Listening Doesn’t Improve Because of “Sound”? Tips for Listening in a Way That Gets You Points

Listening is about “what you picked up,” not “how much you heard”

People who struggle with listening often try to understand everything and end up panicking. The key to scoring well is to pick up only the information the question is asking for.

Pattern 1: Preview the options and decide “where to listen”

Look at the choices and decide in advance what kind of information you need:
a person? a place? a time? a reason? (who/where/when/why)
Doing just this helps you stay focused.

Pattern 2: Expect paraphrases

Don’t look for the exact words from the choices. In the audio, the same idea often appears in different wording. Pay attention to expressions that mean roughly the same thing.

Pattern 3: If you’re lost, grab only the conclusion after “but” or “so”

When you’re unsure, listen carefully to what comes after contrast and conclusion markers like “however” and “therefore.” Many questions can be answered by catching the conclusion, not the entire passage.

Summary

Training your ear matters, but to score efficiently, you need to choose what to focus on and what to ignore.