There has been only one major change since December 2008 and that is that each part of the listening every extract is played twice. There used to be one part that the candidates could hear only one time but the exam designers must have found this to be unnecessarily and inappropriately challenging. So now every extract is heard two times.

You are also given a designated amount of time BEFORE hearing the extract to carefully read through the task first.

The 4 parts of the listening look as follows:

Part 1

Multiple Choice:

John thinks Jane's decision about going on a holiday is

A unreasonable in view of her financial position

B surprising since her holiday is well overdue

C understandable given how much money is involved

For this part of the listening test it is important to remember that the prompt (potential answer) must be ENTIRELY correct. Often the prompt will be a longer sentence and every component of the sentence has to be true for the answer to be true. Imagine that in the example B sounds possible because Jane's decision WAS surprising for John but NOT because it is well overdue.

HOT TIP= Make sure that you listen for the correct speaker saying the information required in the prompt. In the above example imagine JANE mentions that her decision is unreasonable due to her financial position. The answer is still not A because it has to be what JOHN thinks about her holiday.

Part 2

Sentence Completion

The museum houses objects collected by the (1)__________________ based in the city.

It has one of the country's best galleries containing (2)____________ exhibits.

This part of the exam used to be the part played only one time and now it is played twice. It is still regarded as the most difficult parts of the exam because it requires candidates to write something as opposed to choosing AB or C or ticking a box. As a result spelling DOES count and becomes an important factor in the test.

In the example above the answer might be curator/ or museum curator but these words must be spelt correctly. Often the examiners will except more than one possible answer depending on one's interpretation of the extract as long as they are spelt 100% flawlessly.

In questions like number 2 where a number is expected, the number can be written numerically or literally; 20 000 or twenty thousand.

HOT TIP = ALWAYS read through this extract carefully and try to imagine what type of words you will hear. Will they be numbers? Will it be a date? Could it potentially be adjectives? Maybe a type of job?

Part 3

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