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The C1 Advanced has 4 parts : Reading and Use of English, Listening, Speaking and Writing. Let’s take a closer look at the listening section of the C1 Advanced exam. The focus of this exam section is test your ability to follow and understanding different types of audio. These can include interviews, radio broadcasts, monologues, discussions, presentations, talks, and everyday conversations.

There are four parts to this exam paper and you have a total of 30 questions to answer. The time allocated for this paper is around 40 minutes. Some good news is that you hear the recordings twice!

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What’s inside the listening paper?

Let’s take a more detailed look at each part, what it tests, questions types, time, and the types of audio that might be used.

Part 1

This part of the exam tests your ability to listen for feeling, attitude, opinion, purpose, function, agreement, gist, detail etc. You will listen to three short interactions between different speakers. The question type used here is multiple-choice, so you just need to choose the correct answer – A, B, C, or D. There are 6 questions to answer and each is worth one mark.

Part 2

Here you have to listen to a monologue, so just one person is talking. It lasts for about 3 minutes and you have to complete the sentences with the information you hear. This tests your ability to listen for specific information and stated opinions. There are 8 questions in the part and each is worth one mark. The question type here is called sentence completion.

Listen to a monologue.

Part 3

This is a conversation that lasts for 4 minutes. You will hear two or more people speaking. This skill here is listening for attitude, opinion, agreement, gist, speaker purpose, feeling, and function and detail. The question type in this part is multiple choice, so you have four possible answers to choose from – A, B, C, and D. There are 6 questions in this part and each is worth one mark.

Part 4

You will hear five topic-based monologues that last for 30 seconds each. Totally 2.5 minutes for this part of the test. There are two tasks for you to complete. The question type here is multiple-matching. This means you will have to match the speaker to one of the, in this case eight, possible answers. So there are more answers than speakers. There are 10 questions and each is worth one mark each.

Come and practice all of this with us!

At GlobalExam we have built an online platform that will help you learn and practice all the questions types and study skills needed for the above tasks. Our platform contains areas for you to practice English language development, exam skills, and even take a full exam under test conditions. All while being able to track your progress and find our learning areas that need more development. We also have a blog for you to look through with information, tips, and motivation to help you on your way to exam success.

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