Lesson 1, Test Format & Baseline
Start here. By the end you’ll know all six parts, the two rules that make this section unlike any other test you’ve taken, and you’ll have a baseline recorded.
The test at a glance
| Time | 47–55 minutes including instructions |
| Questions | 38, multiple choice |
| Parts | 6 scored + an unscored practice task |
| Audio | 1–3 minute clips, each played once |
| Part | Name | ~Questions | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | Practice task (unscored) | - | A short statement; pick the closest match |
| 1 | Problem Solving | 8 | Three linked conversation segments |
| 2 | Daily Life Conversation | 5 | One everyday exchange |
| 3 | Listening for Information | 6 | An informational exchange |
| 4 | News Item | 5 | A short single-voice report |
| 5 | Discussion | 8 | Video: three people talking |
| 6 | Viewpoints | 6 | A ~3-minute monologue, opposing views |
The two rules that define the section
1. Every clip plays once. No replay, ever.
2. The questions appear only after the audio ends. You cannot preview them, which means you cannot listen for known targets. You absorb the whole situation, then find out what’s asked.
If you’ve trained for IELTS or classroom listening, that second rule invalidates your main habit. Lesson 2 rebuilds the approach from scratch, it’s the most important lesson in the course.
The practical details that catch people
- Headphones and a fixed schedule: the audio starts when it starts. There’s no pausing to think and no waiting for you.
- One sheet of note paper. More is available on request, but staff take a minute or two to bring it and the recordings don’t wait. The rule (drilled properly in Lesson 3): request the next sheet when yours is three-quarters full, during a gap.
- The unscored practice task is a free warm-up. Use it to settle: check your volume, get your ears working, take it seriously as a rehearsal. Walking into Part 1 cold is a needless handicap.
- Per-question timers. Once questions appear, each has a countdown. Comfortable if you’ve predicted during the audio; tight if you’re reconstructing from nothing.
Where the difficulty lives
| Difficulty | Parts | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 🟢 Most bankable | 2 & 3 | Short, literal, two speakers, target 10+/11 |
| 🟠 Moderate | 1, 4 | Feelings and arcs; then density and the first real notes |
| 🔴 Hardest | 5 & 6 | Three speakers on video; then three dense minutes, once |
The strategic shape: bank the front half (Parts 1–3 ≈ 19 questions on attention and method), spend your training hours on the back half. Lesson 9 gets double practice by design.
Your baseline: sit Part 1 now
Before any method lesson, do one Part 1 set cold, real conditions, one play, no pausing, in the Celpora listening practice or any practice set.
Or, for a two-minute taste of the format, try this Part 2 micro-sample first:
Record:
- Score out of 8
- Could you say how each speaker felt, or only what they said?
- Did you take notes? Did they help or distract?
- Which questions were guesses?
Save the numbers for the Lesson 11 re-test. And expect the cold result to feel rough, the one-play format punishes untrained habits, which is precisely what the next three lessons fix.
Celpora scores and explains every question. Any Listening practice set returns an instant level plus an explanation per question, why the correct answer is correct and, more usefully, which distractor pattern each wrong option is built from. You’ll see whether you’re losing marks to attention (missing what was said) or interpretation (missing what it meant), which is exactly the split the next three lessons target.
How this course runs
Lessons 2–4, the foundations: the one-play problem, note-taking systems, paraphrase & prediction. Everything else assumes them.
Lessons 5–9, one method per part (Parts 2 & 3 share a lesson).
Lessons 10–11, cross-part trap patterns, then the full mock and re-test.
Study plans
| If you have… | Do this |
|---|---|
| 1 week | Lessons 1–4, then 8 and 9 (the hard parts). Daily explain-it-to-yourself drill from day one. |
| 3 weeks | Full sequence, one lesson per weekday, the drill ladder running throughout |
| 6+ weeks | Full sequence; second pass with all practice audio above test difficulty |
The non-negotiable: ten minutes of the explain-it-to-yourself drill daily (Lesson 2), starting today. Listening builds slower than the other skills; the daily habit is what compounds.
Before you move on
- I know the six parts and the two defining rules
- I know the note-paper logistics and the warm-up task’s real use
- I know Parts 2–3 are banked marks and Parts 5–6 get the training hours
- I’ve sat my baseline Part 1 and recorded the numbers
- The daily drill starts today
