IELTS Listening Practice Test | 2026-02-12

**Narrator:** Now turn to section one. A man wants to find out about taking part in a dragonboat race. Listen to the conversation between the man and the woman and answer the questions. First, you have some time to look at questions 1 to 5. Now we shall begin. You should answer the questions as you listen because you will not hear the recording a second time. Listen carefully and answer questions one to five.
**Woman:** Scope charity office. How can I help you?
**Man:** Oh, hello. I'm ringing about the dragon boat race that you're asking people to take part in.
**Woman:** Oh, yes. We still need a few more teams. Are you interested in joining the race?
**Man:** Yes, we want to enter a team, but we don't know anything about it. Could I ask you for some more information first?
**Woman:** Of course.
**Man:** I don't even know when it's being held.
**Woman:** It's taking place on the 2nd of July.
**Man:** Is that a Saturday?
**Woman:** No, it's a Sunday. It's a much more popular day and more people can take part then.
**Man:** Right. And where's it being held?
**Woman:** At the Brighton Marina.
**Man:** Oh, I'm an overseas student. Could you spell that for me?
**Woman:** Yes, it's Brighton Marina. That's M A R I N A.
**Man:** Mhm.
**Woman:** Do you know where it is?
**Man:** I'm not sure.
**Woman:** It's a couple of miles past the Palace Pier.
**Man:** Oh, yes, I know it.
**Woman:** You take a right turning off the coast road or you can cycle along the seafront.
**Man:** That's good. What time does the race start?
**Woman:** Well, the first heats begin at 10:00 a.m., but you need to register half an hour before that at 9:30. And we really recommend that you aim to be there by 9. It's a good idea to arrange a meeting place for your team.
**Man:** Right? And the race is to help raise money for charity.
**Woman:** It is. We're asking every team member to try and raise £35 by getting friends and or relatives to sponsor them. Every crew member will receive a free tournament t-shirt if your team manages to raise £1,000 or more.
**Man:** Oh, that's quite good.
**Woman:** Also, we're holding a raffle. Every crew member who takes part in the race this season will be entered into a free prize draw.
**Man:** Oh, what's the prize?
**Woman:** It's pretty good. It's a holiday in Hong Kong.
**Man:** Sounds great.
**Narrator:** The man asks for more information. Look at questions 6 to 10. Now listen to their conversation and answer questions 6 to 10.
**Woman:** Is there anything else you need to know?
**Man:** Uh, could you just tell me a little bit more about the teams?
**Woman:** Well, you need to have a crew of 20 people for your dragon boat, and you then need to agree on who's going to be the team captain. That will probably be you.
**Man:** Fine. Um, I've got a group of 20 people who are interested. Do all the team members have to be a certain age?
**Woman:** Well, there's no age limit as such, but if you have a team member who's under 18, then they have to get their parents' permission to take part.
**Man:** Yes, that makes sense.
**Woman:** It isn't dangerous, but we do have boats that turn over in the water. And for that reason, we need to insist that everyone wears a life jacket as well. And you can hire life jackets from us when your team arrives.
**Man:** What do you advise people to wear?
**Woman:** Well, most people wear a t-shirt, shorts, and trainers. I certainly wouldn't recommend that you wear jeans or boots. In fact, it's a very good idea to bring some spare clothes.
**Man:** Okay.
**Woman:** It can get quite cold and wet if the weather's bad. And there's quite a bit of hanging around, especially if you qualify for the semi-finals or the final.
**Man:** I see what you mean.
**Woman:** Have you got a name for your team?
**Man:** Oh, not yet. No.
**Woman:** Well, you need to decide on one and then put it on the entrance form which I'll send you.
**Man:** Oh, okay.
**Woman:** So, if you'd like to give me your address, I'll be happy to send details first class.
**Narrator:** That is the end of section one. You now have half a minute to check your answers.

**Narrator:** Now turn to part two. Part two. You will hear a lecture on bird migration. First, you have some time to look at questions 11 to 17. Now listen carefully and answer questions 11 to 17.
**Lecturer:** My lecture this evening will focus on the migration of birds. That is how birds fly in big groups from different parts of the world at certain times of the year. In the first part of the lecture, I'll talk about the reasons why birds migrate, when they migrate, and which parts of the world they migrate from, and to start with, why do birds migrate?
Well, there are two main reasons. One, they migrate to look for food. And two, they travel to parts of the world that are more suitable for breeding. In fact, these reasons are closely linked. As you can imagine, when birds are breeding, they need extra food to feed their young. And in the spring, in the cooler climates of Europe, there is a lot of food for birds, especially insects. So, generally during the spring, birds fly up from the tropics, which are hot, to cooler climates in the north. They stay there for a few months to bring up their young, and then when the weather in the north gets cold in the winter, they fly back to warmer climates in the south.
Now, I'd like to talk a bit about how global warming has affected bird migration. One of the effects of global warming has been to make the spring come earlier in the northern regions of the world. When spring comes early, the plants and insects that birds need to bring up their young are also available earlier. Research has shown that quite a lot of birds have started to migrate earlier because of higher temperatures. But unfortunately for some species, this hasn't been early enough. What I'm saying is that birds that are traveling a long way for breeding may arrive too late to find enough food to feed their young, and their population drops drastically. Scientists are currently researching more about this.
**Narrator:** Before you hear the rest of the talk, you have some time to look at questions 18 to 20. Now listen and answer questions 18 to 20.
**Lecturer:** Now I thought I'd finish by just briefly describing a few different patterns of migration. Uh migration varies with the type of bird and the area they come from.
For example, one kind of migration is partial migration. This means that some birds in a particular species will migrate and others won't. It usually depends on how the weather affects food supplies and very often happens in the tropics.
In another migratory pattern, a bird called an Arctic tern migrates the whole length of the globe from the North Pole to the south. The Arctic tern travels between 12 and 15,000 kilometers each way when it migrates in a complete circle around the world. It's quite amazing.
Right. And lastly, I'd like to mention a pattern which isn't nearly as spectacular, but is very interesting. And this is the way many birds migrate across North America. In this pattern, the birds fly northwards in the west of the country and then back south again in the east. So, if you imagine it, they're actually migrating in a circular pattern like the hands of a clock, not in a straight line as we might think.
**Narrator:** That is the end of part two. You now have half a minute to check your answers.

**Narrator:** Now turn to part three. Part three. You will hear two students, Sharon and Xiao Lee, talking to their tutor about a presentation they gave the previous week. First, you have some time to look at questions 21 to 23. Now listen carefully and answer questions 21 to 23.
**Tutor:** So Sharon and Xiao Lee in your presentation last week you were talking about the digital divide the gap between those who can effectively use communication tools such as the internet and those who can't and you compared the situation here in Northern Ireland with Southeast China. Right? So, I asked you to do some self-evaluation, watching the video of your presentation and thinking about the three main criteria you're assessed by, content, structure, and technique. What do you think was the strongest feature of the presentation when you watched it? Uh, Sharon?
**Sharon:** Well, I was surprised actually because I felt quite nervous, but when I watched the video, it didn't show as much as I expected.
**Tutor:** So which of the criteria would that come under?
**Sharon:** Uh, confidence.
**Tutor:** That's not actually one of the criteria as such. Technique. It's body language and eye contact, isn't it? Well, I didn't think I looked all that confident, but I think that our technique was generally good. Like the way we designed and used the PowerPoint slides.
**Tutor:** So you both feel happiest about that side of the presentation. H okay. Uh now on the negative side, what would you change if you could do it again?
**Sharon:** Well, at first I'd thought that the introduction was going to be the problem, but actually I think that was okay. We defined our terms and identified key issues. It was more towards the end. The conclusion wasn't too bad, but the problem was the questions.
**Xiao Lee:** We hadn't really expected there'd be any, so we hadn't thought about them that much.
**Tutor:** Mhm. Okay. Uh, anything else?
**Sharon:** Well, like Xiao Lee says, I thought the conclusion was okay, but when I watched this on the video, I thought the section on solutions seemed rather weak.
**Tutor:** Can you think why?
**Sharon:** Well, we explained what people are doing about the digital divide in China and Northern Ireland, but I suppose we didn't really evaluate any of the projects or ideas. It was just a list and that was what people were asking us about at the end mostly.
**Narrator:** You now have some time to look at questions 24 to 30. Now listen and answer questions 24 to 30.
**Tutor:** Okay. Now I also asked you to get some peer evaluation from the other students.
**Sharon:** Yes. Uh well, people said it was interesting, like the fact that in China the internet was used more for shopping than in Northern Ireland. They said sometimes it was a bit hard to understand because we were talking quite fast, but we didn't think so when we watched the video.
**Xiao Lee:** No, it's a bit different though because you know all this information already. If you're hearing it for the first time, you need more time to process it. That's why signposting the structure and organization of the talk is important.
**Sharon:** That seemed okay. No one mentioned that as a problem. Some people said that we could have had more on the slides. Like some of the other groups had nearly everything they said written up on the visuals as well.
**Xiao Lee:** But other people said the slides were good. They had just the key points.
**Sharon:** Yes. And most people said we had quite good eye contact and body language. They all pointed out we'd overrun. They all said we were 5 minutes over, but we timed it afterwards on the video and it was only 3 minutes.
**Xiao Lee:** We were a bit unsure about the background reading at first, but I think we did as much as we could in the time. Anyway, no one commented on that under content, but one thing that did come out was that they liked the fact we'd done research on both Northern Ireland and China. Most other people had just based their research on one country. We managed to get quite a lot of data from the internet although we had to do our own analysis and we did our own surveys as well in both countries. So the class gave us best feedback for content but it was all okay.
**Tutor:** Right. Well that's quite similar to the feedback I'm giving you. I was very impressed by the amount of work you've done and by your research methodology. So actually I'm giving you full marks for content five. The structure of the presentation was good but not quite as good as the content. So I gave that four and the same for technique. So well done.
**Sharon & Xiao Lee:** Thank you.
**Tutor:** Now the next stage is to write up your report. So just a few pointers for you here. First of all in your presentation I think your ending was rather abrupt. You suddenly just stopped talking. It wasn't a big problem, but think about your closing sentences in your report. You want to round it off well.
One thing I forgot to mention earlier was that I felt a very strong point was that after you'd given your results, you explained their limitations. The fact that we didn't have a very reliable sample in terms of age in China. Yes, that section. So, don't forget to include that. and you had some excellent charts and diagrams, but maybe you could flesh out the literature