听力

Listening is 40 questions in about 30 minutes, and the recording is played once only. The four parts get harder in a predictable way, so know which one you are in.

• The register 语域 moves from everyday to academic across the four parts, and the vocabulary follows it.
• Parts 1 and 2 are usually the most accessible marks. A candidate aiming high cannot afford to give many of them away, because Parts 3 and 4 are harder to bank.
• Part 3 is where a distractor 干扰项 does most damage, because one speaker says something, another corrects it, and the answer is the correction.
• Part 4 has no second speaker to signal a change of topic, so the signposting 路标词 in the language is all you get: firstly, turning now to, the key point here.

You are given time to read each section's questions before it plays. This preparation time 审题时间 is part of the test, not a courtesy. Use every second of it: it is the only time in the test when you can think before you hear.

• Predict the word class 词性. The tour leaves at ______ needs a time. Bring a ______ needs a noun. The museum is ______ on Mondays needs an adjective. Knowing what kind of word you are waiting for is most of the work.
• Underline the word limit in the instruction. NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER means a three-word answer is wrong even if it is true. This rule is enforced exactly.
• Underline the words that cannot change. A name, a number or a date will be said as it is written. Everything else will be paraphrased 同义改写 — the recording almost never uses the question's own words, and a candidate listening for them hears nothing.
• Move your eye to the next question as soon as you have written an answer. The recording does not wait, and dwelling on one lost question can cost you the next one too.

Understanding comes first: you cannot spell an answer you did not catch. But these are where answers you did understand still get marked wrong, and every one of them is avoidable.

• Spelling must be correct. A correct answer spelled wrong scores zero. British and American spellings are both accepted (organise / organize, centre / center).
• Plurals are marked strictly. If the recording says two tickets, then ticket is wrong. Listen for the final -s; Mandarin has no final consonant there, so it is easy to miss.
• Copy the grammar of the gap. If the sentence reads the museum has three ______, the answer must be plural whether you heard the -s or not.
• Numbers: thirteen and thirty are the classic pair — the stress moves to the second syllable in thirteen. Dates may be written 21 March or March 21; both are accepted.
• Letters: names are spelled out at normal speed. Practise the pairs Chinese candidates confuse — G and J, M and N, S and F, and the vowel letters E, I and A.
• Write the answer exactly as you hear it. Do not "improve" it into a full sentence.

Worked example: a form, from prediction to answer

The form, with the instruction Write ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer:

Customer name: Anna 1 ______
Date of move: 2 ______ July
Number of boxes needed: 3 ______

Before the audio. 1 a family name, spelled out letter by letter; 2 a number of a day; 3 a number. One word or one number each.

The recording (an invented script):

"And your surname? — It's Greaves: G-R-E-A-V-E-S. — And you're moving on the thirtieth? — No, the thirteenth: the thirtieth is a Sunday. — Right, the thirteenth. How many boxes? — Well, I thought twenty, but my sister says it'll need at least twenty-five."

Answers. 1 Greaves — copied letter by letter; Graves scores zero. 2 13 — the first date was corrected, and thirTEEN has its stress at the end. 3 25 — I thought twenty, but… signals the change; the final figure is the answer.

• Before it starts, find north and fix your orientation. The speaker will describe the route as somebody walking it.
• Learn the small set of position words and use them actively: opposite, adjacent to, at the far end of, on your left as you come in, beyond, between … and …, a short way past.
• The speaker moves in order, so the labels come in order too. If you lose one, skip to the next landmark rather than re-reading the map.
• On a diagram of a machine or a process, the description almost always runs in the direction the material moves.

Worked example. Look at the plan for ten seconds before you read the script: north is up, and you walk in from the south.

Find north and the entrance first; the example room shows how answers are written

As you come in through the main entrance, the café is on your left. You'll smell it before you see it. The ticket office is opposite the café, on your right. Walk straight ahead, across the corridor, and the cinema is the room in front of you. The lockers are in the corner to the left of the cinema, and the toilets are beyond the ticket office, in the back corner on the right.

Label the plan: 1 ticket office ___ 2 cinema ___ 3 lockers ___ 4 toilets ___

Answers. 1 B (opposite the café) · 2 D (straight ahead, across the corridor) · 3 C (in the corner to the left of the cinema) · 4 E (beyond the ticket office). Each answer came from one position phrase, and the phrases came in the order you walked.

• Expect more than one option to be mentioned. In Parts 3 and 4 the recording often names two or even all three options, but only one fits the question once everything has been said. Do not tick the first option you hear; wait for the speakers to finish: I thought about doing the survey first, but actually the reading has to come first.
• Listen for the correction signals: actually, in fact, although, I'd say rather, on second thoughts, mind you. They show that an earlier idea is being changed or limited, so check what the speaker finally commits to — sometimes that is the corrected idea, sometimes the original one survives.
• A synonym 同义词 in the recording is the normal case, not the exception.
• In a matching task, read all the options first and group the ones that mean nearly the same thing — those are the pair the item is testing.
• An option that simply echoes a word you heard is not automatically right. Options are usually paraphrased, so match the meaning, not the sound.

Worked example. Which part of the project will the students do first? A the survey B the reading C the interviews

"Shall we start with the survey? — We could, but we need the reading first to know what questions to ask. — Fair enough. And the interviews come last, after the survey."

All three options are mentioned. The survey is suggested first, then pushed back by but we need the reading first, and the other speaker agrees (fair enough). The answer is B. The option you heard first is the one the item is testing you on.

• Never stop to fix a missed answer. You will lose the next one too. Leave it blank, keep up, and come back in the checking time.
• Guess every blank. There is no penalty for a wrong answer, so an empty space is a mark you have chosen to give away.
• On paper, use the 10 minutes of transfer time to check spellings and plurals, not to re-think answers. On computer you have 2 minutes and the same advice.
• Practise with the recording played once, with no pause and no rewind. Practising any other way trains a skill the test does not measure.
• Sources, checked on 19 September 2026: Listening format, scoring in detail.

Vocabulary card meanings

distractor: A wrong option or a heard detail that looks tempting. signposting: Words that show where a talk is going, such as next or however. paraphrase: The same meaning written in different words. preparation time: The seconds before a recording plays in which you read its questions.