IELTS Listening: Here's how to get your MCQs right

There are a lot of students that find MCQs in the listening test confusing. There are 40 questions in total and about 6 to 8 of these questions are supplied with options tagged with them.

There are various types of MCQs and it is crucial to understand the different types.

Read on to find out the sure-shot trick to solving your MCQs.

Here are some crucial tips on how to do MCQ in IELTS listening and make your preparation game stronger.

• Use the time provided for checking the answers to read ahead and fully comprehend the questions. When one section ends, immediately flip to the next page and start reading in the time that is allotted for checking your previous answers. This will give you extra time to read and comprehend the options better as most of the time, reading the same answer is pointless.
  

• Look deep into the options and notice the differences. The options often differ by minor subtle details and these are the details that will help you pick the correct answer. Let's have a look at an example. 
  
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Tapescript: "Doctor Harlow will be with the students on Friday evening, and the entire day for Saturday and Sunday."

                     Question: When will doctor Harlow be with the students?

                                       A) The weekends and 2 days before it.

                                       B) The day before and through the weekend.

                                       C) 3 days working days before the weekend.

Here the first option says the 'weekends' which is correct but then he will not be available 2 days before it as Friday is just 1 day before it.

The third option will not work either as the doctor will not be with the students on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

So the answer here is B as the day before the weekend is Friday and thought the weekend means Saturday and Sunday just like in the tapescript. The difference here was very subtle but with a little concentration, they can be tackled with ease.

• Keep track of which question is being discussed in the tapescript. The questions will always be in order so the speaker will be going through its answers one by one. Do not lose track of what question is being discussed now in the tapescript and if you find that you have missed the question you are tracking currently, skip it and move onto the next question. For instance: if you are listening for the 23rd question and you realize that you have missed the answer, move on to the 24th question.
• Look for synonyms. As the audio will rarely ever say the exact same words, be prepared to spot words that match the keywords in the questions. Lets have a look at the same example again.
  

Tapescript: "Doctor Harlow will be with the students on Friday evening, and the entire day for Saturday and Sunday."

                     Question: When will doctor Harlow be with the students?

Here, the Saturday and Sunday could be paraphrased to weekends.

So always expect something to be paraphrased.

These are the possible ways you can tackle MCQs in the IELTS listening practice.

Hope these help!