Monday, 21 July 2025

IELTS Listening Band 9 Traps and fixes with list of spellings

🎁 Band 9 Listening Rescue Pack

🚨 Fix your Listening score traps & train like a pro!
✨ Created by Ex-Examiner & Band 9 Trainer – Anshu


PART 1: Top 25 Common IELTS Listening Spelling Errors

Even if your answer is correct, wrong spelling = 0 marks!

Here are the 25 most commonly misspelled words in Listening. Tick off the ones you keep messing up ⬇️

Incorrect vs Correct Spelling:

1. accomodation → accommodation


2. enviroment → environment


3. goverment → government


4. recieve → receive


5. adress → address


6. seperated → separated


7. begining → beginning


8. arguement → argument


9. occurence → occurrence


10. Febuary → February


11. resturant → restaurant


12. embarassed → embarrassed


13. definitly → definitely


14. beleive → believe


15. tommorow → tomorrow


16. pronounciation → pronunciation


17. calender → calendar


18. recomend → recommend


19. tution → tuition


20. vaccum → vacuum


21. interessted → interested


22. fourty → forty


23. oportunity → opportunity


24. equiptment → equipment


25. writting → writing


More:
1. enterprenure → entrepreneur


2. leasure → leisure


3. maintainance → maintenance


4. que → queue


5. freind → friend


6. acheive → achieve


7. calmnesss → calmness


8. neccessary → necessary


9. refered → referred


10. occuring → occurring


11. commitee → committee


12. restraunt → restaurant 


13. hieght → height


14. governer → governor


15. inconvienent → inconvenient


16. liason → liaison


17. truely → truly


18. tommorrow → tomorrow 


19. reciept → receipt


20. amatuer → amateur


📝 Quick Tip:
Use a spelling notebook with 5-a-day review. If you spell a word wrong, write it correctly 3 times with meaning.


---

🎯 PART 2: IELTS Instruction Decoder – Don’t Fall in the Word Limit Trap!

If you write even 1 word extra, your answer is marked wrong.
Here’s how to decode question instructions:

Instruction Type What It Means Example Answer Style


> ONE WORD ONLY
✔ Only 1 word allowed.
📝 Example: airport



> NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
✔ Max 2 words — write 1 or 2.
📝 Example: bus station or hotel



> NO MORE THAN ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER
✔ You can use 1 word, 1 number, or both.
📝 Example: 10 a.m. or Monday



> A NUMBER
✔ Just a number or digit.
📝 Example: 450 or 21st


Check Answer Format Beforehand

Form Completion? Likely short answers (1–3 words).

Sentence Completion? Read the sentence and check how many words naturally fit grammatically.

Table/Note Completion? Scan headings – if one row has two words, your answer might be similar in length.

Map/Plan Labeling? Usually just ONE WORD (e.g., Reception or Stairs).


📌 Train the Ear + Eye Combo

🎧 The speaker might say:

> "It’s called the Green Leaf Restaurant, two words."

💡 Always note if the speaker says "two words" or "that’s hyphenated" – that’s a big clue!


🤖 Smart Word Count Rules:

Hyphenated Words = ONE WORD ✅
(e.g., self-service, check-in)

Numbers (e.g., 23, £100) = ONE UNIT ✅
(Even if spoken as "twenty-three")

Dates (e.g., 15th March) = TWO WORDS ✅
(Unless only “March” is the answer)

Acronyms (e.g., EU) = ONE WORD ✅
(EU, BBC, MBA count as one word)

❗ Quick Tip:
📌 Read the instructions before the recording begins, not during!
📌 Highlight or underline “NO MORE THAN…” in your question paper.


🎯 Secret Formula: How to Decide Whether the Answer Should Be 1, 2 or 3 Words?

When the instruction says “NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS” – your job is to not guess randomly, but analyze the grammar + meaning of the sentence.

Here's the Band 9 tip:


---

✅ Use the “Grammar Logic Formula”:

1. 🧠 Noun Needed?

If the blank is the object of the sentence → likely just 1 noun
➤ e.g., “The guest requested a ______.” → Answer: menu



2. ✨ Is It Describing the Noun?

If the blank needs a describing word + noun → you’ll need 2 words
➤ e.g., “The guest requested a ______ menu.” → Answer: vegetarian menu



3. 🔗 Specific + Adjective + Noun

If there’s a need to be specific + describe + noun → 3 words
➤ e.g., “The guest requested a ______ menu.” → Answer: low calorie vegetarian menu


🌍 PART 3: Daily 15-Min Accent Training (Free YouTube Playlist)

Want to stop panicking during accents? Use this daily 15-min playlist and rotate:

🇬🇧 British Accent:

Channel: BBC Learning English – Listening Practice

Video: “Train Your Listening: Travel”

Link: [https://youtu.be/z6E7t29sg0Y?si=81DGLfE4u2yNjLRX]


🇦🇺 Australian Accent:

Channel: ABC Australia – IELTS Listening Practice

Video: “Australian Slang & Conversations”

Link: [Search on YouTube – IELTS + Aussie Listening]


🇨🇦 Canadian Accent:

Channel: CBC Learning – Real English Audio

Video: “Canadian Speaking Practice (Intermediate)”

Link: [Search: CBC IELTS Listening Practice]


🧠 Listen with subtitles ON → then OFF → then REPEAT.
Repeat this cycle 3 times a week and watch your ears evolve!


---

💬 How to Use This Pack:

✅ Practice spelling for 5 mins a day
✅ Decode at least 3 instruction styles every week
✅ Listen to 1 accent per day for 15 mins

📉 Even a 0.5 band improvement in Listening can change your overall score!



No comments:

Post a Comment

IELTS 21 Feb IELTS Reading passage for practice

IELTS 21 Feb IELTS Reading passage for practice  ACADEMIC READING PASSAGE 1 History of Dolls ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Dolls have existed for thous...