Listening Comprehension: Dialogues, Monologues, and Picture/Table Tasks
Listening opens the Aichi paper and is played once, so the reading you do before the sound starts is part of the test. Tasks include short dialogues with picture choices, longer dialogues with printed questions, and a monologue or dialogue where you complete a table or memo in English or with numbers.
Core rules
- Use the example and the instructions to preview the choices. Underline what differs between them: times, places, prices, verbs.
- From the choices, predict the words you will hear. If the choices are places, listen for station, park, library, and prepositions of movement.
- For table completion, follow the order of the items on the paper; the speaker usually gives them in that order.
- Write numbers as digits (9:30, 450) and words in English, checking spelling as you write.
- Expect a correction. The first number or plan is often replaced: "We'll meet at 8:30. The bus leaves at nine, so don't be late."
- Listen through the question at the end; the question word (Where, When, Why, How long) decides which fact you need.
Worked example
A dialogue about a school trip gives a table with three columns: place, time, and what to bring. The speaker says, "We'll meet at the station at 8:30. The bus leaves at nine, so don't be late. And bring a lunch, not money." Question: What time does the bus leave? Answer: 9:00. 8:30 is the meeting time, not the departure. "Not money" is a classic negative correction, so the item column is lunch.
Traps
- Writing the first number you hear instead of the corrected one.
- Confusing who said what in a two-speaker dialogue.
- Missing negatives (didn't, no, not) and choosing the opposite.
- Confusing thirteen/thirty, or writing 9.30 instead of 9:30.
- Stopping after a missed item; the recording never pauses, so leave it and rejoin at the next line.