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LISTENING TIPS WANTED

Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2014 2:52 am
by Beth
Hi! I am currently studying for the IELTS exam. I have few questions regarding the LISTENING PART.
Is it a mistake if I:
- spell a word wrong ( e.g BOUNCH instead of BUNCH) if yes how many points? 1/2 or 1 ?
- miss a letter ( e.g I write CLOSE instead of CLOSED ) " " "
- confuse plural with singular ( e.g CAR instead of CARS)
- write 250.000.000, meanwhile the answer requires just 250 million
- add a preposition/ an adjective in an answer which is not wrong but doesn't appear in the answer sheet? e.g small talk , where the answer in just talk...OR EAT LOTS OF where the answer is EAT LOTS....

I know they might be just silly questions but I would like to understand how they do evaluate these mistakes. :roll:

THANKS

BETTA :geek:

Re: LISTENING TIPS WANTED

Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 2:49 am
by Larry
Hello Beth,

Unfortunately the answer will be wrong if you:

-spell a word wrong
-miss a letter
-confuse plural with singular

If you make of those mistakes, the whole answer is wrong. As for points, generally (each version of the listening test is graded slightly differently), if you miss five answers you get band 8, miss ten band 7, miss seventeen band 6, miss twenty five band 5, and so on.

As for the number, if the audio says 250 million:

-250 million (correct)
-250,000,000 (correct)
-250.000.000 (incorrect)

As for the preposition or adjective, it's really on a case by case basis. The examiner has a sheet of acceptable answers, if your answer isn't on there it's wrong.

edit: Oh, and if you make a mistake with capitalization that is also counted as wrong. Here's a tip though: If you don't know what to capitalize, just capitalize the whole answer.

-florida (incorrect)
-Florida (correct)
-FLORIDA (correct)

Hope this helps! :D

Re: LISTENING TIPS WANTED

Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2014 3:09 am
by petryworn