Listening Comprehension
What this domain tests
Listening Comprehension checks whether you can follow English at natural speed and answer questions about a conversation or announcement. Questions are not only about facts. You may need to identify a speaker's reason, choose an appropriate reply, or decide what happens next. In a school-entrance paper the recording is limited, so use the question and options before the audio starts.
Core rules
- Preview the options and predict the question type: time, place, reason, action, or response.
- Note who is speaking and their relationship. A teacher speaks differently from a friend.
- Listen for corrections: actually, instead, not ... but ..., I mean.
- For numbers, write the number and its unit immediately.
- For reply questions, identify the function: request, apology, invitation, suggestion, or refusal.
Worked example
Script: We planned to meet at the station at three, but the movie starts at four, so let us meet thirty minutes earlier. Question: What time will they meet? Options: 2:30, 3:00, 3:30, 4:00. Reasoning: The original plan was 3:00, which is a distractor. The phrase thirty minutes earlier refers to that plan, not to the movie time. Three o'clock minus thirty minutes is 2:30. If you subtract thirty minutes from four, you get 3:30, which is the classic trap.
Traps that cost marks
- Hearing a word in an option and choosing it without checking the question.
- Missing not or n't, which reverses the meaning.
- Following the first number and ignoring a later correction.
- Confusing thirteen and thirty, or fifteen and fifty.
- Choosing a true detail that does not answer the question asked.