What to do
Matching

What to do

In this part of the listening test, you hear 5 short clips, each from a different speaker, on the same topic. There are 8 answers and you have to match them to the speakers.

You can only use each answer once – that leaves 3 answers that don’t match any of the speakers.

A trap a lot of students fall into is hearing specific words on the audio and matching them with words in the asnwers. If you hear the exact word it’s 99% NOT the answer!

You can listen to each extract twice.

Remember that you do not need to use all of the options. So read the topic, look at the options and decide which ones are most likely NOT to fit in with the topic. This will possibly eliminate some wrong answers.

Read the options carefully. Remember that the words you hear are unlikely to be exactly the same as the words in the options.

Cambridge use distractors in this section. Be very suspicious of ‘exact match’ phrases.

If one of the answers uses the word ‘abundant’ and speaker use the word ‘abundant’, it’s probably not the answer.

Do not worry if you don’t get all the answers during the first listening.

Make sure that you only fill in the answers that you are absolutely sure of. Then use the second listening to confirm your answers.

Strategy

1. Read the first line of the instructions carefully. This will tell you the subject of the talks.
2. Now read the six opinions written on the page (there is one extra) and start thinking of ways to paraphrase the ideas.
3. As you listen, try to match the ideas and not the words. If a speaker uses the words from one of the answers, there is a 99% chance that it is not the correct answer.