For many people, the Listening Section of the IELTS test is the scariest. In reading and writing, a student can go back and check his answers. He can reread the passage or erase his awkward sentences. In contrast, a student can only listen to the audio once. No replays. No rewinds. Once and it’s over. If a student misses a piece of information, the only thing he can do is make an educated guess. For many students, that’s quite intimidating.

The best advice I can offer any student is to focus on keywords. At the beginning of each section, the audio gives you thirty seconds to look over the questions. This time is very valuable, and many students don’t use it wisely. They read through the ten questions as quickly as possible and then hope for the best.

The trick is to circle one listening keyword in each question, and underline any other important words. For example, here is a test question from Listening Section 1:

“Cost of East-Facing Hotel Room: £______________.”

Obviously, you are listening for a number. How much money does the room cost? In this case, I would circle the £ symbol (pronounced as “pounds”), because that’s the most important part of the sentence. When you hear the word “pounds,” you know that the number right before will be the answer. However, I would also underline “east-facing,” because that’s the specific idea for this question. Now, I have the two most important pieces of information, and I just need to wait for these keywords.

Now, here’s an example from a Section 4 question:

“The recycling company wants to ___________ the youth-targeted products.”

Obviously, this is a gap-fill question. The word “to” means that your answer must be a verb (such as “to advertise” or “to change”). The main idea is “recycling company,” but that’s not your keyword, because that’s the main idea of the whole section. Instead, the keyword to circle is “youth-targeted” and the secondary keyword to underline is “wants.”

On the test, though, they probably won’t say either word, so you have to think of synonyms. For example, instead of “youth-targeted” products, they might say “items for young people” or “things that the younger generation would buy.” The idea is the same, but it’s paraphrased. For “wants,” they might say “needs” or “requires” or even “places importance on.” These all maintain the same idea.

The point is that you need to use your thirty-second preparation time as efficiently as possible. Circle the main keyword from every question, underline the secondary word, and very quickly think of synonyms that they might use. The speakers will be fast, and you might miss a few phrases, but if you hear the important parts, then you can find the correct answer.