How to get 8 bands in IELTS Listening?

This is the most interesting question how to get 8-bands in IELTS Listening. Many test aspirants desire to get this golden score in IELTS listening. Keep one thing in mind, whether you are going to prepare for the General module or Academic module, the exam difficulty level is the same. Before booking for the IELTS exam, you should be confident enough to get your dream scores. Now let’s look at how many correct answers you should target to achieve your desired scores. Look at the table below:

After you have defined your goals, now it time to learn what you can do to achieve your dream scores:

1. Read instructions carefully 

This helps you to understand much you write for an answer. Take the example you have been asked to write “No more than three words,” this means you cannot write four words for an answer; however, the answer can be lower than three words, two or even one. Similarly, in instructions, “one word only”, means you must write the answer only in one word.

2. Get used to listening to different accents

You must keep in mind that IELTS is an international test and expect you would hear recordings from different nationalities. The best way to listen to people from different countries is to listen to English radio channels, news. BBC is one of the renowned radio channels free to listen. You can also listen to VOA Radio. We suggest you listen to audios only because watching news or movies is sometimes distractive.

3. Familiarize yourself with different types of questions in the listening exam

The primary purpose of this tip is to know which types of questions you are going to tackle on the exam day. This would give to a better chance to tackle different type of questions asked. Keep in mind, always practice from authentic study material, especially the Cambridge books. It doesn’t matter how many times you have done one practice test. Answer one question, did you improve from the last attempt? Are the same mistakes you are making again and again? Work on them.

4. Listen to recording once only while practicing

Do not listen to the recording again if you have missed an answer while practicing. This is not a good practice because the recording will be played again to listen to the answer in a real exam. Always practice as in exam mode.

5. Improve your concentration

This is one of the most challenging and daunting tasks. No one can help you to improve your concentration. You can listen to experts on how to improve concentration. Practice listening as much as you can without getting distracted, and pay close attention to the speaker.