In the IELTS listening exam, you can find completion type of questions in the last section i.e. Section 4. In these questions, you find a list of statements with blanks to be filled after listening to audio conversation. The question can consist of list of facts, bullet points etc. Here, you are listening to a monologue which means only a single person is going to speak on a topic of academic in nature. It can be a lecture or a speech given by one person. Let us find some tips that can be helpful for solving completion type of questions in IELTS Listening.

Underline Words Near the Blanks

In the completion type of questions in IELTS listening, you are given short statements which are kind of short notes on the basis of audio conversation you are going to listen to and the blanks are some important information in the audio. One of the most effective tips that work out very well for such questions is to underline words that are near the blanks because you are most likely to hear those words in the audio as well, in the same order as you find in the question. Hence, you are thus able to identify your answers from the audio easily. For example,

Boris Worm, 2005

• Identified hotspots for sharks
• Discovered that ocean hotspots

-Were not always found to be rich in……………….

-Were found to be having higher temperatures at the………………………

-Were found to have sufficient…………………….in the water

In the above question, you can see that the underlined words are closer to the blank and hence you should always keep these words in mind while listening to audio conversation. Apart from this, you can also highlight other words which can help you to understand the statements and focus on meaningful information out of them.

Concentrate to Avoid Skipping Audio

A very common mistake that candidates do in completion question in IELTS listening is to skip the audio. Since the speaker is saying a lot of things about the topic, you are likely to get distracted and lose concentration in between. Here, you must concentrate a lot till the audio is stopped so that you may not skip any part of the audio and hence you would be able to complete all the questions well. So, keep on practicing to improve your concentration level in order to perform well in these questions.

Keep in Mind Word Instruction

Another common silly mistake that you can avoid in completion question of IELTS listening is to always keep the word instruction in mind. Usually, the word instruction is one word but it can also be more than two words or three words. Just underline whatever instruction is written at the top of the question or you may like to encircle it so that it gets highlighted well on the question paper.

You Can Do Rough Work    

You can make the habit of doing rough work by writing down words on the question paper once you hear them. This can help you stay concentrated as well. You can cross the words or replace them once you hear the next part of the audio. The habit of being ready to immediately write down whatever you hear as your answer will help you to avoid skipping any part of the audio.