The Linguaskill General Listening test requires sequencing, visualisation, and a little bit of memory skills in order to score well. This might be challenging for some candidates. Follow this guide learn how to strengthen these skills for the Listening test.
Linguaskill General Listening questions typically select anywhere between 1-5 key phrases, sentences, or ideas and tests whether you can understand them accurately. Without any preparation at all, let's first listen to an example.
Listen to the audio below. You may only listen once.
Now read the questions. See if you can answer them.
If you listened to the audio once without any preparation, you will most likely find the questions difficult. Now, do this instead: Read the questions first. Prepare yourself to listen for the answers to the questions during the audio. Then, play the audio again. You should find the questions much easier to answer if you listen for them. You should always read the questions first, then tell yourself what to listen for during the audio for all Listening type questions in the test.
The questions in the listening test are always presented in sequence in the audio. This means you should always listen for the answer to the first question near the beginning of the audio and listen for the answer to the last question near the end of the audio. Listen to the example audio again. The answers to the questions are given below; see if you can identify them in the audio. Notice that the answers come sequentially in the audio.
A useful technique is to visualise the audio in your mind when you are listening to it. Do not attempt to remember the words or sentences, because you will likely fail and lose focus. Instead, draw a picture of what you are hearing. You remember images much better than words.
Here are the four different sections of the same audio. Play them and see if you can visualise an image in your head.
Now that you know how to prepare yourself, use the techniques you learned above to tackle this example question. Remember: read the questions first, tell yourself what to listen for, and visualise an image when you are listening.
Listen to the audio below. You may listen twice.
Answer the questions.
Here are the answers to the questions. See if you got them correct.
There is no shortcut to the Linguaskill General Listening test. To improve your Listening skills, you need practice and exposure to Linguaskill's Listening-type questions, while using the sequencing and visualisation techniques demonstrated to you above.
Next: use the Guided Training Materials in the next section to practise your sequencing and visualisation skills. You can always come back to this guide to refresh your memory whenever you need.
