A complete timed IELTS test

You will hear a conversation between an agent at Crestwood Lettings and a caller called Mr Beckett, who is looking to rent a flat. First you have some time to look at questions 1 to 7.

Now listen carefully and answer questions 1 to 7.

AGENT: Good morning, Crestwood Lettings, Dana speaking. How can I help you? CALLER: Oh, good morning. I am looking to rent a flat in town, and a colleague of mine recommended your agency, so I thought I would start with you. AGENT: That is always nice to hear. I can certainly help with that. Could I take your surname to start a file? CALLER: Yes, it is Beckett. B-E-C-K-E-T-T. Two Ts at the end. AGENT: Beckett, got it. Now, let me take your requirements one by one, and then I can tell you what we have. First of all, how many bedrooms are you looking for? CALLER: Two, please. And it really does need to be exactly two, because I work from home three days a week, so one room is the bedroom and the other is my office. A one-bedroom with a big lounge would not work for me. AGENT: Understood, two proper bedrooms. And do you have a particular area of town in mind? CALLER: Riverside, if at all possible. I walked around there last weekend and loved it, and it is close to the station for my office days. AGENT: Riverside is very popular, and we usually have several properties there, so that should be fine. Now, the awkward question: what is your maximum monthly budget? CALLER: I have worked it out carefully, and my absolute ceiling is nine hundred and fifty pounds a month. I could not stretch beyond that, even for somewhere lovely. AGENT: Nine hundred and fifty, that is a realistic figure for a two-bedroom in Riverside, so no problem there. Any pets I should know about? Some of our landlords are strict. CALLER: Yes, just one cat. She is elderly and sleeps about twenty hours a day, if that helps my case. AGENT: A cat is usually fine, it is mainly dogs that some landlords restrict, so I will note one cat. And when would you like to move in? CALLER: My current lease finishes at the end of May, so ideally the third of June. That gives me a weekend to clean the old place. AGENT: The third of June, very sensible. And finally, how long a contract would you want? Six months, or longer? CALLER: Twelve months, please. I would rather have the security, and I have no plans to leave the area. AGENT: A twelve-month lease, lovely, landlords always prefer that too.

Before you hear the rest of the conversation, you have some time to look at questions 8 to 10.

Now listen and answer questions 8 to 10.

AGENT: Right, let me have a look at what we have. There is one at Harbour Court that is available immediately, but it is over your budget at a thousand and fifty, so I will set that aside. There is another nice one on Weaver Street, but the current tenants are there until the summer, so that one is only free from August, which sounds too late for you. CALLER: August is definitely too late, yes. AGENT: But here is the good news. A flat at fourteen Mill Road, right in Riverside, fits everything on your list. Two double bedrooms, nine hundred and forty a month, and it is available from June, because the previous tenant leaves at the end of May. The timing could hardly be better for you. CALLER: From June, that is perfect. What is the heating like? My current flat has those old electric storage heaters and the winter bills were terrifying. AGENT: You will be pleased, then. It is not electric, and it is not one of the old oil-fired systems you still see out in the villages either. The flat has gas central heating throughout, and the landlord actually installed a brand-new boiler last year, so it is efficient and under guarantee. CALLER: Gas central heating, wonderful. Honestly, that almost decides it by itself. AGENT: So, how would you like to proceed? You could apply online today through our website, or come in and visit the office tomorrow to see the full details, or of course take a week and call back, though I should warn you Riverside flats do move quickly. CALLER: No, I do not want to lose it. I will apply online today, this afternoon in fact, as soon as I am back at my desk. AGENT: Perfect. I will email you the link and flag your application to the landlord right away.

That is the end of section 1. You now have half a minute to check your answers.

Now turn to section 2.

You will hear a guide giving a briefing to visitors at the start of the Crestwood walking tour. First you have some time to look at questions 11 to 16.

Now listen carefully and answer questions 11 to 16.

GUIDE: Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Crestwood walking tour. My name is Joe, I have been guiding in this town for eleven years, and I promise that by lunchtime you will know more about Crestwood than most people who have lived here all their lives. Before we set off, a short briefing, so please gather round. First, timings. The tour lasts about two hours, depending a little on our pace and how many questions you ask, and I do encourage questions. We should be finished by half past twelve, in good time for lunch, and I will point out my favourite lunch spots along the way. Second, the group. As you can see, the group is limited to fifteen people, and that is deliberate, it is not just about crowding. Fifteen is the largest number where everybody can actually hear me without me shouting, and where we can cross roads together safely. So if you can see me, you are in the right place. We will start here in Market Square, right where we are standing, which has been the beating heart of Crestwood for about seven hundred years, and we will finish up at the Castle on the hill, which is the oldest building in town. In terms of effort, the total walking distance is about three kilometres, which sounds like nothing, but a lot of it is on cobblestones, and there is one short climb at the end up to the Castle gate. So on footwear, my strong recommendation is trainers, or any comfortable flat shoes. Every year somebody arrives in brand-new dress shoes, and every year they regret it by the second stop. There are public toilets here in the square and again at the Castle, but not in between, so plan accordingly. And one nice thing to look forward to: at the end of the tour, every guest receives a free postcard, a rather lovely one actually, with our whole route hand-drawn on it, as a small souvenir of the morning. People genuinely do frame them.

Before you hear the rest of the talk, you have some time to look at questions 17 to 20.

Now listen and answer questions 17 to 20.

GUIDE: Now, let me tell you about the four stops we make along the way, and what each one costs, so there are no surprises and you can get your change ready. Our first stop is the Old Bridge, about fifteen minutes from here. It is the oldest stone bridge in the county, the view along the river is the best in town, and we pause there for a short photo break. That one is completely free of charge, of course, and I am happy to take group photos, I have steady hands. Then we walk up the hill to the City Library, a beautiful Victorian building with a famous spiral staircase and a painted ceiling that most locals have never even seen. There you can take a short interior tour, run by the library volunteers, and that costs just two pounds per person, which goes straight to the book fund. If you would rather stay outside in the courtyard, that is fine too. Our third stop is a personal favourite. We call in at Henderson's Bakery, that is the famous old bakery on Mill Lane, family-run for four generations, where the owner offers a bread tasting, five or six of their breads with local butter and honey, for five pounds. I will say no more, except do not eat a big breakfast. And finally, we climb to the Castle itself, where the tour ends with a guided entry, that is your ticket plus a walk round the walls with one of the Castle stewards, and that costs eight pounds. On a clear day like today, the view from the walls stretches right across three counties. Right then, that is bridge free, library two, bakery five, castle eight. If everyone is ready, phones charged, and shoelaces tied, let us set off.

That is the end of section 2. You now have half a minute to check your answers.

Now turn to section 3.

You will hear two students, Sam and Olivia, discussing their dissertation feedback with their tutor. First you have some time to look at questions 21 to 25.

Now listen carefully and answer questions 21 to 25.

TUTOR: Come in, sit down, both of you. So, I have gone through the marker's comments alongside your dissertation, all eleven pages of them, and I wanted us to talk it through properly rather than just email. First, the big picture. Overall, how do you both feel about the feedback? SAM: Honestly, once the first sting wore off, I thought it was fair overall. I went through it point by point over the weekend, and there was not much I could actually argue with. OLIVIA: I would say the same, it was fair. Some bits stung, especially about my chapters, but reading it a second time, I could not really disagree with any of it either. TUTOR: Good, that is the mature response, and not everyone manages it. Now, more specifically, which comments landed hardest for each of you? SAM: For me, it was the point about chapter two. I felt we really needed more concrete examples there. The marker said the argument was abstract, and honestly, I had actually said the same thing while we were writing it, so seeing it in the feedback was almost a relief. OLIVIA: Whereas that comment did not bother me much, I thought chapter two held up. For me, the main issue was the structure. In places the whole dissertation was confusing to follow, the marker said readers would lose the thread between chapters three and four, and I have to admit I never quite cracked the ordering, right up to the deadline. SAM: See, I did not feel that way about the structure at all, I thought the order made sense. But I suppose the reader is the judge. TUTOR: And what about the conclusion? The marker had quite a lot to say there. SAM: Yes, and on that one we are united. It was too short. We simply ran out of time in the final week and the conclusion paid the price. OLIVIA: Definitely too short, that one is on both of us equally. Two pages for a twelve-thousand-word dissertation, it looks exactly like what it was, a rush job. TUTOR: At least you know why. Anything in the feedback you found genuinely useful, rather than just painful? SAM: The single most useful comment, in my view, was about referencing. There were small slips all the way through, inconsistent formats, a couple of missing page numbers, and now that it has been pointed out I know exactly what to look for. I have already fixed half of them. OLIVIA: That is fair, though I will admit I did not focus on the referencing comments as much. For me the structural notes were the useful ones.

Before you hear the rest of the conversation, you have some time to look at questions 26 to 30.

Now listen and answer questions 26 to 30.

TUTOR: Right, let us look forward rather than back. Thinking about the whole project, what would you say was the hardest part of the dissertation? SAM: The methodology, by a very long way. Finding sources was fine, the library sessions helped, and even the conclusion, short as it was, was not hard to write, just rushed. But designing the methodology and defending every choice, that took us weeks. OLIVIA: Agreed completely, the methodology. I still wake up thinking about sampling strategies. TUTOR: That is the answer I expected, and for what it is worth, it is the hardest part for almost everyone. Now, the resubmission. What is realistic for you two? OLIVIA: We talked about it on the way here. Two weeks would be too tight with our other module deadlines, and six weeks feels like dragging it out. We were thinking one month. TUTOR: One month works for me, I will put the fourth of next month in the diary. Now, my main recommendation, having read everything. It is not more case studies, you have enough of those, and your literature review is actually fine, it does not need updating. What I would do is include clearer figures. Your data is genuinely good, but charts seven and eight are almost unreadable, tiny labels, similar colours. Redraw the figures properly and the whole results chapter lifts. SAM: Noted, I will take the figures. TUTOR: And when it is finally submitted, what is the plan? Please tell me there is one. OLIVIA: There is. We have promised ourselves a weekend off, a proper one. No laptops, no email, no dissertation talk, on pain of buying the coffees for a month. TUTOR: Very wise. Any final reflections for next time, since you will both face bigger projects after this? OLIVIA: Mine is simple: my big personal lesson is to start earlier. Not the reading, we started that early enough, but the actual writing. I always believe I write well under pressure, and the evidence now says otherwise. SAM: And I am going to hold her to it, because it is the same lesson for me.

That is the end of section 3. You now have half a minute to check your answers.

Now turn to section 4.

You will hear a lecture about why we sleep. First you have some time to look at questions 31 to 40.

Now listen carefully and answer questions 31 to 40.

LECTURER: Good morning, everyone. Today's lecture asks a deceptively simple question: why do we sleep? We spend roughly a third of our lives asleep, which, if you do the arithmetic, means that by the age of seventy-five you will have slept for about twenty-five years. For a behaviour that costly, in time, in vulnerability, in lost opportunity, evolution must have very good reasons, and yet for most of human history what actually happens during sleep was a complete mystery. People thought of it as a small death, or as simply the absence of waking. Modern science has begun to fill that gap, and I want to walk you through what we now know. First, the basics of how much. Adults need on average eight hours of sleep per night to function at their best. There is individual variation, of course, a lucky few genuinely thrive on six, but they are much rarer than the number of people who claim to be them. Children and teenagers need rather more, up to ten or eleven hours, which is worth remembering the next time you judge a teenager for sleeping until noon. Their biology is not lazy, it is scheduled differently. Now, the architecture of sleep itself, because sleep is not one uniform state. Sleep is divided into four main stages, and we cycle through them roughly every ninety minutes, four to six times a night. Let me take you through the stages in order, because your exam notes will thank you. In stage one, which lasts only a few minutes, brain activity slows, the muscles relax, and the heart rate begins to drop. This is the brief transition into sleep, the drifting-off moment, and it is so light that if I woke you from it, you might insist you had never been asleep at all. Stage two is much longer, in fact it makes up about half the total night. The brain produces distinctive bursts of activity called spindles, and this stage appears to be when much of our memory consolidation happens: the brain replays the experiences of the day, strengthens the connections worth keeping, and clears out the trivia. Students, please note the irony: the revision you do means little without the sleep that files it. Stage three is the deepest sleep, sometimes called slow-wave sleep after the long, rolling brain waves we record during it. This is when the body does its heavy maintenance, the tissue repair: muscles are rebuilt, the immune system is serviced, and energy stores are refilled. It is also the stage from which it is hardest to wake someone, and if you have ever been woken from it by an alarm, you know the particular misery it produces. And finally there is REM sleep, R-E-M, which stands for rapid eye movement, because under the closed lids the eyes genuinely dart about as if watching a film. REM makes up roughly twenty per cent of the night, the brain in REM is almost as active as when awake, and it is when most vivid dreaming occurs. Curiously, during REM the body's large muscles are paralysed, which is almost certainly a safety mechanism to stop us acting out those dreams. One more piece of biology before I move on. During deep sleep, the body also produces growth hormone, which is essential for children, it is literally when they grow, but it matters for adults too, driving the repair processes I mentioned. This, incidentally, is why chronic sleep loss shows up in the skin, the immune system and recovery from exercise. So let me give you the summary table your notes deserve. Stage one: the brief transition into sleep. Stage two: memory consolidation. Stage three, slow-wave: tissue repair. And REM: the home of vivid dreaming. Sleep, in other words, is not off-time. It is active, structured, and absolutely indispensable, and the research increasingly suggests that protecting it is one of the cheapest health interventions available to any of us.

That is the end of section 4. You now have half a minute to check your answers.

That is the end of the listening test. In the real exam you would now have ten minutes to transfer your answers to your answer sheet.

Accepted variants: many number answers accept the word form too (e.g., “two” / “eight” / “third”). Spelling must be correct.

Score guide (out of 40): 36–40 ≈ Band 8.5+ · 30–35 ≈ Band 7–8 · 23–29 ≈ Band 6–6.5 · 16–22 ≈ Band 5–5.5.

Passage 1 — Why we yawn

Passage 2 — The history of the umbrella

Passage 3 — Three theories of how creativity works

Selected notes: 2 FALSE — passage says “about six seconds”. 4 FALSE — pure oxygen does not stop yawning. 6 NOT GIVEN — cultural views on yawning are not discussed. 11 “breath” also accepted.

Reading score guide (out of 40): 37–40 ≈ Band 9 · 33–36 ≈ Band 8 · 30–32 ≈ Band 7.5 · 27–29 ≈ Band 7 · 23–26 ≈ Band 6.5.

Why this is Band 9: clear overview (linear; natural then industrial halves); accurate sequencing with varied passive structures and sequencers (“once”, “then”, “in the final stage”); approx. 210 words.

Why this is Band 9: both parts of the question fully answered; reasons and evaluation clearly separated; specific reasoning with examples; precise language (“quiet weakening”, “everyday encounters that build local trust”); approx. 305 words.

• Did I answer every part of the question?

• Is my position or structure clear from the first paragraph?

• Does each body paragraph develop one clear idea with a reason or example?

• Did I write at least 250 words (Task 2) / 150 words (Task 1)?

• Did I leave 3–4 minutes to check grammar, spelling and punctuation?

Direct answer, three concrete reasons (light, crowds, temperature), and a small personal observation at the end — natural, not rehearsed.

Planning notes: place = small reading room at a public library · when = a couple of evenings a week · what = read, sometimes write · why relaxing = quiet, anonymous, away from screens.

All four bullet points addressed; the notes are used loosely (not read); a small reflective insight at the end — approximately 1 min 55.

1 Use the pattern opinion → reason → example every time.

2 Show range with phrases like “it largely depends on”, “broadly speaking”, “there’s a strong argument that…”

3 Acknowledge both sides before you conclude.

4 Buy thinking time naturally: “That’s an interesting question — I’d say…”