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IELTS Listening Sentence Completion Strategies
These IELTS listening sentence completion strategies will help you to improve your score for the exam.
In this type of question, you are given a sentence taken from the listening, and you have to decide which word fits in the gap.
Remember though that the sentence will not be exactly the same as what you hear on the audio - it will be paraphrased (using different words to what you hear).
Strategies and Tips
- Look through the sentences before you start to get an idea of what you will be hearing.
- Pay particular attention to the words that come before and after the gap to help you notice when the word is spoken.
- Try to guess what may go in the gap - is it a place, name, number, or something else?
- Remember that the words you see in the sentence may be synonyms of the words from the audio, so you may be listening out for words with similar meanings.
- Write the exact words, phrases or numbers that you hear in the gap on your question paper.
- Always check the word limit - your answer will be marked wrong if you exceed the number of words allowed.
Sentence Completion Strategies Practice
The listening excerpt from this page is from a real test. It is from Part 4 of the test - the most difficult - so expect to find this exercise hard.
Don't be disheartened if you do not do well - students often score poorly on part 4, but that does not mean you can't get a good score from doing well in the other sections.
Part 4 is based on a lecture, and for this recording you are going to hear the second part of a lecture on the luxury end of the hospitality and tourism market.
Instructions:
Take a look through the questions first, then listen to the audio and try and answer the questions. You can see the answers and audio below by clicking on the "show / hide" link.
Complete the notes below.
Write ONE WORD ONLY for each answer
A company providing luxury serviced apartments aims to:
- Cater specifically for (1)
travelers.
- Provide a stylish (2)
for guests to use.
- Set a trend throughout the (3)
which becomes permanent.
- Offering the chance to (4)
their ordinary routine life
- Making sure that they are cared for in all respects – like a (5)
- Leaving small treats in their rooms – e.g. cosmetics or (6)
Traditional holiday hotels attract people by:
Answers
- business
- kitchen
- world
- escape
- baby
- (a) chocolate / chocolates
If you look at the transcript you can see how different words and phrases have been used.
For example 'sleek' instead of 'stylish' in question 2 and 'set' instead of 'establish' in question 3.
That's why it's important to look at IELTS listening sentence completion strategies and strategies for all parts of the test.
Transcript
However, nothing stands still in this world. One company has come up with the slogan ‘Take Your Home With You’, and aims to provide clients with luxury serviced apartments. Those in the business travel industry maintain that these serviced apartments dispense with all the unwanted and expensive hotel services (1) that business travelers don’t want, while maximizing the facilities they do want. For example, not only sleeping and living accommodation, but also (2) a sleek modern kitchen that allows guests to cook and entertain if they wish at no additional cost.The attractions of such facilities are obvious and it’ll be interesting to see whether the company manages (3) to establish a trend all over the world and make a lasting impact on the luxury accommodation market.
Now, finally I want to consider the psychology underpinning the traditional holiday hotel industry. As a hotelier, how do you go about attracting people to give up the security of their own home and entrust themselves to staying in a completely strange place and sleeping in an unfamiliar bed? Firstly, hotels exploit people's (4) need to escape the predictability of their everyday lives. For a few days people can pretend they are free responsibilities and can indulge themselves. Secondly, there is something very powerful in our need to be pampered and looked after, (5) it's almost as if we return to being a baby, when everything was done for us and we felt safe and secure. And not far removed from this is the pleasure in being spoiled and given little treats like the miniscule bottles of shampoo tiny bars of soap, (6) the chocolate on your pillow at night - and we actually forget that we are paying for it all!
Next week I'm going to look at eco-hotels, a fairly new phenomenon but increasingly popular…
More IELTS Listening Lessons:
IELTS Listening Map Labelling Practice
IELTS listening map labelling is common in Section Two of the test. Get tips and practice on this question type.
Using Signposting Language to Follow a Lecture
Signposting language refers to the words and phrases that people use in order to guide the listener coherently through what is being said.
Pre Listening Activities: Predicting the Answers
These pre-listening activities for IELTS show you how you can use prediction to help you guess which kind of answers you will hear.
IELTS Listening Multiple Choice Tips
Learn essential IELTS listening multiple choice tips to achieve a high score for the listening test. You are usually given three choices of answers.
How to Deal with IELTS Listening Distractors
IELTS listening distractors are words or phrases used in a listening audio to detract you from the real answer. Learn useful tips on how notice these.
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