Listening - The Time That Changes (short dialogues with pictures)
Tom is doing A2 Listening, Part 1: short dialogues, each with a question and three pictures. Question 3 asks 'What time does the fast train leave?' The pictures show 9:30, 9:40 and 10:00.
The audio says: 'The fast train's at half past nine. Oh no, sorry - that's the slow one. The fast one goes at twenty to ten.'
Tom hears 'half past nine' first, sees 9:30 in the first picture, and marks it. While he is deciding, the recording moves on to Question 4. He misses the start of the next dialogue, panics, and puts the same answer as his friend in the next row.
1. Why is Tom's answer wrong, and what is the correct answer? Explain the listening habit that would have saved him.
Read the worked answer
Correct answer: 9:40 ('twenty to ten').
Why 9:30 is a designed trap: the speaker says the time, then corrects herself with a clear signal - 'Oh no, sorry - that's the slow one.' A2 listening dialogues are built on exactly this pattern: a first answer is offered, then withdrawn, then replaced. The first number a candidate hears is very often the wrong one.
The habit that saves him: in Part 1, keep listening until the speaker stops talking about that thing. Treat any number, time or price as provisional until the dialogue moves on. Signals that a correction is coming: sorry, no, actually, I mean, wait.
Also note the pictures: they are there to be compared, not just matched. 9:30 / 9:40 / 10:00 differ only in the time, so the whole question is 'which number survives to the end of the turn?'
2. Tom realises he has missed the beginning of Question 4. What should he do in the next few seconds?
Read the worked answer
Let Question 4 go and get ready for Question 5.
- He cannot replay the audio, so the missing words are gone. Staring at Question 4 only guarantees that Question 5 is also lost.
- The paper uses the pause between dialogues: use every second of it to look at the pictures for the next question - what is different about them? (times? prices? places?).
- Then mark one answer for Question 4 (a guess) and forget it.
His bigger error is not the missed question but the copy from the row in front. Another candidate's answer is not evidence. If he must guess, guess from the picture differences - that at least uses something he knows.
3. What should Tom do in the pause before a dialogue starts?
Read the worked answer
Read the question and the three pictures and name the difference between them out loud in his head:
- If the pictures show three times → he is listening for a number and a correction.
- If they show three places → he is listening for where, and for a place being rejected.
- If they show three activities → he is listening for a verb phrase, not a single word.
Knowing the type of difference tells him what to hold in his hand while listening: a pencil over the pictures, ready to tick the second the speaker commits.
What he should not do is read the question only. The question ('What time…?') is the same every year; the pictures are what change, and the difference between the pictures is the real question.