Part 1 Basic Skills for Listening

Pre-listening skills

Step 1: Study the situation and your role

You will be given a realistic situation which sets the scene for the listening activities. The situation could be an orientation session followed by an informal meeting; or two guides giving visitors general information about a theme park and answering visitors’ questions about the theme park; or a seminar on the prevention of crime followed by a question-and-answer session; or a radio interview and question-and-answer phone-ins.

Some previous roles and situations:

Role General situation2007 Hotel employee 2007 A training session on terrorism

2006 English teacher 2006 A tour of the home of the future

2005 A member of an editorial team 2005 A study of life in Hong

Kong during World War II

2004 A police constable 2004 A police training seminar

2003 Someone who is planning to

join a three-month summer cruise

2003 A three-month summer study

cruise

2002 Someone who works for an

entertainment company

2002 A tour of a European theme

park

2001 A member of a student group 2001 Community crime awareness

and prevention

2000 A student who is going to take

part in a survey conducted by an

Australian university

2000 A survey on the health of youths

Step 2: Anticipate the answers based on the framework

Even before you listen to the recording, you may be able to predict some of the answers through context and common sense.

Can you predict the answer to Question 1 from the note-heading of Question 2?

1. What does Mary want to know?

2. Three reasons why the tour will help Mary with her Geology studies:

(a)

(b)

(c)

In this example, the wording of Question 2: ‘why the tour will help Mary with her

Geology studies’ gives you the clue to the answer to Question 1

Example

If the tour will help her with her Geology studies

Exercise 3

Predict some of the answers to the following questions by considering the context and the note-headings. Then listen to the recording to see how successful you were at predicting the answers.

2. The question Susie asks:

_______________________________________________________

Mrs. Smith’s views on how the pollution situation in Hong Kong differs from that in the United States:

(a) ____________________________________________________________

(b) ____________________________________________________________

(c) ____________________________________________________________

(d) ____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

How does pollution in Hong Kong differ from that in the United States?

It is a much greater problem in Hong Kong

There is a much greater concentration of construction in Hong Kong

A great deal of the pollution in Hong Kong comes from outside sources

Hong Kong hasn’t had as strong a public environmental agenda as the

United States

While-listening skillsStep 3: Listen carefully for hints

The forum Nancy just attended:

1. Title of the forum: _______________________________________

2. Objectives of the forum:

(a) ____________________________________________________

(b) ____________________________________________________

Tapescript

The title of today’s forum is ‘Run for Lives’. We’ll be discussing the latest charity marathon which has been organized to raise money for the AIDS Foundation. The objectives of the forum are to increase awareness of the charity project and to inform the public about AIDS.

You should be aware that the wording used for hints may differ slightly on the recording. In this example,' The title of today’s forum can be changed to ‘today’s forum is entitled; instead of the ‘The objectives of the forum’, the speaker may say ‘The aims of the forum’.

Example

Run for Lives

increase awareness of the charity project

inform the public about AIDS

Step 4: Using contextual clues to understand difficult words

A difficult word will normally be either repeated, presented as one of several alternative answers, or explained through contextual clues, so listen carefully for clues and hints that will help you understand the word. If there are no contextual clues given, then you should make an educated guess at the meaning of the word by linking the context to the word.

(a) Alternative answers Some questions have more than one answer, and there is a chance that there will be an

alternative answer if there are difficult words

(b) Omit elaborations In the Listening Test, you are only required to write down key points. There is no need

to elaborate on the ideas. Therefore, you must learn to distinguish key words from elaborations, which may take the form of examples or explanations of key ideas.

Travel planning that Joe did:

Step 1: ______________________ ______________________

Step 2: ______________________ ______________________

decide on the route

check the travel regulations

It is not necessary to include the explanation of ‘route’ or example or travel regulations in your answers because you have neither time nor space to copy it all down. As part of the listening process, you have to discriminate between necessary and unnecessary information

Exercise 11

Listen to the recording and write the answers as briefly as possible, but include all of the key words.

1. Problems experienced on Anna’s trip through Beijing:

(a) _____________________________________________________

(b) _____________________________________________________

2. Characteristics of a bully:

(a) ____________________________________________________________

(b) ____________________________________________________________

(c) ____________________________________________________________

3. (a) Alternative suggestion:

____________________________________________________________

(b) Advantages of the alternative suggestion:

_____________________________________________________________

dealing with bureaucracy

finding spare parts to repair bicycle

low self-confidence

a history of child abuse in the family

low achievement at school

apply for a grant from the government

wouldn’t discourage the public from using the library

Part 2 Latest Developments

The examinationQuestion formats

• Labelling questions • Map questions

• Questions involving similar pictures • Related questions

• Matching questions • Tone questions

• Flow chart questions • Multiple-choice questions involving pictures, photos or graphs

Labelling questions Every paper in the past few years have included a labelling question o

f some kind. This could be labelling a floor plan (2003), labelling the different parts of an item (2005 and 2007) or even putting details onto a map (2007).

You will have to orientate yourself quickly when you listen to the recording. The task will be easier to do if you study and underline the key words in the question and the worked example, and note any noticeable features in terms of differences or similarities. At times, it is useful to draw a schematic diagram beside the picture to help you locate the various parts as you take notes from the listening material.

Questions involving similar pictures

Questions involving distinguishing similar pictures have been in use for many years and was prominently featured in the 2005 UE exam, where candidates were required to compare a number of similar pictures of objects of the same nature and assign each of those pictures to a letter.

Unlike pictures given in a multiple-choice question, where the differences among the pictures are relatively easy to spot, the differences among the stamps in the following example are too numerous to be compared in detail, but the similarities or common features are quite obvious: they all carry country name, a postage value and, of course the image of a bird. So the answers you will be listening for would most likely be connected with differences in these common areas.

A $ 5000

Related questions

At times, two consecutive questions may be related and share some common information. This type of question has appeared in listening exams almost every year since 2003 and some are very difficult to do.

You should approach this type of question by finding out how the two questions are related to each other. You should then find out what common information is shared. You can also use the key words in the note-headings and the worked example(s) given in the first question as clues for some of the answers to the related questions or vice versa.

Can you tell how Question 1 is related to Question 2 in the exercise below, or vice versa?

Tone questions

Questions involving tone have become a regular feature of listening exams recently. They formed a part of a longer task in the 2004 and 2007 exams, and they were stand-alone questions in the 2002, 2005 and 2006 exams.

You can prepare for this type of question by underlining the key words, and then relate the key words to the conversational context or the situation on the recording. Tone refers to the quality of the speaker’s voice when he or she tries to express a particular emotion. Therefore, it

is important to understand the background and circumstances that give rise to such an emotion.

Here are some of the tone words used in the Use of English examinations:

2003 sure, unsure, interesting, funny, annoying, scary

2004 angry, pleading, shocked, apologetic, threatening 2004 angry, amused, unconcerned, worried, disbelief, fear, delight, satisfaction, relief, anxiety, exhausted, hope

2006 relaxed, uneasy, excited, bored, satisfied, surprised, disappointed, afraid

2007 confused, apathetic, nervous, impatient, suspicious

Flow chart questions

With this type of question, you are required to record a chain of events based on what you hear on the recording. Since the information provided on the recording is usually closely related and appears in sequence, it is very helpful if you number the note-headings or the blank spaces to make the flow chart easier to follow as you listen to the recording.

Exercise

Conversation between the flight attendant and the passenger

2. What the flight attendant does or says:

She asks the passenger to return to his seat

She asks the passenger again to return to his seat

She warns him of the dangers of not

fastening his seatbelt

She threatens to inform the captain / police

Background noises

Examiners have included various different background noises into the recordings. They range from environmental noises like doors opening and closing (2006), the rustling of paper (2004), to people murmuring (2004) and muttering barely audible comments (2007).

You should smartly ignore these noises and

concentrate only on the key points that you need to listen for.

Interjections

An interjection is a sound, word or phrase spoken by someone in the middle of a conversation or a monologue. In the case of a tone question, some interjections can be important as they help you recognize the speaker’s emotions. For example, ‘Wow’ could mean appreciation, admiration or amazement as dictated by the situation.