FCE Listening

For the FCE - (Cambridge first certificate English) listening test there are four parts and 30 questions. Part 1 has 8 questions, Part 2 has 10, Part 3 has 5 questions and Part 4 has 7. The listening section is 40 minutes long and FCE exam candidates can hear the listening texts twice. The listening section is worth 40 marks; 20% of the total FCE exam.

The types of listening skills you need to learn for ESL tests include:

	listening to identify the gist of a conversation or monologue extracting specific factual information listening to identify speaker roles listening to identify relationships between ideas or pieces of information, such as: - cause and effect - order of events - comparison following directions and instructions listening for numbers, dates, time, etc. listening for main points, detail, function, location, roles and relationships, mood, attitude, intention, feeling or opinion

When doing multiple choice exercises, you should concentrate only on the information you need, do not try to understand everything as it only makes things more complicated. In FCE you can listen to the texts twice. However, it is still very important you try to answer all questions during the 1st listening, so you can check your answers during the 2nd listening.

When answering multiple choice questions, only read the questions and try not to focus on the options (A, B, C or D). Only one answer is correct and the other possible answers are designed to confuse you. Words from the the incorrect answers are in the text so reading the distracters could make you choose the wrong option. Try answering the questions with only the question in mind.

	Do you need to practise doing sentence transformations? You can also search our library to find all the lessons with sentence transformations exercises. On our library page, select skills in the "search on" box, type "transformations" in the keyword box and click search.

Most importantly you must answer the actual question that is asked! If you don't understand, say so and ask for clarification. You will not be penalised for doing so.
You must also listen to your partner(s). You can show you are doing so by reacting to or commenting on what they say. Body language is an important part of communication. Keep eye contact and feel free to use your hands. Grammatical accuracy is only one small part of your mark - fluency is just as important. Unless you think that you haven't been understood, don't focus too much on correcting yourself.

On the days before the exam, you should speak and listen to as much English as possible. When focusing on vocabulary, cover the topics that often come up in this part of the exam: i.e.. TV, Interests, Nature, Fast food, Future, Health, Holidays, Cars, Cinema, Clothes and fashion, Exercise and fitness, Marriage, Education, Newspapers, Language learning, Music, Hobbies, Jobs, Crime, Weather, Sports, The Environment.

You will find many of our online English lessons cover these topics and will be very helpful.

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