Section 3

Questions (no more than 3 words)

Novel: (21) …………………

Protagonists: Mary Lennox; Colin Craven
Time period: Early in (22) …………………
Mary moves to UK – meets Colin who thinks he’ll never be able to
(23) ………………… . They become friends.
Point of view: “Omniscient” – narrator knows all about characters’ feelings, opinions and
(24) …………………
Audience: Good for children – story simple to follow
Symbols (physical items that represent (25) …………………):
• the robin redbreast
• (26) …………………
• the portrait of Mistress Craven

Motifs (patterns in the story):

• the Garden of Eden
• secrecy – metaphorical and literal transition from 27 …………………

Themes: Connections between

• (28) ………………… and outlook
• (29) ………………… and well-being
• individuals and the need for (30) …………………

Underline Keywords
Underlining important keywords in question is the most effective strategy for solving IELTS
Listening Section 3. For this, you can utilize 1 minute, given to you prior to listening the audio
conversation. Let us see how to underline keywords:
Simple MCQ
Joy has been working in the hospital for

1. Three years
2. One year
3. Four years
In the above question, the main keywords you can focus upon are “Joy”, “working” and
“hospital”. Hence, you can highlight these keywords by underlining them. Afterwards, when the
audio starts, just keep these underlined keywords in your mind to get the gist of question while
have your eyes on the three options; “three”, “one” and “four” and just avoid the common word
“years”.
So, you have to choose the answer out of those three numbers only and this is how you are able
to solve this type of question easily. Similarly, you can use the same strategy for a bit difficult
question as well:
Difficult MCQ
Let us now discuss the difficult type of MCQs:
John was successful in his business because he

1. recruited hundred more employees

2. was the highly skilled professional
3. could reach out to maximum customers

In the above type of question where it is comparatively difficult to concentrate, you can
underline keywords as highlighted above. Now, let us find some important points to be noted
for solving IELTS Listening Section 3.
Essential Tips for IELTS Listening Section 3:

1. Listen to the introduction and example audio properly to be able to recognize different
voices well.
2. While focusing on the underlined keywords in the question, it is also important
to understand the question because some of the keywords in the options or the complete
option itself may be paraphrased in the audio.
3. Using 1 minute to get an overview of the section would help you to familiarize yourself
with the questions.
4. Remember that while listening to the audio, you have to be quick enough to move your
eyes over all the questions as well as options so that you are aligned up well with the
audio and there is no chance of skipping a question.
5. Lastly, do remember that information in the audio always flows in the same order as the
order of question. So, you have to be continuously going on by immediately moving to
the next question instead of looking back for any skipped question or unsurely marked
answer.
Section 4 : Questions (1 word)

Time Perspectives

Time Zone Outlook Features & Consequences

Past Positive Remember good times, e.g. birthdays.

Keep family records, photo albums, etc.

(31) …….. Focus on disappointments, failures, bad decisions.

Present Hedonistic Live for (32) …………….. ; seek sensation; avoid pain.

Fatalistic Life is governed by (33) …………….. , religious beliefs,

social conditions. Life’s path can’t be changed.

Future (34) ……. Prefer work to play. Don’t give in to temptation.

Fatalistic Have a strong belief in life after death and importance

of (35) …………….. in life.

36) We are all present hedonists

A) at school B) at birth C) while eating and drinking
37) American boys drop out of school at a higher rate than girls because
A) they need to be in control of the way they learn
B) they play video games instead of doing school work
C) they are not as intelligent as girls
38) Present-orientated children
A) do not realise present actions can have negative future effects
B) are unable to learn lessons from past mistakes
C) know what could happen if they do something bad, but do it anyway
39) If Americans had an extra day per week, they would spend it
A) working harder B) building relationships C) sharing family meals
40) Understanding how people think about time can help us
A) become more virtuous
B) work together better
C) identify careless or ambitious people
Let us discuss how to crack section 4 of IELTS Listening with the help of sentence
completion question:
Recycling of Waste Material

1. By the year 2020, emissions of carbon dioxide are expected to ……………….reduced

than 2000.
2. Recycling of wastes can be helpful to reduce the emissions
from………………and…………………
3. According to some people, one major problem is insufficient amount
of………………………………

You can see from the above questions that these are some notes about the topic “recycling of
waste material”. In sentence completion questions, you may find them in the form of bullet
points or lists of facts.
Underline Keywords: Firstly, you can adopt the strategy of underlining some keywords in the
question. So, let us underline the important keywords as below:
Recycling of Waste Material

1. By the year 2020, emissions of carbon dioxide are expected

to ……………….reduced than 2000.
2. Recycling of wastes can be helpful to reduce the emissions
from………………and………………..
3. According to some people, one major problem is insufficient amount
of……………………………..

In the above strategy, there’s one more thing you can keep in mind and that is to
definitely underline the words that are near the blanks. We do so for a reason that many of
the times, these words are almost the same as heard in the audio. Another thing is that you
should underline keywords in a way that you highlight the important information while
ignoring the detailed information. When you pay attention on these highlighted words, you are
able to focus on understanding the audio very well.
Important Tips on Cracking Section 4 of IELTS Listening:

1. The information is in the short notes form but you will hear more detailed explanation in
the audio. So, be careful to identify the relevant information from the audio as per the
keywords in the question and the expected answer in the blank.
2. Speaker in the audio would also be talking continuously in the order of the question. So,
you should concentrate a lot to avoid skipping the audio. Do not look at your previous
attempts to check if you have solved the question correctly or if you have skipped any
question before. Pay close attention to the words that are closer to the blanks,
especially prepositions such as to, for, into, of etc. because your answer in the audio
would be exactly around them, in most of the cases.