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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| 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 |
Questions 1-10.
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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 |
Questions 6-10: Choose the correct letter, A, B or C.
| 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.
| 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.
| 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 |
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.
Matching, map or plan labelling, multiple choice and sentence completion are the most common. Form completion, which dominates Part 1, is rare here.
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.
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.
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.
Letters. Writing the item name instead of its letter scores zero even when the match is right.
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