Free IELTS Listening Part 2 Practice Test

IELTS Listening Part 2 is a monologue in an everyday or social setting — a tour introduction, a facility briefing, a radio segment about a local service. One speaker, 10 marks, and a shift in difficulty from Part 1: the answers are less often numbers and more often paraphrases.

Part 2 is also where map and plan labelling appears most, which is why direction language matters here more than anywhere else in the test.

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Key Takeaways

• Part 2 is a monologue in a social or everyday context, worth 10 of the 40 Listening marks.
• Answers are usually paraphrased rather than repeated, so listening for the exact question word fails here.
• Map, plan and matching tasks are most common in Part 2 — learn the direction and position vocabulary.
• With one speaker there is no dialogue to slow the pace, so falling behind is harder to recover from.
• Multiple choice options in Part 2 are usually all mentioned; only one answers the question asked.

What Part 2 looks like

Feature	Detail
Speakers	One
Context	Everyday or social — not academic
Questions	10
Common task types	Matching, map or plan labelling, multiple choice, sentence completion
Typical answers	Letters (for matching and maps), short noun phrases
Heard how many times	Once

Practice set: community centre induction

Questions 1-10.

Transcript “Welcome to the Ashvale Community Centre, and thank you all for coming to the volunteer induction. I am Dilan, the centre coordinator, and I will run through the layout, the four volunteer roles, and a few practical points before we walk round. Starting with the building. As you came in you passed the reception desk on your right — that is where the sign-in sheet lives, and every volunteer signs in and out, without exception, because it is our fire register. Directly opposite reception is the main hall, which is the biggest space and takes about two hundred people. Behind the main hall, through the double doors, is the kitchen. The kitchen is shared with the lunch club, so please do not store personal food there. The two smaller rooms are along the corridor to the left of reception. The first one, nearest reception, is the quiet room — that is used for one-to-one sessions and the reading scheme, so no phones. The one at the end of that corridor is the craft room, which has the storage cupboards. And the office is upstairs, first door at the top of the stairs. Now, the roles. We have four, and I would like you to think about which suits you before we finish today. The reading scheme is one-to-one work with children aged six to eleven, on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school. It needs a background check, which takes about three weeks, so if that appeals, tell me today rather than next month. The lunch club runs Monday to Friday, half past eleven until two. It is the busiest role and the one we are shortest on. No background check needed, but you do need a food hygiene certificate, and we run that course here twice a year. The garden project is Saturday mornings, April to October only. It is entirely outdoors, so it suits people who would rather not be in a room full of people, and there is no training requirement at all. Digital help is the newest role — helping older residents with phones and forms. It is Wednesday afternoons, and it is the one role where we ask for a six-month commitment, because the residents come back to the same volunteer each week and continuity is the whole point. Two practical things. Expenses: bus fares are reimbursed if you keep the ticket, but we cannot reimburse car parking. And uniform: you get a lanyard, not a shirt, so wear whatever is comfortable — except in the kitchen, where closed shoes are required. Right. Any questions before we walk round?”

Questions 1-5: Match each room to its description. Write the correct letter A-F.

Room	Your answer
1 Main hall
2 Kitchen
3 Quiet room
4 Craft room
5 Office

A — located upstairs B — holds the storage cupboards C — shared with another group D — the largest space E — where phones are not allowed F — where the sign-in sheet is kept

Questions 6-10: Choose the correct letter, A, B or C.

6. Which role requires a background check?
   (A) The lunch club (B) The reading scheme (C) Digital help
7. Which role is the centre most short of volunteers for?
   (A) The lunch club (B) The garden project (C) Digital help
8. Which role has no training requirement?
   (A) The reading scheme (B) The garden project (C) The lunch club
9. Which role asks for a minimum commitment period?
   (A) The garden project (B) Digital help (C) The lunch club
10. What can volunteers claim back?
    (A) Car parking (B) Bus fares (C) Both parking and bus fares

Answer key

Q	Answer	Words in the transcript	Why the paraphrase matters
1	D	“the biggest space”	Option says “largest” — a synonym, not a repeat
2	C	“shared with the lunch club”	Option generalises to “another group”
3	E	“so no phones”	Option formalises to “phones are not allowed”
4	B	“which has the storage cupboards”	Near-direct, the easiest of the five
5	A	“the office is upstairs”	Direct
6	B	“It needs a background check”	Said about the reading scheme, not the lunch club
7	A	“the one we are shortest on”	Question paraphrases to “most short of volunteers for”
8	B	“no training requirement at all”	The lunch club needs a certificate, so it is excluded
9	B	“a six-month commitment”	Explicitly the only role with one
10	B	“bus fares are reimbursed… we cannot reimburse car parking”	C is the trap: both are mentioned, only one is claimable

Option F was not the answer to any question. Matching tasks in Part 2 always include at least one option that is never used, and looking for a home for every option is how candidates talk themselves out of correct answers.

Map and plan labelling: the language that decides it

Expression	Means
opposite / directly across from	Facing it on the other side
adjacent to / next to	Immediately beside
beyond / past	Further on, in the direction of travel
at the end of	The last one along that corridor or path
through	You pass into it via a door or gap
behind	On the far side from the entrance
on your right as you enter	Right relative to the speaker’s route, not the map’s edge
the first / second on the left	Counting from where the route starts
set back from	Further from the road or path than its neighbours
in the corner	Where two walls meet, not merely near the edge

Before the audio starts, orient the map: find the entrance, the compass if there is one, and the route the speaker will describe. Answers follow the route, so knowing the route tells you which label is coming next.

Why Part 2 feels harder than Part 1

Part 1	Part 2
Two speakers, so there are natural pauses	One speaker, continuous
Answers are often spelled out	Answers are rarely spelled out
Answers repeat the question wording	Answers paraphrase the question wording
Mostly form and note completion	Matching, maps and multiple choice
Self-corrections are the main trap	Mentioned-but-not-answering options are the main trap

How to prepare for a matching task in the 30 seconds you get

1. Read the list of options first, not the list of items. The options are what you will hear.
2. Underline the distinguishing word in each option: largest, upstairs, shared.
3. Count the options against the questions. If there is one more option than question, one is a decoy.
4. Write letters, not words. Matching answers are letters and writing the room name scores zero.
5. If you miss one, leave it and move on — the next answer is coming, and chasing a missed one costs two marks instead of one.

FAQ

What is IELTS Listening Part 2?

A monologue — one speaker — in an everyday or social context, carrying 10 of the 40 Listening marks. Typical settings are a tour introduction, a briefing about a facility or service, or a talk about a local activity.

Which question types appear in Part 2?

Matching, map or plan labelling, multiple choice and sentence completion are the most common. Form completion, which dominates Part 1, is rare here.

Why do I lose marks in Part 2 when I understood the recording?

Usually because the answer was paraphrased. Part 2 rarely repeats the question wording, so candidates who listen for the exact words in the question miss the answer even when they follow the meaning.

How do I handle multiple choice in Part 2?

Expect all three options to be mentioned. The question is not which one appears in the recording but which one answers the question asked, so wait for the whole statement before you choose.

Are map labelling questions common?

They appear most often in Part 2. They are also the most technique-dependent task in Listening: orient yourself to the entrance and the speaker’s route before the audio begins, because the labels follow that route.

Do I write words or letters for matching questions?

Letters. Writing the item name instead of its letter scores zero even when the match is right.

Related practice resources

• IELTS Listening Part 1 practice
• IELTS Listening Part 3 practice
• IELTS Listening Part 4 practice

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