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Preparing for a Listening Exam/Assessment
Listening Exams/Assessments are by far the hardest of the four disciplines (Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening) as you probably know.
Unlike other disciplines you cannot go back and look at the source material as many times as you desire.
But do not despair! – there are some techniques that can be of great help to you to prepare beforehand and use during the exam assessment.
A positive attitude goes a long way to being successful - if you have practised the skills and suggestions listed below you will feel more confident of doing well. It is all about getting the gist of what the speaker(s) is/are discussing.
AT LEAST A WEEK BEFORE THE EXAM/ASSESSMENT DAY.
You need to develop your own form of shorthand that you can use when you are taking notes– you can use either signs or symbols – whatever works for you is fine, here are a few:
adv advantage
avg average
aprox approximately
b/c because
b/4 before
btwn between
com2 compared to
cont continued
= equals/ is the same # number
≠ not the same w/ with
> is more than w/out without
< is less than + and
NEVER try to transcribe the talk/speech – it would be almost impossible for a native speaker to do so, and it only ends in tears of frustration.
- Remember that you are listening for keywords and phrases – most of the rest of what is being said is supporting detail which is equally important, but you need the keywords and phrases to put them into context
Things you should ALWAYS NOTE DOWN are:
Names – people, places, companies/businesses, government organisations, machines.
Numbers – dates, fractions, decimals, percentages, measurement (both Imperial: e.g. feet & inches and Metric: e.g. centimetres & meters) quantities, distances, temperatures, and words like many, most , the vast majority, almost all, etc.
JUST BEFORE THE EXAM/ASSESSMENT.
It is all about prediction and preparation. You should have time to read through the questions, so you need to do the following:
Quickly devise a shorthand for new vocabulary specific to the topic . So if the questions are about George Washington and the American War of Independence you could use the following:
GW George Washington
AWI American War of Independence
BF British Forces
btl battle
Con Congress
You will need to think of these as quickly as you can as your reading time is limited.
Read through the questions carefully and identify key words/phrases you are think are important – see above for Names & Numbers
Having written many exams/assessments myself I can guarantee you that each question will have at least one synonym to test your vocabulary, possibly two. Quite often these are adjectives, so identify them in the question and expect to hear a synonym in the recording.
DURING THE EXAM/ASSESSMENT.
Questions always follow the order of the recording in an assessment – keep this in mind. You won’t hear the answer for Question One halfway through or near the end.
You will miss some information the first time the recording is played. Don’t panic – a native speaker like myself would do the same. Just keep calm and make a mental note of what questions you need to pay more attention to the second time the recording is played
Remember – at this point you are just taking notes NOT writing the answer. Students are always given time afterwards to write full and complete answers, so just focus on note taking.
Don’t leave any answers blank – if you think you only got half the information you need use it. It may be that your teacher/examiner/invigilator may give you a chance to improve an answer. Even if this does not happen you might still get some marks for the answer e.g. the answer is worth 4 points and what you have written gets awarded 2 points. It could mean the difference between passing and failing.
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