IELTS Listening Practice Test | 2026-01-24

**Narrator:** Now turn to section one. You will hear two students talking about libraries. First you have some time to look at questions 1 to 5. Listen carefully to the first part of the conversation and answer questions one to five.
**Zara:** Hi there Tim. You look tired.
**Tim:** Hi Zara. I am tired. Well, it is SWATVAC after all.
**Zara:** Swatvac? Ah yes, of course. Exam period. Don't remind me. I'm pretty exhausted myself. I'm finding it very difficult to study. It's so noisy where I live. I can't concentrate with all that traffic outside. I definitely need to find a quieter place to study.
**Tim:** Me, too. Actually, I've just downloaded some information about the best libraries in the city. Take a look at this. It's the Bailey Library.
**Zara:** The Bailey Library? Isn't that the really old library on Parkville campus?
**Tim:** Yeah, that's the one. It's the oldest in the city. And it says here that it's really popular with students.
**Zara:** Popular with students? That means it's noisy and crowded.
**Tim:** Okay. Okay, I see what you mean. But we could try to get there early to make sure we get good seats and a large desk to work at. It's open from 8 in the morning until 10:00 in the evening Mondays to Fridays.
**Zara:** 10:00. That's very early. I study much better after midnight. Just look at the size of my folder here. I've got so much to get through. Basically, I need to be in the library 24/7 to get all my revision done. Now, if the Bailey is that popular, it must be open at weekends.
**Tim:** Yes, of course it is. It opens at 11:00, in fact, and it closes at 5:00 p.m.
**Zara:** Great. Not exactly what I call ideal for late night study. Count me out.
**Tim:** Okay. Okay. Here's another one. The Brown Library.
**Zara:** Uh, yeah. I think I've gone past it a couple of times. It's close to Stratton Street, right?
**Tim:** Yes. Stratton Street and Royal Parade.
**Zara:** Royal Parade. Well, that's convenient for me. My apartment's just a few minutes walk from there. When's it open?
**Tim:** Well, it says here it opens at 7:00 in the morning. And you'll be pleased to hear that it closes well after midnight, 2:00 a.m., in fact. And we can go there any day of the week.
**Zara:** That sounds ideal.
**Tim:** Oh, wait a minute. We can't use it. It's only open to biomed students.
**Zara:** Biomed students only. Great. Just when we thought we'd found the perfect place to study.
**Tim:** Oh, wait a minute. This one sounds good. The RMIT Library.
**Zara:** The RMIT Library? I've never heard of it. Where is it?
**Tim:** It's on Swan Street near the central bus station.
**Zara:** Swan Street? Ah, yes. I know where that is. It's a really long street, though. Do you have a number?
**Tim:** Yes. Number 360 Swan Street. The full address is level 5, building 8, 360 Swan Street.
**Zara:** Okay. I think we need to get the bus there, but that's not a problem. So, when's it open?
**Tim:** It's open from 10 till midnight on weekdays.
**Zara:** And what about weekends?
**Tim:** Uh 10:00 in the morning, but it closes at 6:00 on Saturdays and Sundays. But listen, it says here it has excellent computer and internet facilities. I like the sound of that.
**Zara:** Me, too. In fact, I like the sound of it so much, I think I'll take advantage of their excellent computer facilities right here and now.
**Tim:** And how exactly are you going to do that? Your laptop isn't working.
**Zara:** I know. I know. So, can I borrow yours?
**Narrator:** Now you have some time to look at questions 6 to 10. Now listen to the rest of the conversation and answer questions 6 to 10.
**Tim:** Okay, here's the RMIT library website. So, we want the bookings page. Okay. First of all, you need to log on to book it.
**Zara:** Book it.
**Tim:** Yeah, that's it. Book it.
**Zara:** Okay. Now, it's asking me for my student ID and my password.
**Tim:** Okay. So, just type in your student number.
**Zara:** I think I can just about remember it.
**Tim:** And now your password.
**Zara:** Okay. So next you need to choose the resource type you want to book.
**Tim:** That's easy. A PC.
**Zara:** So now what you need to do is click on location.
**Tim:** Location. Okay. Now it's giving me a floor plan. It looks like I've got a choice of 18 computers.
**Zara:** Great. So click on one of the PCs.
**Tim:** I'm choosing this one. It's right next to the window. PC number four to be exact. So, what do I do now?
**Zara:** So, now you have to choose the date of booking. So, when do you want to book it for?
**Tim:** Let's go for tomorrow. That's Friday, June 6th.
**Zara:** And just click.
**Tim:** I just have. So, why isn't it working?
**Zara:** You've got to go into view options.
**Tim:** Ah, it's working now. Friday, June 6th.
**Zara:** Okay. So, now you need to choose a time. Let's go for a late afternoon. 5:00 p.m.
**Tim:** Right, let's do it.
**Zara:** Great. It says booking completed and there's my name on the booking schedule. Result.
**Narrator:** That is the end of section one. You now have half a minute to check your answers.
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**Narrator:** Now turn to section two. Section two, you will hear part of a radio program about online exchange business. First, you have some time to look at questions 11 to 14. Now listen carefully and answer questions 11 to 14.
**Presenter:** Barter Online UK is a young up-and-coming website in the United Kingdom where users can buy new and used goods. However, instead of paying with money, registered users instead exchange their purchase for an item of similar value. This part is perhaps the most complicated as the registered users themselves must mutually decide on an appropriate value with value either being the recommended retail price RRP or simply how much they believe the item to be worth. The website has been founded by a group of four friends in the north of England. Originally, they exchanged their belongings among family members. They frequently found themselves swapping their belongings when they no longer had any use for them. They live by the motto, "One person's trash is another person's treasure," and hate to throw things away. As more and more people caught wind of the idea and wanted to participate in the exchanges, the group decided that the idea had the potential to become a successful business venture and so it did. Barter Online UK is a startup online business which took 3 months to set up and has now been running for around half a year. Despite only being founded a short time ago, the website has already garnered about 1,500 registered users with 500 more than expected. A huge achievement for the founders. Some of the users are registered in the United Kingdom and Canada with the majority from the Republic of Ireland. In order to become a registered member, users must first fill in their personal details, followed by their credit or debit card details, which will be used to take payment of a monthly fee of £5. As long as this fee is paid, users will be able to perform an unlimited number of online exchanges.
**Narrator:** Before you hear the rest of the program, you have some time to look at questions 15 to 20. Now listen and answer questions 15 to 20.
**Presenter:** A multitude of items are sold on the website such as textbooks, soft toys, and tools. However, books for children, and computer games are by far selected most. The exchange process itself is not as complicated as it might seem. Users can enter their preferences for what they would like to receive and also explicitly state what they would like to give away and the website will automatically pair up suitable users. If however a user doesn't want to give anything away but would simply like to buy something, Barter Online UK does support a secure online payment system where users can perform a normal monetary transaction. Despite this, the founding group strongly discourages the use of the online payment system, clearly stating that this goes against the intended ethos of the company. Although bartering is an age-old process, many of the website's users are unsure how to decide which of their own items to exchange. It often helps to order items by popularity using the filter button provided. This will tell the website to find out popular items for users convenience. To this, the founding members say just put everything you don't want on there. Different people have different tastes and you never know what they might be looking for. In order to aid registered users in their exchanges and to provide them with assurance, the founders recently added a new feature whereby on completion of an exchange, users will be encouraged to provide each other with feedback. This feedback will include criteria such as the quality of the item as compared with how it was advertised, the ease of communication with the seller, the speed at which the item was delivered, and so on. The friends believe that using this method, users will have a more transparent and trustworthy bartering experience.
**Narrator:** That is the end of section two. You now have half a minute to check your answers.
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**Narrator:** Now turn to section three. You will hear three students talking about how to spend their time before going to university. First, you have some time to look at questions 21 to 25. Now listen carefully and answer questions 21 to 25.
**Tara:** What's that you're reading, Matt?
**Matt:** Oh, hi Tara. It's an article about taking a gap year before going to university.
**Tara:** Is that what you're thinking of doing then?
**Matt:** Well, I hadn't really considered it as an option, but reading this has got me thinking. I'm looking forward to starting at uni, but I wouldn't mind a bit of time to myself first.
**Sandy:** Hi guys. What are you talking about?
**Matt:** Hi Sandy.
**Tara:** How's it going?
**Sandy:** Matt's reading about gap years. He wants to put off going to uni. I think a gap year is a great idea. I'm definitely thinking about it.
**Matt:** Are you? What would you do with the year?
**Sandy:** Well, the programs I've looked at involve volunteering of some kind. I wouldn't want to just go traveling for a year. I couldn't afford that anyway. The idea would be to work and help people, but more importantly, to grow up and come back knowing more about the world than I do now. Obviously, I'd choose somewhere hot and sunny.
**Matt:** So, what exactly is volunteering? I mean, okay, I understand it means doing something for nothing, but what does it mean in terms of a gap year?
**Sandy:** Yeah, it means working with programs in countries where people need support or some kind of aid.
**Tara:** I bet your mom and dad aren't quite as enthusiastic as you are about all this.
**Sandy:** On the contrary, they're really supportive. They can see all the pluses. They realize that I don't know exactly where I want to be in 10 years time. They think it'll give me time to figure things out and not make decisions I might regret later.
**Matt:** I think I'd be worried about how the university look at it, though. Don't you think it suggests you're just putting off studying?
**Sandy:** Definitely not. Our tutor told us that a lot of universities encourage students to take a gap year. They see a year away growing up and maturing as an asset. Students arrive in higher education with an extra year of life experience. Depending on what you do with the time, obviously.
**Tara:** Yes, I can see that tutors might like having a few well-traveled students around. I mean, ones that have a more developed perspective. I think they also appreciate that students who come back from a year away doing something worthwhile have a stronger sense of direction and a clearer idea of what they hope to achieve. They probably speak at least a few words of another language, too. The most important thing for the unis is that students are motivated.
**Matt:** So anyway, what does your article say about the options? Do they suggest where students should go on their gap year?
**Narrator:** You now have some time to look at questions 26 to 30. Now listen to the rest of the discussion and answer questions 26 to 30.
**Sandy:** Well, apparently Australia is the country where the highest percentage of students take a gap year and it's the most popular destination for gap-year students from other countries as well as Britain.
**Matt:** I like the sound of a year in Australia.
**Sandy:** They say here that there are three main attractions. The abundance of great coast, beautiful beaches, learn to surf, all that stuff. Then there's the amount of time you can spend enjoying outdoor activities like hiking and loads of sports. And thirdly, the cosmopolitan cities, especially Sydney, which apparently is awesome. It's a great country for young people because there's so much to do. Loads of adventure and sunshine, obviously.
**Matt:** Sounds good to me.
**Sandy:** Unfortunately, it says here the cost of getting there in the first place can be prohibitive. However you make your way there, it's expensive. Unless the bank of mom and dad help out, that is. Then they also mention various places in Africa but they single out Ghana. Students can get involved with the construction of new schools or teaching the kids that are already in them.
**Matt:** That does sound really rewarding and interesting. I have to say I guess there's a huge sense of achievement with something like that. And you get fantastic life experience from living in another culture. I think you pick up some real practical skills too. Skills you can bring back with you.
**Tara:** Another place I really like the sound of is Nepal.
**Matt:** What's the attraction there?
**Tara:** Most of the volunteering involves teaching again and it's that sense of achievement that people are after. They also say, let me read it. Students are attracted by the simplicity of daily existence. I think they mean you have to spend a year without your computer and all the rest of it. It's all about going back to basics.
**Matt:** So, where do people stay?
**Tara:** They live on farms or in mountain retreats.
**Matt:** I'm not so sure I could manage that. I don't mind hard work, but I like a hot shower at the end of the day. Yeah, I imagine the food's not great either.
**Tara:** Uh, they do actually say here that one of the things volunteers miss is good food choices. Anyway, there are plenty of other options. Why don't you read the rest of the...
**Narrator:** That is the end of section three. You now have half a minute to check your answers.
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**Narrator:** Now turn to section four. Section four, you'll hear Rebecca Bramwell, an artist and illustrator, giving advice on how to get your first job or commission as an artist. First, you have some time to look at questions 31 to 35. Now listen carefully and answer questions 31 to 35.
**Host:** I'd like to introduce Rebecca Bramwell, an artist and illustrator who has come along today to talk to you all about getting your first job or commission as an artist. Over to you, Rebecca.
**Rebecca:** Thank you for inviting me. I remember when I graduated back in 1983, I was very excited about getting my first commission. My degree was in fine art and I'd worked long and hard to get it. I was an enthusiastic student and I never found it difficult to find the incentive to paint. I think as a student, you're pushed along by fellow students and tutors and the driving force is there. However, when you leave college, you find yourself saying things like, "I'll have one more cup of coffee and then I'll sit down to work." I hate to admit it, but I say it myself. Suddenly, it isn't finding the inspiration or getting the right paper that's a problem. It's you. In my view, there are a number of reasons why this happens. It's a real challenge making a decent living as a new artist. You have to find a market for your work. Often, you work freelance and need to take samples or portfolios of your work from place to place. These experiences are common to a lot of professional people, but artists also have to bear their souls to the world in a way. More than anything, they want praise. If people don't like what they create, then it can be a very emotional and upsetting experience hearing them say this. I began to realize that these problems were preventing me from having a career in art. And so, I decided to experiment. I was a painter but I started to dabble in illustration drawing pictures for books, cards and this offered me the opportunity to become more emotionally detached from my work. I was no longer producing images from the heart but developing images for a specified subject. Taking a more practical approach, I began to develop a collection of my illustrations which I put into a portfolio and started to carry around with me to show prospective clients and employers. But it was still tricky because publishers, for example, want to know that your drawings will reproduce well in a book. But without having had any work published, it's hard to prove this. Having a wonderful portfolio or a collection of original artwork is of course a first step, but what most potential clients would like to see is printed artwork. And without this evidence, they tend to hold back still when it comes to offering a contract.
**Narrator:** Look at questions 36 to 40. Now answer questions 36 to 40.
**Rebecca:** Well, I overcame this problem in two ways and I suppose this is my advice to you on preparing your portfolio of your best work. The first way was by submitting my work for a competition and the one I chose was for a horoscope design and was sponsored by a top women's magazine. There are a few of these competitions each year and they offer new illustrators an opportunity to showcase their work. The other approach I took was to design and print some mockup pages of a book. In other words, I placed some of my illustrations next to some text in order to demonstrate how my work would look when it was printed. Perhaps I was lucky in that I had taken a degree that provided me with all round creative skills so that I could vary my style and wasn't limited to a certain technique. I think that is important. The art world and many other creative fields do try to pigeon hole people into snug boxes with an accompanying label. I think you should try to resist this if you feel it happening to you. If you don't, you'll find it difficult to have new work accepted if you try to develop your style at a later stage in your career. Nevertheless, when you start out, and particularly when you're going for an interview, it's important not to confuse people by having a lot of different examples in your portfolio. One remedy for this is to separate your work into distinct categories. In my case, I did this by dividing my design inspired illustrations from my paintings. It's then easier to analyze the market suited to each portfolio such as magazines, book jackets, CD covers, etc. Working under two names is also useful as it clarifies the different approaches and offers a distinction between them. I think it's been hard for artists to be recognized in anything other than the pigeon holes that they've been placed in. But luckily, these barriers are slowly being demolished. So, I really do wish you all...
**Narrator:** That is the end of section four. You now have half a minute to check your answers. That is the end of the listening test.