Listening: note-taking under single-play conditions
Listening runs about 35 minutes and the audio is played once - there is no replay. Grade 1 audio sits close to natural speed: lectures, news reports, workplace negotiations and interviews, complete with redundancy, self-correction and hedged opinion. The section moves through four parts, from dialogues to longer monologues to real-world task items, and the options are printed on the page so you can read them before each item starts.
Dialogues and monologues
Dialogue items turn on purpose and attitude as much as on facts: why the speaker raises a point, what they imply by "interesting". The longer monologues carry more than one question each, so build a note skeleton while listening - the speaker's stance, two or three supporting points, any figures - rather than transcribing sentences.
Real-world task items
These embed the listening in a situation (booking, scheduling, choosing a service) with printed options that are deliberately similar: numbers, dates, names. The audio almost always offers a distractor and then revises it - "Tuesday's out; let's say Thursday" - so record the final value, not the first.
Note-taking discipline
Use symbols, not prose: ↑↓ for trends, ∴ for cause, ? beside claims the speaker doubts, and a column of figures on the right margin. If you lose a fact, abandon it and keep tracking the argument; most questions can be answered from the gist plus one detail.
Worked example
Audio (abridged): "The report's headline figure - a 12% fall in emissions - has been widely quoted. But the authors themselves note that two-thirds of the decline came from a one-off shutdown at the largest plant, and they caution against reading the number as a trend." Question: What is the speaker's attitude toward the headline figure? A. It is the most reliable estimate available. B. It overstates the underlying trend. ✓ C. It was fabricated by journalists. D. It should be revised upward. Reasoning: widely quoted + but + one-off + caution against reading as a trend means the number is technically true but misleading as a trend indicator. C is too strong - the authors cite the figure rather than call it invented; D reverses the direction of the caution.
Traps that cost marks
- Answering from the first number or name heard.
- Options that are true in the real world but never stated in the audio.
- Missing negation and hedging: not necessarily, less convincing than, far from settled.
- Freezing after one missed word, when the next sentence restates the idea.