Part 4 lecture: spending the replay wisely
You are 21 minutes into the 30-minute LanguageCert Academic Listening paper. Parts 1–3 are complete. Part 4 has just had its first playing: a four-minute lecture on blue light and adolescent sleep. Your notes say '2h screens → 45 min less sleep'. Near the end the lecturer added that the 45-minute figure came from self-report diaries, while a sub-sample wearing actigraphy watches showed a gap of only 12 minutes. Q22 asks: 'What does the lecturer say about the 45-minute figure?' A It came from self-report data. B It was confirmed by wrist-worn monitors. C It applied only to the youngest group. Q23 is blank - you heard 'the second group' and 'the control group' seconds apart and lost the thread. Q24–Q26 are answered, though not confidently. The replay starts in 40 seconds and runs about four minutes; you then have two minutes to transfer answers to the answer sheet.
1. With 40 seconds before the replay, what is the best use of that time - and what should you deliberately avoid?
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Reread only the two unresolved items, Q22 and Q23, plus a one-word reminder of what Q24–Q26 asked.
Why this and not more: 40 seconds buys roughly 60–70 words of reading. Rereading all six stems means skimming, and skimming produces no better memory than what you already hold. The replay is a verification pass, not a first listening, so attention should be aimed at specific gaps.
Concretely: in Q22 underline 'the lecturer says about the 45-minute figure'. The target is the attribution, not the number, which you already know. In Q23 underline the contrast in the options ('second group' vs 'control group') so your ear is primed for the lecturer's signpost rather than for the wording you half-remember.
Avoid: rewriting notes, worrying about Q24–Q26, and pre-deciding answers. Pre-deciding is how candidates hear what they expect rather than what is said - the standard cause of a wrong answer on a replay.
2. In the replay you hear: 'The headline figure everyone quotes - forty-five minutes - rests on diaries the teenagers filled in themselves. When we fitted actigraphy watches to a subset, the gap shrank to twelve minutes.' What do you write for Q22, and what is your plan for Q23 now that the replay is running?
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Q22: A. The verb 'rests on' attributes the 45-minute figure to self-report diaries. B is the option the surface numbers pull you towards, but actigraphy is precisely what shrank the effect, so B contradicts the lecture. C is never stated. Notice that the number 45 is compatible with both A and B - the discriminator is the source of the data, not its size.
Q23: switch from reconstruction to location. You missed it on the first pass, so do not wait for the phrasing you half-remember. Listen for the lecturer's discourse markers - 'the second group differed in one respect', 'unlike the controls' - and answer from that sentence alone.
If the segment has already gone past, stop chasing it and protect Q24–Q26, which are still live. Chasing one missed item is how candidates lose two more. Record any correction in the margin beside the question, not on the answer sheet: transfer time exists for transfer, and writing under pressure invites a line error.
3. The replay ends. Q23 is still blank and you have two minutes to transfer. Do you leave it blank?
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No. A blank scores zero with certainty; a reasoned elimination has a real chance. Guess - but guess from evidence rather than at random.
Use what the lecture did establish. You know there were at least two groups and that one was a control. Eliminate any option that contradicts the actigraphy finding or describes a difference the lecturer never mentioned. Between the survivors, prefer the one consistent with study design: a control group normally differs by receiving no intervention, not by being larger, older or tested later. That is reasoning from method, not from memory.
Then transfer in blocks. Q22–Q26 together, checking each answer sits on the right line. Do not reopen Q24–Q26 unless you noted a specific contradiction during the replay. Late second-guessing under time pressure usually lowers scores, because the doubt is caused by anxiety rather than by new evidence.