Listening: the number is accurate, but it is not the answer
Chen is doing a timed listening section. The recording plays:
Woman: I booked the 8:15 to Bristol, but they've cancelled it. The next train is 9:40 and it gets in at 11:05 - far too late for the opening. Man: Then take the coach. It leaves at ten past nine and takes an hour and forty minutes. Woman: Good - and it's cheaper. I'll do that.
Question 4 offers: A. By train, at 11:05. B. By coach, at 10:50. C. By coach, at 9:10. D. By train, at 9:40.
Chen's notes read “train cancelled / 9:40 / 11:05 / coach 9:10”. He answers A, explaining that 11:05 is “the only time I'm sure I heard”. During the second playing he stops listening and just re-reads his notes, which confirm the number.
1. Diagnose Chen's answer and state the rule he should apply on the second playing.
Read the worked answer
A is wrong twice over.
- Mode: the woman explicitly rejects the train (“far too late”) and commits to the coach (“I'll do that”). The last commitment wins over the first mention.
- Time: 11:05 is the arrival of the train she is not taking. The answer needs her actual arrival: 9:10 + 1 h 40 = 10:50, i.e. option B.
Note what each distractor does: C recycles the coach's departure as if it were the arrival; D recycles the next train's departure from a plan that was abandoned.
Rule for the second playing: do not re-hear numbers you already have - locate the decision turn (here, the man's “Then take the coach” and her “I'll do that”). A second playing confirms which option the speaker finally commits to, not which numeral was pronounced.
2. Chen asks why the recording bothers to say “11:05” at all. What is that number doing in the text, and how should he record numbers while listening?
Read the worked answer
11:05 is accurate but disqualified: it is attached to an option the speaker rejects inside the same turn. Good listening items routinely plant a true number on a false route, so a remembered figure feels like evidence when it is actually debris.
The note-taking fix is to record every number with its owner and its status, e.g.
- train - cancelled
- next train - 9:40 dep / 11:05 arr - not chosen
- coach - 9:10 dep / 1 h 40 → 10:50 arr - chosen
An unlabelled numeral is unusable later, because in the review phase Chen cannot tell a fact from a rejected fact. The label costs one second during the pause and saves the item.
3. Chen's plan for next time is “I'll just listen for the words *coach* and *train*”. Why is that strategy unsafe here?
Read the worked answer
Because both words occur, and the disqualified one occurs as often as the qualified one - keyword counting cannot separate them. The decision is carried by discourse and evaluation, not by nouns:
- “Then take the coach” - then marks a switch of plan, the highest-value signal in the extract.
- “far too late” / “it's cheaper” - the speaker weighs options aloud; her verdicts, not her nouns, decide the answer.
- “I'll do that” - an explicit commitment closing the exchange.
There is a second risk: the correct option may be printed as a paraphrase (“sets off just after nine and arrives under two hours later”) with neither noun-pair intact. A listener tracking only vocabulary would have nothing to match. Listen for the change of plan and for who commits to what.