tricks

or distractors that you might find in

the IELTS listening test and there are a

series of these that might trick you

into giving the wrong answer before we

go through all of these I want to talk

first about mindset which is very very

important a lot of students get

frustrated with the listening test

especially because they think that IELTS

and the people of Cambridge are trying

to trick them into getting a lower score

than they deserve if you believe that

you're going to just give up and you're

going to find your preparation really

really frustrating we don't want that

let's look at what actually is happening

what they are doing is they're trying to

recreate real life that is what the

whole IELTS test is doing it is

recreating what will happen when you

move to an English-speaking country so

for example let's say you're working as

a doctor or a nurse and they ask you for

a particular drug or something like that

so you're in the operating theater and

they say give me 25 cc's of adrenaline

I'm obviously not a doctor that's just

an idea I had and then they say no

actually we need 50 cc's so what they've

done is they've changed the answer there

if you gave 25 it would be wrong but by

giving 50 and thinking about the trick

that they just played on you you will be

fine so don't see it as a trick see it

as a challenge all of these things that

I'm going to talk about now or

challenges that they set for you so even

if I say trap or trick try and think of

challenge it's going to make it much

much easier for you to learn this so the

first trap that they might set for you

or challenge that they might set for you

is changing the correct answer from one

answer to the next answer normally what

this will mean is they will give an

answer that could be correct and then

later on in the recording they will

change it to something different let's

look at how they could do that with a

real question so if we have a look at

this question it says name of station

returning to they could say something

like we started off in London and then

we arrived in Manchester so you were

listening out for a place a town a city

station a new here in London and then

they say well we started off in London

and then we arrived later in Manchester

because you are hyper focused on trying

to find a place or a city you just hear

London write down the first thing that

you say you need to be aware of this and

aware that they might change it so don't

just be hyper focused on predicting and

finding the correct answer kind of allow

yourself to listen to the words and the

sentences around what they are saying

and make a decision based on that

another common trap or challenge could

be that they use synonyms or

paraphrasing so what happens is you are

looking at the question you see a word

or phrase in the question and you're

listening out for that exact phrase

sometimes it will be that exact phrase

or that exact word but sometimes it will

be a paraphrase or a synonym now

synonyms are just the words that mean

the same thing but are different for

example man male woman female mean

exactly the same thing even in 2023 and

there are synonyms of each other so

let's look at this example again name of

station returning to so instead of

station they might use destination or

instead of returning they could say

return instead of returning to they

might use the phrase come back when will

you come back so if you're just

listening out for station returning to

and they say something like coming back

to your final destination you're going

to get completely lost so you need to

keep an open mind when you are looking

at the questions don't just think what

am I looking for exactly in the question

think what could it be what synonym

could they use what different phrasing

could they use that means the same thing

but is a different word another

challenge is plurals especially plural

nouns so for example let's say you are

listening to people offering each other

a cup of tea all right so they're having

a cup of tea and a very common question

and that scenario is do you take sugar

so in this scenario sugar is an

uncountable noun but then the person

might say yes I'll have two sugars or I

take two sugars so you have two

different words here sugar and sugars

the only difference is a little s on the

end but one will be correct and one will

be wrong and there's two ways that you

can overcome this problem one is by

listening to what you hear if there is

an s on the end or a z on the end then

it is probably the plural form you're

talking about but also you can think

grammatically I take two sugar

grammatically is incorrect I take two

sugars grammatically is correct so you

need to be aware of the pronunciation

your listening skills and grammar and

spelling all at the same time another

challenge is unusual spellings of names

or places normally so this happens a lot

with popular surnames so last names in

English so for example we have very

popular names like Smith Jones brown but

there are standard spellings of those

names and then unusual spellings of

those names so for example Brown the

standard spelling is b r o w n but an

unusual spelling but quite common is

b-r-o-w-n-e and you shouldn't worry too

much about this because if there is an

unusual spelling normally comes in part

one where someone is on a call with

someone they're on a phone call and

they're asking them for their name if it

is an unusual spelling of their name or

maybe a city or a town or something like

that then they will spell it out they'll

say my name is Brian and how do you

spell that

b-r-o-w-n-e so the Trap that a lot of

students fall into is the Herobrine oh I

know how to spell Brown they'll write it

down immediately as the standard

spelling and then they will miss the

person spelling it out so especially in

part one if the people that you're

listening to ask for a spelling or spell

anything out then you should listen

exactly to how they spell it and then

put it in there a challenge that many

people have when I am talking to them is

my similar sounding surname and this is

a big trap that a lot of students fall

into there are words that sound very

similar to each other so my surname is

pel

p-e-l-l and every time I meet someone

new they're like Belle tell Dell hell

it's all they all sound kind of similar

again you don't need to worry about this

too much because this normally comes in

part one and if the person has an

unusual surname like me what I will do

when I'm on the phone with someone is I

will spell it out to them I'll say P for

Papa e for Echo L for Lima L for Lima

again how you overcome this is by

listening not to the first thing the

first word that you hear Mr pale and you

write Bell listen out if they spell it

and write the exact spelling the final

trap that a lot of students fall into is

not being aware of not listening out for

negatives and double negatives so what

are those well a negative is when you

use a word like not or didn't or wasn't

you also need to be aware of double

negatives in English this can be very

very unusual if your native language

doesn't have this so for example simple

not bad in English means good not

negative bad negative not bad means good

now I have heard some double negatives

from time to time on practice tests but

most of the time it is just like not or

wasn't or didn't so what does that mean

let's have a look at a particular

question so here we have a customer

satisfaction survey satisfaction with

journey least satisfied with so imagine

someone is on a call with another person

they're asking about their Journey what

were you least satisfied with if they

said food wasn't bad or they said what

did you think of the food and they said

not bad some people might hear that and

think that the food was what they were

at least satisfied with but they're

actually saying the opposite they're

saying the food was quite good often

what will happen is they will use a

negative and then they will say the

correct answer after that so for example

they might say something like well the

food wasn't bad but the drinks were

terrible so in that sentence the food

wasn't bad but the drinks were terrible

what they were least satisfied with is

the drinks the main thing to remember is

not all questions will have these

challenges but you do need to be aware

of them let's use a driving analogy

again when you're driving a car you are

not hyper hyper focused on what is

happening right at the front of the car

you are kind of focused on that it does

have most of your attention but you're

also paying attention to the periphery

you're paying attention to what's

happening behind you to your right and

to your left that should be the same

thing that you're doing

acoustically audibly when you are

listening to the transcripts so most of

your attention should be on what's the

correct answer but pay attention to what

is going on around what you think might

be the correct answer because it might

change they might spell it out

differently there could be a synonym or

it could be a negative and that's not

actually the correct answer the correct

answer is coming up you're probably very

confused now and very frustrated but

with practice this becomes much much

easier let's show you where you can find

real practice tests okay so in this part

is extremely important more students

fail the IELTS test by using fake

unreliable tests then anything to do

with their listening ability or their

English ability

about 90 percent of the tests that

you'll find online on YouTube are

actually fake don't worry we're going to

show you how to spot the fake ones so

you'll know 100 of the time whether

they're real or not and we're going to

show you exactly where you can find real

free practice tests I've also put

together links for all of the places on

the internet where you can find these

real free practice tests that are

reliable I've put them all into one

document and I put them in the

description below for you just to make

it really handy for you but before I

give you that before I show you the four

places where you can find these reliable

ones I want to talk about why fake tests

are so dangerous because when I just

show people where to find the reliable

ones most of the time they will use

those too quickly and then they'll go

and use the fake ones

the fake ones are produced by people who

don't know what they're doing all right

I'm not criticizing anyone or saying I'm

better than anyone but there is a huge

difference between a teacher that is

trying to help people improve their

scores on a YouTuber who is trying to

increase the number of views on their

Channel or a blogger who is trying to

increase the number of views on their

website more than 90 percent of the

tests that you'll find online are fake

these people don't care if you improve

your score so they don't put as much

effort or they don't even have the

required expertise to make reliable

tests so what is reliable reliable means

that the test that you do today is going

to be the same difficulty on the same

challenge as test day and it's extremely

difficult to actually do this and it

takes a very long time and that's why

these people don't do it because of

anything difficult and takes a long time

most people don't want to do that so why

is this a problem either the tests will

be way way too easy or way way too

difficult if they're too easy you will

be full of false confidence you'll go

into the test thinking I'm going to get

about nine I've got about nine multiple

times and then you'll get your test

score and it's like 5.5 that's because

you were doing tests that weren't too

easy

even worse a lot of people will not even

do the test because the tests are way

too difficult

if you get tests that are too difficult

you will lose confidence completely you

will give up on your dream of moving to

a new country because you think that

you're not good enough I've seen this

many many times where students

will email us and say I'm terrible at

listening then we'll give them a real

test and it turns out that they're

pretty good at listening they were just

using fake tests and the final reason is

a lot of these are completely misleading

with questions that you'll never see in

different formats and what happens is

you are used to this fake format and

then you'll go in on test day and you'll

be doing a test that you've never seen

before that you're completely unfamiliar

with

our goal with you guys is that on test

day you were completely comfortable that

you know exactly what is coming up

because you're only using real reliable

tests so there are four places on four

places only that have reliable tests and

they're all free the first one is IDP on

the IDP website you'll find lots of free

practice tests the second one is the

British Council same thing the next one

is ielts.org it's a wee bit more

difficult to find those on the ielts.org

website but I'll give you those links

below and then finally Cambridge English

they do do these

expensive ones expensive for most people

but they also have some free ones on

their website as well now I'll give you

the links but you might be watching this

video a few years in the future and

they're constantly adding free stuff to

their website so the easy way to find

this information at any time is just go

to Google put in IDP or the British

console or ielts.org or Cambridge into

Google and then put plus IELTS listening

tests Google will take you to the latest

genuine free tests anything else even if

it's your favorite YouTuber or your

favorite IELTS Guru anything else is not

reliable it doesn't matter if these

people have millions of subscribers it

doesn't matter if they have huge IELTS

companies if they are not one of those

four organizations then you are running

a huge risk especially with YouTube most

of the YouTube channels that have IELTS

listening practice test

say that they're real they are

completely fake they're either too easy

too difficult or completely misleading

or a combination of those do not use

them you are wasting your time now when

I say that to students what comes back

is well there aren't enough free

practice tests what you want to do is

completely change your strategy and your

mindset towards practice you will not

get better by just practice practice

practice practice practice

does not make perfect perfect practice

makes perfect now let's give you the

perfect practice strategy so let's show

you how to practice your way to

abandoned this strategy this system that

I'm about to show you has produced

hundreds and hundreds of Bandai students

and it is the best IELTS practice

strategy that I'm aware of and I've

helped hundreds if probably thousands of

students get up online so you'll need

something first you'll need the practice

tests probably don't get ones that are

covered in coffee like mine buy new ones

buy them from a reliable Bookshop don't

buy them you know photocopies of them

they might be fake

when I say this to students you know if

you come from a background I totally

understand but you know which is more

expensive

spending ten twenty dollars on reliable

tests or wasting 200 250 on failing the

test don't see this as a cost see it as

an investment all right also don't

download the PDFs that you'll find

online they are often fake I'm not

saying this because I make any money

from these I'm not affiliated or

associated with Cambridge at all I make

zero dollars if you buy these

the reason why I'm telling you this is I

care about you improving your scores

that is the best way to do it so once

you have your practice tests you're

going to do three practice tests under

exam conditions what does exam

conditions mean well what it means is

you've never seen that test before don't

buy the book and on your way home like

read the questions and kind of

familiarize yourself with it and look up

words you don't know you want to

recreate exactly what is going to happen

on test day so don't cheat and time

exactly the same time as what will

happen on test day and you're going to

do three of them because what you want

before you ever book the test is you're

consistently three times in a row

getting the score that you need or

probably half a band or a bond above the

score that you need if you can do that

three times in a row then you're pretty

much guaranteed to get that score on

test day not only is this going to be

great for you because you know that

you're going to get the score that you

need but on test day you will have

completely removed any stress and you

will be able to perform to the best of

your ability because do you get nervous

and stressed out when you're tying your

shoelaces no because you know that you

can do it you know that you've done it

thousands of times before

our students who do this system or use

this system they've got the score that

they need so many times that doing it is

just like tying their shoelaces but if

you don't get the score that you need

three times in a row you need to move on

to the next part of this system the next

part of this system is going to the back

of the book find the audio script the

transcript of the test you just did and

find the correct answers and what you're

going to do is you're going to correct

your test honestly you're going to check

why you got each question wrong so to do

that you can just look at the question

think back to the recording but more

importantly what you should do is look

at the actual audio script and think

about why you got it wrong and the aim

of this exercise is to find your

weaknesses to spot patterns what are

your common weaknesses so let's go

through a few of them just to make you

aware of what you should be listening

for what you should be looking for so

very common one is spelling you know be

honest with yourself you should give

yourself honest marking of your answers

if multiple ones are spelled incorrectly

don't give yourself a tick that's wrong

if you're noticing that you are failing

to get the score that you need because

of multiple spelling errors

then that's good news because it's

pretty easy to fix that you might also

spot that particular question types and

we'll talk about those later in the

video are causing you a problem so for

example every time you get a multiple

choice question you mess that up most of

them are wrong or every time you get a

Maps question or a diagram question that

you get most of those wrong that's a

strategy issue it's not that your

listening skills have an issue there's

nothing wrong with your language

probably you just need a strategy that

works practice that strategy and then

you will have no problems on test day

you might also think back and you might

have got a few wrong in a row when you

lost Focus so for example when I did the

test and I was looking at the window

looking at the birds and thinking about

what I was going to do later that

evening and I got the first question

wrong not because there's anything wrong

with my listening or my English but

because I just completely lost Focus if

that is your issue again that's good

news because you can improve your focus

I talked about that earlier in the video

a very very common problem is students

will come back to me using this system

and they'll say like I can't find the

particular reason I don't know what my

weakness is if that's the case it's

probably vocabulary so what you can do

is you can look back look at the

question but really read the audio

script and if there were a lot of words

or phrases that you have never heard

before and you don't understand and that

it was causing the issue you couldn't

find the correct answer because you

didn't understand the words then that is

a vocabulary issue not really a

listening issue you need to improve your

vocabulary and I'll put a vocabulary

Improvement plan into the description so

the last step is the step that most

students don't like but it's where you

see the most Improvement

take that weakness and work on it turn

each weakness into a strength don't do

more practice tests until you have

improved that strength so for example if

you have a huge issue with spelling

doing more practice listening tests will

not improve your spelling if you have a

problem with vocabulary doing more

practice tests will not magically

improve your vocabulary you need to

focus in on that and if you have any

issues or you need help with that feel

free to get in touch with us we'll

either give you free resources or we'll

talk to you about maybe joining one of

our courses but we always have ways of

helping you improve your weaknesses so

feel free to get in touch now let's give

you the step-by-step strategies that we

give our VIP students that many of them

have used to get about nine so before we

give you these step-by-step strategies

let's look at how our students use them

because what you cannot do is just look

at the strategy once and then go and

apply it on test day you need to do a

few different things so what we're going

to do is show you real questions and

these questions that we're going to look

at are maps and multiple choice there

are other IELTS listening question types

and we're going to show you where you

can find strategies for all of them at

the end ends but we're going to focus on

these two because these are the two that

help students the most these are the

ones that students worry about and we

want to reduce your stress and anxiety

as much as possible so before we look at

the questions let's look at how our

students use these strategies so number

one what they think about is what are

the unique problems what are the

specific issues that are related to

these questions so for multiple choice

for example one of the issues is that

all of the options look the same or they

look similar that is a unique problem

you need to be aware of that so that on

test day when you see it you'll be able

to conquer that problem you'll be able

to solve that problem or with maps what

is very difficult for people is to

visualize in their brain walking through

that area or walking through that map

that is a unique problem so we first

need to think about what are those you

problems and then how do we solve them

and then how do we use the strategy and

the strategy is designed to overcome all

of these problems and then all you have

to do is just practice using that

strategy until it becomes habit until it

becomes second nature you learn it by

heart don't go into the test trying to

think of these strategies because we

want to reduce thinking as much as

possible go into the test knowing the

strategies automatically so when you're

driving a car if you've been driving for

many years you don't think about signal

check your mirror how to change gears

how to use the pedals you just use them

automatically that's the same approach

that you should have if you want to buy

nine towards the strategies so let's

start off by looking at Maps so in the

test you might get a question like this

where they will show you a simple map or

a diagram normally it is taking you

through a tour of somewhere so you will

hear a guide telling you where to find

things or where to go during this tour

or taking you on a tour of this place in

this example it is a park but it could

be a library it could be a University

campus it could be a shopping center

anywhere at all that you know you might

get a tour around let's think about the

key problems associated with listening

Maps the first one is not being familiar

with the specific language used to

describe maps for example you might hear

someone say to the east or in the west

you might hear someone instead of saying

next to adjacent to for example so you

don't want to be thinking what do these

things actually mean and being totally

confused so you need to familiarize

yourself with these words and phrases

and what I'll do is I'll put a link

below in the description and the

description will go through all of these

if there are any on that list that you

don't understand Look up the meaning of

it and get used to listening to those

and understanding those it'll make your

job much much easier the next problem

that a lot of students face when it

comes to Maps is they're doing too many

things at the same time now think about

what you're doing when you're doing a

Maps question you're not only listening

you're thinking about this unusual

vocabulary you're having to visualize

imagine yourself walking through the map

you have to understand what is being

said you have to understand the map you

have to decide the correct answers all

at the same time and you need to make

notes now we just talked about learning

how to drive a car and how easy it is

after a few years of driving it but when

you were first learning how to drive

that car everything seemed very very

difficult when you were a little girl or

a little boy just tying your shoelaces

seem very very difficult when we do new

things that that are new to our brains

it is difficult to do these things but

how do you overcome that problem you

overcome that problem through practice

you practice these Maps questions use

the strategy that we're going to give

you the strategy is designed to make

everything much much easier I know I've

said this before don't look at this

video once and then think I'm going to

get a bond line that's not how it works

the third big problem is visualization

what do I mean by visualization

visualization refers to being able to

generate

visual maps in your brain so if they are

describing this park the best students

the students that get the highest score

can imagine themselves at going through

the south gate they can imagine walking

past the lake they can imagine seeing an

Adventure Playground in their mind I've

worked with a lot of different students

over the years some students find this

very very easy they have a visual brain

it seems and other students find this

nearly impossible if you find it easy

you don't need to worry about this but

if you find it difficult one of the

things that I have found works really

well with students is removing this

negative self-talk so what a lot of

students have said to me is I'm not good

at this and really they're not bad at it

it's not that that is an issue they're

just creating an excuse in their head

in other words they are allowing

themselves to blame this

so that when they get a low score they

can say it's because I'm not good at

visualization it's because I'm not good

at Maps really if they were truthful

with themselves they just haven't put

enough work in to improve visualization

or improve Maps if you learn this

strategy that I'm going to give you and

use it multiple times everything will

become much much easier the second thing

that I would say is if you struggle with

visualization do this so instead of

trying to get all the answers correct

listen to the recording and look at the

map and only focus on visualizing what

is happening this is going to make it

much much easier and you will convince

yourself it's kind of tricking yourself

into understanding that anyone can do

this it's not that you're bad at

visualization it is just that you are

worried about the test you're stressed

and naturally you will create excuses

just listen to it

think about where you're going around

the park or Museum or whatever it is and

you will trick yourself into

understanding that you're quite good at

visualization okay now let's look at the

strategy for listening Maps step number

one read the question carefully read the

instructions carefully so for this

particular map we need to write the

correct letter A to H we're not writing

the actual place names we're not writing

old Museum Northgate we're not writing

Lake we are picking the letter and

putting it in here I know that sounds

very very obvious and I'm wasting your

time but you would not believe the

amount of students that deserve about

nine that don't get it because they

don't read instructions make it a habit

to really focus in on the question on

the instructions step number two look at

the map and understand the map so for

example if we were to look at this one

what is it it is a park so there is one

big circular path there's a little path

that goes off here there are trees

there's a lake in the middle there's a

museum in the middle there's two gates

South Gate and Northgate Adventure

Playground here glass houses here just

basically look at the map and understand

it I know that sounds super obvious but

again when you're under stress and

you're tired and you're getting towards

the end of the test a lot of students

don't do this next look at the different

options and think about what these might

be what might they say about these

things so let's start at the scythegate

G there are trees so they might say the

woods in the South or South Woods or

Forest beside the south gate

that might be those things so you're

thinking about what they might say if we

move up here

a so think about what they might say to

get to a so if we start at the south

gate it will say if we turn left to go

past the lake and there is a path or

there is a trail or there's a footpath

on your left that's going to show you

where you're going to go to get to a d

it could be the museum it could be the

old Museum but it might be new Museum or

new building or toilets or Cafe beside

the museum B and C are going to be next

to the Adventure Playground B is going

to be as you go through the north gate

so they might start at the North Gate C

is going to be next to the Adventure

Playground F will be beside the glass

house it might be the glass house or it

might be something next to the glass

house and then H might be something next

to the glass houses or it could be the

wood or the forest or something like

that so you're thinking about what it

could be but you're also thinking about

if I walk through this map what

directions or what things will I hear

that will get me to each of these and

this might sound like it will take a lot

of time and you won't have time to do it

but the more you do it the quicker it

will become until it becomes natural so

imagine you're standing up the North

Gate what direction would you go if you

were going to go to a so if we're

standing at the north gate they probably

will say if you follow the path to your

right so we're standing here we move

down and that will get us to a if you go

left you will see the Adventure

Playground you'll see the museum in

front of you you want to actually

visualize walking around this thing

before you even hear it that is going to

make it much easier for you to visualize

as you are listening to it now that we

want to look at the different options

here so 11 to 16. so we want to think

about two things number one will there

be any synonyms so Cafe what is the

synonym of cafe coffee shop maybe

restaurants toilets there aren't many

there are a lot of synonyms for toilets

but they might say something like if you

need to go to the bathroom so think

about those synonyms and then think

about where might these things be are

there any obvious places where they

would put the cafe or whether where they

would put the toilet bullets they're

probably not going to put the toilets

deep in the middle of the woods maybe

they they might do I don't know but it's

probably more convenient for them to put

the toilets beside the old Museum or

beside the glass houses or beside the

Adventure Playground same with the cafe

the cafe is probably going to be next to

the old museum for example wildflowers

so wild means people are not really

curating it people are not doing

anything to it so that's probably going

to be out of the way it's probably going

to be a or G or maybe H so by following

all these steps before the recording

even starts you're just making

everything easier and easier and easier

if you take two students one is really

really good at listening and they don't

follow those steps or you have a student

that is not very good at listening but

they follow those steps the student that

is not very good at listening will get a

higher score than the student that is

good at listening that's how powerful

these strategies are and the next step

is to listen to the beginning of the

talk very very carefully because this is

going to tell you where the talk begins

so they might begin at the south gate

here or they might begin at the North

Gate those are the two obvious places

where they will begin you must go

through a gate you must go through an

entrance but it's not guaranteed

probably will happen

and if they started the north gate then

if they say to your right that is going

to be different from to your right at

the South so if we have a look here

if they start at the south gate to your

right are trees H and glass houses but

if we start at the north gate to your

right we're going down here towards a so

you need to really listen carefully to

the beginning so that you understand

where you're going so neither recording

is starting you want to try to visualize

actually walking through these places

you can close your eyes if you want

probably not a great idea because you

have to take notes but try to actually

walk down the paths try to actually

imagine that you're walking past the

Glass House past the lake what is to the

right of the lake what is to the left of

the lake and as we go past the Adventure

Playground what is here what if they're

talking about a bend in the road what

are they talking about here this is

really going to help you and as you are

listening you can make notes if it's

paper-based tests and think about what

the correct answers might be the next

step is to be very careful with traps or

distractors or tricks they might play on

you for example they might say let's

start off at the south gate and to your

left used to be the cafe but we moved it

next to the old Museum so if you put G

for Cafe you would be wrong so they said

we used to have it there but we moved it

or over here they will often talk about

things closing down they move things

they might be building something in the

future so they might say the opposite

they might say well we're going to build

a cafe a new Cafe to the left of the

south gate here but that's going to take

a few years if you want something to eat

you should go next to the old Museum the

right answer is going to be D so they're

not really trying to trick you they're

just setting you little challenges to

help determine who's really by nine

who's band 8 who's band seven who's Bond

six the next thing to be aware of is

signposting language so signposting

language is things like let's start off

at the south gate they're little Flags

little indications but where they are so

let's start off with the south gate and

if we go to the left here you will see

the beautiful Lake now let's go back so

they're going back here and let's go

past the Glass House let's finish off at

the North Gate think about this

signposting language literally think of

it as new signposts on the street

they're giving you directions this is

going to help you understand where you

are navigate the map and then finally

choose the correct answers and if it's

paper-based transfer them over

if it is computer-based just choose the

correct answer if it's computer-based it

will normally be just a drop down menu

with a b c d e f on it now again I know

I'm repeating myself do not watch this

video and think I've mastered IELTS

listening Maps questions get some

practice tests get real practice tests

we'll show you those in the video and

practice that strategy and it will

become much much much easier a lot of

the students that I work with they say I

hate mops I'm not good at Maps well how

many times have you actually practice

the strategy

once or never

also what you should do when you are

practicing maps and practicing these

strategies is go slow all right if you

need to rewind and play the recording

multiple times in this scenario that is

absolutely fine because what you're

doing here is you're trying to learn the

strategy you're not trying to perfect

the correct answers you're not trying to

judge your ability start off very very

slow the goal is for you to master the

strategy and become comfortable with

maps and then get a little bit faster a

little bit faster until you are at exam

speed again using the driving analogy

you don't go and drive a hundred miles

an hour in lesson one of your driving

test now let's think about the strategy

for multiple choice so multiple choice

questions are going to look like this

will normally be a series of questions

there will be a question and then there

will be three or four options your goal

is to pick the correct answer so let's

think about unique problems and give you

some unique tips for IELTS listening

multiple choice questions the first

thing you should do is when you see

multiple choice questions as soon as you

finish the questions before move on and

read the multiple choice questions it's

crucial that you understand the

difference between each of the different

options and you understand the questions

that are coming up what a lot of

students do is they might be you know

focusing on this they finish this

section and they're so worried about did

I get the correct answer here that they

don't move on and read these questions

let's say for example you have

completely messed up this question

it is a much better strategy just to

give an educated guess for these

questions and move on and understand

these because if you think oh my god

I've messed up these I'm going to fail

I'm going to mess up my whole life and

then you focus on these and you don't

move forward then you've probably got

these wrong and you're probably going to

get all of these wrong all right

if you mess these ones up go and give an

educated guess give your best answer and

then move on quickly because you really

do need to read all of these and

understand all of these next is a good

idea to underline or think of the

keywords in each question so what I like

to do is focus on keywords within the

question so 21 22 23 24 so that will be

here

here here and here within each question

what are the key words so discover

and reading then we need to look at the

three options and think about the

keywords within each of the three

options so why were they first created

high was the ice kept Frozen and where

the next step is to think about the

difference between each of the three

options so for this one it's quite

obvious let's have a look at the last

one good value for money useful

variations more useful than domestic

appliances so as you can see these two

are quite similar this one's talking

about money and it being good value for

money these two are both talking about

usefulness so they're very very similar

so you need to think okay both of these

are talking about usefulness but what's

the difference between the usefulness of

each of these this one's talking about

there being lots of variations useful

variations whereas this one is a

comparison it is comparing that there

are more they're more useful than other

domestic appliances so it's comparing

refrigerators fridges to other

appliances such as a vacuum cleaner a

Hoover a toaster a kettle all of those

things whereas B is talking about just

domestic fridges there being lots of

different types of fridges so by

underlining the keywords and thinking

about the differences that makes it much

easier to think about what they're

saying the next thing to remember is

that you should not think about what is

the first answer that I hear and write

down the first answer that I hear so

let's take the first question for

example what did Ami discover from

reading about ice houses why they were

first created so in the recording they

might talk about why they were first

created or how they were first created

but that might not be one of the options

that relates to what did Ali discover

from reading about ice houses

she might have listened to something or

her dad or her mother told her why they

were first created and then later she

talks about she was reading about where

they were located if you just note down

the first one that you hear and you

don't think about the specific question

then you're going to be in trouble so it

is not a listening test write down the

first thing that you hear that is not

what a listening test is for multiple

choice it is not just a listening test

it is a thinking test so you need to

read the question understand the

question and then think about related to

the recording what is the correct answer

it's not a listening test it is a

listening and thinking test the next

thing is what you should not do do not

focus in on one question get lost panic

and then miss the rest of the questions

so for example if you are doing 21

wanted Annie discover from reading about

ice houses and you lose focus or you get

confused or you don't understand what's

going on then it is very very important

that you just leave that question make

an educated guess and move on to the

next ones because what happens is you

miss that you lose focus and you focus

in on that and you're like oh my God I

just missed that and then you're like

okay which one should I choose and then

the recording keeps going keeps going

and you just messed up 22 23 and 24.

they will be in order so you need to

decide what the correct answer is be

decisive I know that's difficult for

many people in the world to be decisive

and choose the correct answer but if you

don't choose an answer you're

sacrificing the rest of the questions

the next thing is be very careful about

qualification statements these are words

like but or however so if we go down to

24 she might say something like yeah

generally they're good value for money

however in recent years or but recently

they've become very very expensive so

you might hear the first part of that

sentence and think oh good value for

money and you mark that as the correct

answer but then she says but but however

changes her mind qualifies what she's

about to say and you've just messed the

whole thing up so listen out for those

words but or however and if you hear

them think about what the whole sentence

means not just the first part of the

sentence okay now that we know what's

going to come up let's think about our

step-by-step strategy for multiple

choice questions number one always never

changes whatever the question is read

the instructions carefully choose the

correct letter a b or c I know that's

very obvious and you're a very

intelligent person but make sure that

you read the instructions the next step

is read each question and think about

what is actually being asked so let's

say 24 for example what do Jack and

Annie agree regarding domestic fridges

not what do they think separately what

do they agree on if you don't read the

question it's going to be very difficult

for you to find the answer to number 24

because the key word there is agree and

that's the next step highlight keywords

the next step is to look at each option

and understand the difference between

each option next is to think about any

synonyms or paraphrasing that you might

hear so for example it took a long time

to become popular a long time could be

50 years 100 years they might say it

took forever popular they might say

famous or widely used or used by the

masses there are many many things that

might come up now you're not going to be

able to sit there and think about

synonyms and paraphrasing forever but

just try and be aware of them and think

of the obvious ones don't start off with

21A and try and think of 20 different

synonyms for the word created just think

of the obvious one created made and keep

moving keep going through that then the

next one if you can predict the correct

answer this is a little bit difficult

for multiple choice questions so I

wouldn't try and do this too much

because often the three answers are very

very possible but if you have time try

and make predictions but if you can't

predict anything don't worry too much

about it neither listening is going to

start what you're listening out for are

keywords synonyms part of phrasing so

don't just listen for the key word

listen for synonym of that keyword then

there you will know when they're talking

about that so for example what did Annie

discover from reading about ice houses

so she might literally say when I was

reading about ice houses or she might

say I read a book or I was studying when

you hear that you know okay she's going

to start talking about the different

options then listen for the different

keywords within the different options

and pick the correct answer that brings

us on to the next step listen to the

whole section so the section where she's

talking about reading about ice houses

do not listen for the first thing that

she says listen to the whole section and

then decide your correct answer because

there will be distractors she might

change her mind she might talk about

other things you're trying to break the

recording down into four parts so

there's four parts here there's four

questions you need to break the

recording down into four parts okay

she's going to talk about this listen to

that whole part choose the correct

answer then 22 listen to that whole part

choose the correct answer and continue

in that fashion if you think that you'll

find the correct answer put a tick

beside it so you think

probably is this one but keep listening

because she might change your mind or

the answer might change but if you are

100 sure at the end

choose that as your correct answer and

finally the final step make an educated

guess if you're not sure if you're not

sure pick the one that you think is the

highest chance of being correct move on

to the next one and that's you done

hey Chris here from IELTS advantage and

in this special video what we're going

to do is give you an IELTS listening

practice test for free so what this

video is going to do is give you that

listening test so that you can practice

your listening skills at home and what

we're going to do at the end of the

video is give you the answers so the

rest of the video will be the listening

test and then at the end I'm going to

give you those answers so good luck and

I'll see you at the end for the answers

IELTS listening part one hello there and

welcome to the Klein Museum which was

the actual home of Mr Klein and his

family before he went on to be the

famous author we all know him as today

before we get started there are some

questions I'd like to ask you for our

records would that be okay with you sir

yes I'd be more than happy to help out

that's great thank you first of all

what's your name

my full name is John Horton John hort

spell your surname for me please

of course it's

h-o-r-t-o-n Horton it's actually quite a

popular name where I come from

and where exactly was it that you come

from

I just flew in from London yesterday

specifically to come visit here that's

so exciting well it's great to have such

a such a decated fan

need to ask you is for your phone number

as our director has plans to take some

special exhibits on tour next year

that sounds very interesting I

definitely like to be kept informed

about that my number is 064-145-354

oh six four one four five three five

four is that right

that's it exactly got it thanks and next

could you just tell me if it's your

first visit to the Klein Museum

yes well actually my parents did bring

me here when I was quite young and I

don't actually remember it

but technically this is my second time

being here oh my so your whole family

are Klein fans then

yes definitely it was my parents who got

me started on him

and what's your favorite client book

I love all of his popular ones like

Heyday and the knocking but my absolute

favorite has got to be the final push

which wasn't as popular as the others

but really left me with the lasting

impression I know exactly what you mean

it really is surprising that it isn't

better known and while you're visiting

will you require the services of our

in-house photographer no that won't be

necessary are you aware that personal

cameras are not allowed into the museum

oh really I wasn't actually well in that

case I suppose I better how much does it

cost one photo is five dollars but you

can get five for just ten dollars which

option would suit you best

I'll go with one photo as I really only

need it as a reminder of my visit here

this is a bit embarrassing actually

what's that I need to put today's date

on the form but I actually can't

remember what date it is today

has nothing to worry about well I flew

in yesterday which was the 15th of

February so that makes today the 16th of

February okay

so thank you for your patience

started with the tour

as you can see the main entrance is

furnished with the standard double doors

from the era and lead us directly to the

guest room which is the largest room in

the house the says in fact the very same

room where he signed his very first

publishing deal back in 1894.

at the opposite end of the room we have

the fireplace in the center where he and

his family would gather during the cold

Winters to keep warm

on the right of the fireplace is the

entrance to the utility room but

unfortunately we don't have any of the

objects that were stored there by the

Klein family as the house has changed

hands on several occasions before it was

finally turned into a museum in his

honor

then on the left of the door that leads

into the kitchen you can see this hatch

that was used as the serving window as

was customary so as not to have the

staff interacting with the guests

if you follow me through to the kitchen

here you can see the stove is placed

directly against the wall at the back of

the fireplace and this is because when

the fire is lit the heat can be used in

the oven of the stove

and on the left the sink is located

directly under the window so that this

area was well illuminated for preparing

food and washing the Crockery

at the back of the kitchen is the

doorway to the bedroom

in those days beds weren't as popular as

they are now so people slept on thin

wooden mats laid on the ground like the

ones you see here and the whole family

would sleep here together except for on

the coldest nights when they would move

to the guest room to benefit from

whatever heat was left coming from the

evening fire

back you'll notice this little cubby

which may look like an ensuite at first

but is in fact the office of our great

Mr Klein as he found this to be the

quietest location in the house and could

focus on his work without interruption

finally if you could just follow me back

through the kitchen here we can exit

through the back door of the house to

the Woodshed where the Klein family is

stored well obviously there would

however it was the staff that would have

been the only ones that really had any

reason to be back here

and that pretty much concludes our tour

does anyone have any questions they'd

like to ask

IELTS listening part two the first thing

is that clean energy has been increasing

this is electricity from clean energy

sources over the last 20 years but when

you look at the percentage of global

electricity from clean energy sources

it's actually been in Decline from 36

percent to 31 percent and if you care

about climate change you've got to go in

the opposite direction to a hundred

percent of our electricity from clean

energy sources as quickly as possible

now you might wonder come on how much

could five percentage points of global

electricity be well it turns out to be

quite a bit it's the equivalent of 60

nuclear plants the size of Diablo Canyon

California's last nuclear plant or 900

solar Farms the size of topaz which is

one of the biggest solar farms in the

world and and certainly our biggest in

California well a big part of this is

just simply that fossil fuels are

increasing faster than clean energy and

that's understandable there's just a lot

of poor country trees that are still

using wood and charcoal as their main

source of energy and they need modern

fuels but there's something else going

on which is that one of those clean

energy sources in particular has

actually been on the decline in absolute

terms not just relatively and that's

nuclear you can see its generation has

declined seven percent over the last 10

years now solar and wind have been

making huge strides and so you hear a

lot of talk about how it doesn't really

matter because solar and wind is going

to make up the difference but the data

says something different when you

combine all the electricity from solar

and wind you see it actually barely

makes up half of the decline from

nuclear

well let's take a closer look in the

United States over the last couple of

years really 2013 2014 we prematurely

retired for nuclear power plants they

were almost entirely replaced with

fossil fuels and so the consequence was

that we wiped out almost as much clean

energy electricity that we get from

solar and it's not unique to us I mean

people think of California as a clean

energy and climate leader but when we

looked at the data what we found is that

in fact California reduced emissions

more slowly than the national average

between 2000 and 2015. what about

Germany they're doing a lot of clean

energy but when you look at the data

German emissions have actually been

going up since 2009 and there's really

not anybody who's going to tell you that

they're going to meet their climate

commitments in 2020

. the reason isn't hard to understand

solar and wind provide Power about 10 to

20 of the time which means that when the

sun's not shining the wind's not blowing

you still need power for your hospitals

your homes your cities your factories

and while batteries have made some

really cool improvements lately the

truth is that they're just never going

to be as efficient as the electrical

grid every time you put electricity into

a battery and you take it out you lose

about 20 to 40 percent of the to 40

percent of the power

that's why when in California we try to

deal with all the solar we've brought

online we now get about 10 percent of

our electricity from solar when the Sun

goes down and people come home from work

and turn on their air conditioners and

their TV sets and every other Appliance

in the house we need a lot of natural

gas backup so what we've been doing is

stuffing a lot of natural gas into the

side of a mountain and that worked

pretty well for a while but then late

last year it sprung a leak this is Aliso

Canyon and so much methane gas was

released it was the equivalent of

putting a half a million cars on the

road it basically blew through all of

our climate commitments for the year

well what about India sometimes you have

to go places to really get the right

data so we traveled to India a few

months ago we met with all the top

officials Seoul or nuclear of the rest

and what they told us is they said we're

actually having more serious problems

than both Germany and California we

don't have backup we start of it we say

we want to get to 100 gigawatts by 2022

but last year we did just five and the

year before that we did five so let's

just take a closer look at nuclear the

United Nations intergovernmental panel

on climate change has looked at the

carbon content of all these different

fuels and nuclear comes out really low

it's actually lower even than solar and

nuclear obviously provides a lot of

power 24 hours a day seven days a week

during a year a single plant can provide

Power 92 percent of the time and what's

interesting is that when you look at

countries that have deployed different

kinds of clean energies there's only a

few that have done so at a pace

consistent with dealing with the climate

crisis so nuclear seems like a pretty

good option but there's this big problem

with it which all of you I'm sure are

aware of which is that people really

don't like it there was a study a survey

done of people around the world not just

in the United States or Europe about a

year and a half ago and what they found

is that nuclear found is that nuclear is

actually one of the least popular forms

of energy even oil is more popular than

nuclear and while nuclear kind of edges

out coal the thing is people don't

really fear coal in the same way that

they feared nuclear which really

operates on our unconscious so what is

it that we fear I mean there's really

three things there's the safety of the

plants themselves the fears that they're

going to melt down and cause damage

there's the waste from them and then

there's the association with weapons

and I think understandably Engineers

look at those concerns and they want to

look for technological fixes I mean

that's why Bill Gates is in China

developing Advanced reactions that's why

40 different entrepreneurs are working

on this problem and and I myself have

been very excited about it we did a

report how to make nuclear cheap in

particular the thorium reactor shows a

lot of promise and so when the climate

scientist James Hanson asked if I wanted

to go to China with him and look at the

Chinese Advanced nuclear program I

jumped at the chance we were there with

MIT and UC Berkeley engineers and you

know I had in my mind that the Chinese

would be able to do with nuclear what

they did with so many other things just

start to crank out small nuclear

reactors on assembly lines you can ship

them up like iPhones or MacBooks and

send them around the world I would get

one home in Berkeley

um but what I found was somewhat

different the the presentations were all

very exciting and very promising they

have multiple reactors that they're

working on the time came for the thorium

reactor and a bunch of us were excited

they went through the whole presentation

they got to the timeline

and they said we're going to have a

thorium molten salt reactor ready for

sale to the World by 2040. IELTS

listening part three

so let's look though at the four choices

that we are making right now

um the first one the most by far the

most consumed uh Seafood in America and

in much of the West is shrimp shrimp in

the wild is a wild product

is a terrible product 5 10 15 pounds of

wild fish are regularly killed to bring

one pound of shrimp to the market

they're also incredibly fuel inefficient

to bring to the market in a recent study

that was produced out of Dalhousie

University it was found that Dragon for

shrimp is one of the most carbon

intensive ways of fishing that you can

find

so you can Farm them and people do farm

them and they Farm them a lot in this

very area problem is the place where you

farm shrimp is in these wild habitats in

Mangrove forests now look at those

lovely roots coming down those are the

things that hold soil together protect

coasts create habitats for all sort of

young fish young shrimp all sorts of

things that are important to this

environment well this is what happens to

a lot of coastal Mangrove forests we've

lost millions and to a lot of coastal

Mangrove forests we've lost millions of

Acres of coastal mangroves over the last

30 or 40 years that rate of Destruction

has slowed but we're still in a major

Mangrove deficit

the other thing that's going on here is

a phenomenon that the filmmaker Mark

Benjamin called grinding Nemo

this phenomenon is very very relevant to

anything that you've ever seen on a

tropical Reef because what's going on

right now we have shrimp draggers

dragging for shrimp catching a huge

amount of bycatch that bycatch in turn

gets ground up and turned into shrimp

food

and sometimes many of these vessels

manned by slaves are catching these

so-called trash fish fish that we would

love to see on a reef grinding them up

and turning them into shrimp feed an

ecosystem literally eating itself and

spitting out shrimp

the next must-consume Seafood in America

and also throughout the West is tuna so

tuna is this ultimate Global fish these

huge Management areas have to be

observed in order for management area

called a regional fisheries management

organization is called icat the

international invention for the

conservation of Atlantic Tunas the great

naturalist Carl Safina uh once called it

the international conspiracy to catch

all the Tunas of course we've seen

incredible Improvement in icat in the

last few years there is total room for

improvement but it remains to be said

that tuna is a global fish and to manage

it we have to manage the globe

well we could also try to grow tuna but

tuna is a spectacularly bad animal for

aquaculture many people don't know this

but tuna are warm-blooded they can heat

their bodies 20 degrees above ambient

temperature they can swim at over 40

miles an hour so pretty much eliminates

all the advantages of farming a fish

right a farm fish is or fish is

cold-blooded it doesn't move too much

that's a great thing for growing protein

but if you've got this crazy wild

creature that swims at 40 miles an hour

and heats its blood not a great

candidate for aquaculture

the next creature and most consumed

Seafood in America and throughout the

West is salmon now salmon got its

plundering too but it didn't really

necessarily happen through fishing this

is my home state of Connecticut

Connecticut used to be home to a lot of

wild salmon but if you look at this map

of Connecticut every dot on that map is

a dam

there are over 3 000 dams in the state

of Connecticut I I often say this is why

people in Connecticut are so so uptight

if somebody could just unblock

Connecticut's chi I feel that we could

have an infinitely better world but I

made this particular comment at a

convention once of national parks

officers and this guy from North

Carolina sidled up to me says you know

you ought and be so hard on your

Connecticut because we here in North

Carolina we got 35

000 dams so it's a national epidemic

it's an international epidemic and there

are dams everywhere and these are

precisely the things that stop wild

salmon from reaching their spawning

grounds

so as a result we've turned to aquaculty

grounds

so as a result we've turned to

aquaculture and salmon is one of the

most successful at least from a numbers

point of view

when they first started farming salmon

it could take as many as six pounds of

wild fish to make a single pound of

salmon the industry has to its credit

greatly improved they've gotten it below

two to one although

it's a little bit of a cheat because if

you look at the way aquaculture feed is

produced they're measuring pellets

pounds of pellets per pound of salmon

those pellets are in turn reduced fish

so the actual What's called the FIFA the

fish in and the fish have kind of hard

to say but in any case credit to the

industry it has lowered the amount of

fish per pound of salmon problem is

we've also gone crazy with the amount of

salmon that we're producing aquaculture

is the fastest growing food system on

the planet it's growing at something

like seven percent per year and so even

though we're doing less per fish to

bring it to the market we're still

killing a lot of these little fish

and if we're also feeding fish to

chickens and pigs

so we got chickens and they're eating

fish but weirdly we also have fish that

are eating chickens uh because uh the

byproducts of chickens feathers blood

bone get ground up and fed to fish so I

often wonder is there a fish that ate a

chicken that ate a fish

this is sort of a reworking of the

chicken and egg thing anyway

all together though it results in a

terrible mess

um what you're talking about is

something between 20 and 30 million

metric tons of wild creatures that are

taken from the ocean and used and ground

up that's the equivalent of a third of a

China or of entire United States of

humans that's taken out of the sea each

and every year

the last of the four is a kind of

amorphous thing um it's you know what

the industry calls white fish

there's many fish that get cycled into

this white fish thing but the way to

kind of tell the story I think is

through that classic piece of American

culinary Innovation culinary Innovation

the filet of fish sandwich so the filet

fish sandwich actually started as

halibut and it started because a local

franchise owner found that when he

served his McDonald's on on Friday

nobody came because it was a Catholic

Community they needed fish so Ray Kroc

um he went to Ray Kroc and he said I'm

going to bring you a fish sandwich gonna

be made out of halibut Ray Kroc said I

don't think it's gonna work I want to do

a hula burger and there's going to be a

slice of pineapple on a bun but let's do

this let's have a bet who's ever

sandwiched you know sells more that will

be the winning sandwich well it's kind

of sad for the ocean that the hula

Burger didn't win

um so he made his halibut sandwich uh

unfortunately though the sandwich came

in at 30 cents Ray wanted the sandwich

to come in at 25 cents so he turned to

Atlantic Cod we all know what happened

to Atlantic cod in New England so now

the filet of fish sandwich is made out

of Alaska Pollock it's the largest

finfish fishery in the United States two

to three billion pounds of fish taken

out of the sea every billion pounds of

fish taken out of the sea every single

year if we go through the Pollock the

next choice is probably going to be

tilapia tilapia is one of those fish

nobody ever heard of 20 years ago it's

actually a very efficient converter of

plant protein into animal protein and

it's been a godsend to the third world

it's actually a tremendously sustainable

solution goes from an egg to an adult in

nine months problem is that when you

look about the West it doesn't do what

the West wants it to do it really

doesn't have what's called an oily fish

profile IELTS listening part four but

the question is why why do we sometimes

fail to perform up to our potential

under pressure

it's especially bewildering in the case

of athletes who spend so much time

physically honing their craft

but what about their minds

not as much

this is true off the playing field as

well whether we're taking a test or

giving a talk it's easy to feel like

we're ready at the top of our game and

then perform at our worst when it

matters most

it turns out that rarely do we practice

under the types of conditions we're

actually going to perform under and as a

result when all eyes are on us we

sometimes flub our performance

of course the question is why is this

the case and my experience on the

playing field and in other important

facets of my life really pushed me into

the field of cognitive science I wanted

to know how we could reach our Limitless

potential

I wanted to understand how we could use

our knowledge of the mind and the Brain

to come up with psychological tools that

would help us perform at our best

so why does it happen why do we

sometimes fail to perform up to what

we're capable of when the pressure is on

it may not be so surprising to hear that

in stressful situations we worry we

worry about the situation the

consequences what others will think of

but what is surprising is that we often

get in our own way precisely because our

worries prompt us to concentrate too

much that's right we pay too much

attention to what we're doing

when we're concerned about performing

our best we often try and control

aspects of what we're doing that are

best left on autopilot outside conscious

awareness and as a result we mess up

think about a situation where you're

shuffling down the stairs and what would

happen if I asked you to think about

what you're doing with your knee while

you're doing that there's a good chance

you'd fall on your face

we as humans only have the ability to

pay attention to so much at once which

is why by the way it's not a good idea

to drive and talk on the cell phone

and under pressure when we're concerned

about performing at our best we can try

and control aspects of what we're doing

that should be left outside conscious

control

the end result is that we mess up

my research team and I have studied this

phenomenon of over-attention and we call

it paralysis by analysis

in one study we asked college soccer

players to dribble a soccer ball and to

pay attention to an aspect of their

performance that they would not

otherwise attend to we asked them to pay

attention to what side of the foot was

contacting the ball

we showed that performance was slower

and more error prone when we drew their

attention to the step-by-step details of

what they were doing

when the pressure is on we're often

concerned with performing at our best

and as a result we try and control what

we're doing to force the best

performance

the end result is that we actually screw

in basketball the term unconscious is

used to describe a shooter who can't

miss

and San Antonio Spurs star Tim Duncan

has said when you have to stop and think

that's when you mess up

in dance the great choreographer George

Balanchine used to urge his dancers

don't think just do

when the pressure's on when we want to

put our best foot forward somewhat

ironically we often try and control what

we're doing in a way that leads to worse

performance

so what do we do knowing that we have

this overactive attention how do we

ensure that we perform at our best

a lot of it comes down to the prefrontal

cortex that front part of our brain that

sits over our eyes and usually helps us

focus in positive ways it often gets

hooked on the wrong things so how do we

unhook it

something as simple as singing a song

or paying attention to one's pinky toe

is pro golfer Jack Nicholas was rumored

to do can help us take our mind off

those pesky details

it's also true that practicing under

conditions that we're going to perform

under

closing the gap between training and

competition can help us get used to that

feeling of all eyes on us

this is true off the playing field as

well

whether it's getting ready for an exam

or preparing for a big talk one that

might have a little pressure associated

with it

getting used to the types of situations

you're going to perform under really

matters when you're taking a test close

the book practice retrieving the answer

from memory under time situations and

when you're giving a talk practice in

front of others and if you can't find

anyone who will listen practice in front

of a video camera or even a mirror the

ability to get used to what it will feel

like can make the difference in whether

we choke or thrive

we've also figured out some ways to get

rid of those pesky worries and

self-doubts that tend to creep up in the

stressful situations

researchers have shown that simply

jotting down your thoughts and worries

before a stressful event can help to

download them from mind make them less

likely to pop up in the moment

it's kind of like when you wake up in

the middle of the night and you're

really worried about what you have to do

the next day you're trying to think

about everything you have to accomplish

and you write it down and then you can

go back to sleep journaling or getting

those thoughts down on paper

makes it less likely they'll pop up and

distract you in the moment the end

result is that you can perform your best

when it matters most

that is the end of the test as promised

here are the answers good luck

number one John Horton number two

London

number three

zero six four one four five three five

four

number four the final push

number five you can have the 16th of

February or February 16 or 16 February 6

7 d

eight

nine

ten h

11 B

12 e

13 a

16 India

17 is nuclear

18 coal

19 with weapons

China

trimp

22 Market or the market

Mangrove 24 global

40 miles

26 over 3 000.

spawning grinds or their spawning

grounds

pig or pigs or the pig or the pigs

39 or 9 months

31 playing field

32 too much

33 awareness or control

34 by analysis

35 step-by-step details

36 C

37 B

38 B

39 a

40 C Chris here again and thank you so

much for watching our listening sample

test I hope that you did really really

well and if you made some mistakes

here's a video that is going to help you

reflect on your mistakes and improve

that's really going to help you what I

would like you to do is put your scores

in the comments below it's great to see

what level all you guys are at and also

if you would like to see more sample

listening tests please let us know in

the comments below or if you have any

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Get Band 9 After Using These Listening Tips