Reasons for failure in the IELTS Listening test

Before getting to the reasons for failure in the IELTS listening test, you must understand the format of the test and how it is conducted. Only after that, you will be able to understand the reasons for failure in the test. 

The IELTS listening test is divided into 4 different sections and each section carries 10 questions related to the audio. 

The audio in each section carries a different kind of content section 1 will carry a general conversation between two people, section 2 will carry a general monologue, section 3 will carry a conversation on some academic topic and section 4 will carry an academic monologue. 

The main idea behind this test is to test your listening and retaining skills.

• Now, many candidates feel that the main challenge is to understand the accent of the different speakers. But in my opinion, it is not just the accent, the major challenge is retention and concentration. A majority of the candidates miss out on the answers just because they were busy focusing on the other questions or they somehow lost their concentration.
• As the IELTS listening test begins, before the test you are given a set of instructions verbally, and listening to those instructions and following them is very essential. After that, you will be given some time to go through the questions in a quick glance so that you can highlight the keywords on the basis of which you can find your answers from the audio. Many times, candidates do not concentrate on the instructions played, but rather start going over the questions and due to that they miss out on important key points as a result, they are unable to score well.
• The lack of practice before the test will definitely dip your score as the practice will help you to improve your concentration and retention. If not practiced well, you may waste a lot of time answering a single question rather than moving on with the flow.
• There are a lot of different strategies which you can follow to crack the IELTS exam. The failure to learn those tips can lead you to lose a good score. One such strategy is when you are given time to go through the questions, always highlight the keywords. Once you have your keywords ready you will know which answers you need to look out for in the audio. Once you know the answer, immediately jot it down with a pencil on the question paper itself, and later on, those answers can be written on the actual answer sheet. This is the main strategy that unfortunately some of the candidates do not stick to resulting in the failure in the IELTS listening test, as they start writing the answers directly onto the answer sheet and lose a lot of time and in some cases miss out on some of the answers too.
• Another reason for failure in the listening test is wasting too much time on one question. You should not lose time due to one question if you do not know the answer just skip it for the time being and move on to the next question. You can write the probable answer towards the end. Again, some percentage of candidates just stall their test for a particular question and that is why they miss out on the answers for the next set of questions. This is a big NO NO.
• Before proceeding to the next set of questions, you do get time to move your answers to the answer sheet and review all your answers. Utilize that time frame to check your answers for probable spelling errors or grammar mistakes. But here again, sometimes candidates do not review the answers, but rather jump on reading the next set of questions. This becomes another prime reason for failure in the IELTS listening test.
• One more big mistake committed by the candidates is when they are given some time to go through the next set of questions before the audio begins, rather than running through the question they use that time for moving their answers from previous audio to their answer sheets. Remember, that this time is given to you to go through the next set of questions and that is for a purpose. If you do not follow as instructed you may not be able to attempt the next section well, as taking a look at questions will help you to understand certain things about the audio which is going to be played.
• The next big thing to keep in mind is that the whole IELTS listening test is of 40 minutes out of which 30 minutes are dedicated to the audio and 10 minutes, in the end, to get your answers on the answer sheet. You should not waste your time, in the beginning, writing your answers on the answer sheet because due to that you may lose your concentration resulting in a bad score in IELTS listening. Candidates who follow this wrong practice will face failure as later they will realize that the time could have been utilized in an appropriate way.
• Strong cognitive skills play a very important role in achieving success in the IELTS test. Lacking strong cognitive skills is another factor contributing to failure in the IELTS test. Synchronization between thinking, listening, retaining and logical application plays a crucial role in achieving a good score in the IELTS Listening test and other modules too.

Last but not least is the inability of the candidates to understand and comprehend the accent due to which they are unable to make out the exact word resulting in wrong spellings. Due to this, they are unable to score well in the IELTS listening test. The only way to enhance the understanding of the accent is by taking lots and lots of practice. Practice leads to familiarity with different accents.