Scoring Band 9 in IELTS Listening

The easiest skill to get Band 9 in, out of the four, is probably Listening. The test comprises of 4 sections with 40 questions in total. You will have 30 minutes to answer all the questions then 10 minutes in addition to transfer your answers to the answer sheet. I would suggest you to visit the IELTS official website and have a look at the pattern of exam before starting your preparation to know what you are preparing for.

The study material I recommend is the Cambridge English IELTS book series (the academic version of course). There are 12 of them available, I would suggest to practice at least books 8 to 12. In addition, start watching English movies/ TV shows or even You Tube videos to familiarize yourself with different accents and pronunciations of words. 

I believe practice is the key to success here. As you practice more and more tests, you would certainly improve your score. Before you start practicing, check with your exam centre if they provide headphones or not and practice accordingly. I've met a lot of people who practiced with headphones and ended up getting low scores just because they could not focus on the exam day without headphones. 

Coming to the actual test, as the audio begins, you would hear some instructions and then a sample answer just like the practice tests, then you will have some time to read the questions (say 1 to 5). I would advise you to utilize this time in reading as many questions as possible of that section. After every set of questions, you would be given some time to recheck the answers and read the next  set of questions, which you should take full advantage of and try to read ahead.You are free to turn the pages once the test begins. So, if you have time, you can read the questions on the next page.

While reading the questions, I suggest you to underline the key words to focus on them later in the audio. Don't just hear for those specific words, you might hear there synonyms, so be prepared! Pay attention to the instructions written on the question paper, for example, NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS, NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND A NUMBER etc and follow them. You can write fewer words but not more. I would suggest to write in block letters to make your writing clear to read and not worry about capital letters at the beginning of proper nouns.

What if you miss an answer? This is something very common while listening to something you are not interested in for 30 long minutes, particularly in the last section when you generally lose attention. Try to be attentive till the end but if you do miss an answer, simply move on to the next question. If you keep on recalling and guessing at that time, you are likely to miss answers to the next questions as well. So move on and come back to that question at the end, read a couple of questions before and after that one, try to recall the audio and make a logical guess, it might work, it worked for me.

In the last 10 minutes, recheck all your answers and after transferring them to the answer sheet, recheck one more time. Make sure the spellings are correct (can be either American or British) and the answers are clearly written.  Believe me, double checking makes a lot of difference because sometimes we make very silly mistakes and end up regretting. I myself misspelled a couple of words that I corrected while rechecking for the 2nd time.

That was all I could suggest you from my experience. I hope it would be of help to someone, somewhere. All the best :)