IELTS Energy 1451: Burning Listening Answers from Bend, Oregon
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This is an IELTS Energy Podcast, Episode 1451, Burning Listening Answers from Bend, Oregon.

Welcome to the IELTS Energy Podcast from All Ears English, downloaded more than 22 million times with former IELTS examiner Jessica Beck and Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz. If you are stuck with a low score, our insider method will help you get the score you need to unlock your dreams. Get your estimated band score now with our two-minute quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com forward

Do you have questions about IELTS listening? When does grammar matter? What about punctuation? Get these questions answered today. Plus, get a sample IELTS Part 1 listening practice.

On this podcast, we are all about your IELTS score. What the examiner is looking for in speaking and writing. What tricks to watch out for in listening and reading. And what strategies you need for all four sections. We want you to get the score you need on IELTS and be done with this exam.

Before you pay all that money to take the exam, you have to be sure that you'll get the score you need. Find out now with our free IELTS band score quiz at allearsenglish.com slash myscore. It only takes five minutes and we'll give you extra free study materials for your exact score. Check it out now. All

all ears, english.com/myscore. Happy Christmas Eve, Jessica. We record in advance. So guys, for us, it's Christmas Eve. Very fun holiday. Jessica and I are both obsessed with Christmas. So fun. Oh my gosh. It is the best time of the year.

And yeah, so I apologize, but I had to wish my best host, co-host, a Merry Christmas, even though I know you guys won't hear this for a couple weeks. We hope you guys had fabulous holidays as well. So let's get into today's listening practice. I love when we do listening practice episodes. And guys, we have heard from you that this live practice, simulating what you'll do on the test is super helpful.

Yes, we know this is helpful for you guys. So hopefully you're able to really use this as real IELTS practice, right? So follow along with us to get the, you know, the strategies that you'll do before listening. And then, you know, we're kind of leading you on the strategies of part one listening today. If you are driving or out and about and you can't really do that, maybe listen and then come back and do it again. Try to use this as real IELTS listening practice.

Yes, totally. Okay, so let's get into it. So what we're going to do today, guys, we're going to remind you of some of the strategies by showing you how to do those strategies with today's real listening practice. And then, of course, we will do the listening audio like you would hear on the exam. It is going to be a dialogue today, so two speakers. This is what you'll hear in part one and part three on the listening test, guys.

And then finally, of course, we will give you the answers and explain why they are the answers. All right, so let's get into it. So what is the first step that candidates must do on the listening test?

Yeah, so first you're going to read the questions and you are given time for this, right? So you're going to hear first you will have some time to look at the questions and you have 30 seconds to do this, which is time to read all of the questions and a few important strategies here. You're going to predict what type of word to be looking for, word form, maybe exactly what it could be, right? What would make sense in that question?

and so you want to look for keywords in those questions think about synonyms paraphrases maybe you'll get so there's a lot you can do in that 30 seconds to be ready to listen actively yes exactly so you'll hear us mention the phrase parallel expressions today guys and if you aren't aware of what that means that just means that the keywords you find in the questions both for listening and reading

you're probably not going to see those exact key words in the passage or in the audio, right? You are going to hear and see parallel expressions. And we don't say synonyms because they're not always direct synonyms, right? They're like paraphrases. So parallel expressions is what we're going to say. And on Friday's episode, guys. Yeah, go ahead.

Well, I was going to say a pro tip is if you see the exact same word from the question and then hear it in the audio or see it in the reading, often this is a distractor. This is somewhere they're trying to make you think that's where the answer is found because you see the exact same word. So be aware of that pitfall. It's often going to be a paraphrase instead. And the exact word is meant to trick you.

I am so glad you said that, guys. You know that I write textbooks and I write lots of tests, and that is a trick we use all the time. So Aubrey, you are spot on. All right, let's get into it. So before you listen, guys, on test day, you're going to have time to look at the questions. So that's what we will do now. So there are four questions today. The first question is, the googly eyes have been appearing in the town of Blake. So in order to make...

excellent predictions, you have to read the instructions first, right? So what are we listening for? What do we need? The instructions say write no more than three words and or a number. So keeping that in mind, Aubrey, what can we predict for this blank? Yeah, and I'm glad you pointed that out because it is sometimes different. It might say write no more than two words and a number. So this is vital that you're aware of how many words you are allowed.

So here we have the googly eyes. If you're not familiar with that, you could maybe just make an assumption like, what might that mean? Something about eyes. But what these are, are those usually like stick on funny eyes where the eye moves around in the toy, you know, and that people will like make toys out of them. Those are googly eyes. And then it says they've been appearing in the town of

blank. So we know this is going to be the name of a town. This like pretty quick prediction. Okay, I'm listening for the town name.

And sometimes it is that easy. Like it's not always rocket science here, guys. Like take the gift if IELTS gives you one. Like don't overthink it. Like you're just listening for the name of a town or city. That's it, right? So we're going to underline those keywords, googly eyes, appearing, and town. And we have predicted we're listening for the name of a town or city. What's the second question? All

All right. The second question is the story has been written about by many blank. So you're like, OK, well, it's someone who could potentially write about this story. Authors, maybe reporters. Right. It's going to be something, a noun, someone who would write something. Yeah. Journalists, bloggers. Those are all the things we can think of. Right. Reporters, journalists, bloggers, authors. There you go.

And it could be, you know, children, adults. It could be like a noun anyone who's able to write. That's also possible. But you know you're going to be listening for a noun, someone who could write a story. Exactly. So, yeah, exactly. You know you're listening for people, right? Like a type of person or people. So we're going to underline story, written, many. And then we're listening for any noun next to those key words that identify people, right?

That's it. That's all we can do before we listen. All right. Two more questions here, guys, and then we'll get into that listening audio, just like you'll hear on the exam. What's question three? Three. The art was being damaged by blank on the googly eyes. Okay. So right away, it was like, well, it's something that's on these eyes that was damaging the art. So, you know, when you hear googly eyes, you're going to be wanting to listen for what on them could be damaging art.

Yeah, so here, I mean, you can't always predict an exact word like we did for number two. Like that was easy, you know, authors, writers. But for this one, maybe you just have no idea, right? But that's okay. At least you can predict the word form. And that takes you a long way. We know we're listening for a noun. So a noun...

That keyword damaged. So we're listening for damaged or a parallel expression for damaged. And then whatever the closest noun is to that keyword that makes sense. That's the answer.

Exactly. And then number four is it has cost the city blank to fix the damage. So right away, like, okay, we're talking about costs, something about the expense, maybe it'll be a number, you know, it could potentially be an adjunct, like you have to think about what a word form, but really, the main thing that makes sense here is it's going to be an amount of money that it has cost the city.

Yes, exactly. I mean, it could be another noun like time, resources, what have you. Or like drastically, it has cost the city drastically to fix the damage. Maybe. There are some possibilities here. It's possible.

On this podcast, we are all about your IELTS score. What the examiner is looking for in speaking and writing. What tricks to watch out for in listening and reading. And what strategies you need for all four sections. We want you to get the score you need on IELTS and be done with this exam.

Before you pay all that money to take the exam, you have to be sure that you'll get the score you need. Find out now with our free IELTS band score quiz at allearsenglish.com slash myscore. It only takes five minutes and we'll give you extra free study materials for your exact score. Check it out now. All

allearsenglish.com/myscore. Okay, so today's information, guys, in this listening you're about to hear is taken from an article. We will link to that news article in the blog post, so come back to the blog, allearsenglish.com/ielts. Come to this blog post 1451 and you will see this article. All right, let's get into it. All right, I'll start the audio.

Did you hear about the googly eyes that have been appearing on sculptures in Bend, Oregon? It sounds like they're delighting many residents and sparking a viral sensation. It's even been covered widely by news reporters and featured on a popular late night talk show. Yes, the city sculptures in these roundabouts have been decorated many times over the years with things like Santa hats, wreaths, and leis.

The city doesn't usually remove them, but these googly eyes were different because the adhesive was damaging the art.

Oh, that's unfortunate. It seems like such a fun, harmless thing to do. I know my kids would be thrilled to drive by a bronze statue and realize it now has googly eyes. Do they know who was doing it? No, it's not yet known who has been putting these eyes on the sculptures. I doubt they'll come forward either because it has cost the city $1,500 so far to remove them and repair the damage.

Such a bummer. It does seem like the city should focus on addressing more important issues such as homelessness instead of spending time and money removing googly eyes.

Nice! That was so awesome. All right, so guys, we hope that you wrote down those questions or looked at the blog so you could use that as listening practice. Let's go through the answers. So, question one: The googly eyes have been appearing in the town of... and if you said Bend or if you said Bend, Oregon, you would be correct.

All right, so I'm going to play the role of a student who hasn't taken IELTS before and ask questions as we go through these that I have gotten from students. Jessica, what would happen if the student wrote Bend, Oregon without that comma? That would be incorrect because...

And a question like this, it is sentence completion, right? So the grammar must be correct. Therefore, you have to have a comma between the city and the state. Otherwise, it's incorrect. The grammar, the punctuation is wrong, which makes the whole answer wrong. Yeah. Okay. So what if they capitalize the city, Bend, but not the state, Oregon? Wrong. Again.

No, these are great questions. And Aubrey, you are playing the perfect surrogate for our audience because we get no questions all the time. Exactly, exactly. So the punctuation, the capitalization, those two things are part of grammar. And the grammar must be correct in sentence completion and summary completion in order to get the answer correct and have points, right?

Yes. And you may have heard this from us before, but you can capitalize or write in all caps. Yeah. Then you don't have to worry about that. So if you wrote Bend, Oregon, all capital letters, then it would be fine. But if you're writing in capitals and then cities and states need to start with a capital letter. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Question two, Aubrey.

Alright, so the second question was, "The story has been written about by many blank and you were looking for someone who could write about something and you heard in the sentence, 'It's even been covered widely by news reporters and featured on a popular late night talk show.'" So you heard news reporters there. Hopefully you caught that.

Yeah, so if you answered news reporters or if you just answered reporters, that would also be correct. So notice that you have to understand that covered by is a parallel expression for written. But even

Even if you don't know that vocabulary, guys, if you trust the strategies, if you predicted that you need a noun that is a person or a group of people, you would have gotten that correct. Sure, you're not going to be 100% sure because you're like, it's covered by? Does that mean written? I don't know. But if you have strategies, guys, it's okay to not be 100% certain all the time. You can still get the correct answer.

Yes. And luckily, you know, these are in order. So as soon as you heard Bend, Oregon, you started listening for journalists, reporters, someone who could write a story. And when you heard news reporters, your mind would trap that because you made those predictions.

Exactly, exactly. All right. Question three, the art was being damaged by blank on the googly eyes. So the answer is adhesive or the adhesive or an adhesive. All of those would be correct because adhesive is in the listening and all three of those are grammatically correct in the sentence. So they would all be correct.

would all be fine. Yes, and this is really interesting. We do see students get listening questions incorrect because they're using the incorrect article. Articles are important both on your writing exam and listening. The grammar has to match the question. Totally. All right, last question today, guys.

it has cost the city blank to fix the damage so the answer is um it's fifteen hundred dollars or one thousand five hundred dollars in the listening I said fifteen hundred so guys this shows you that you have to be aware how we write numbers and how we say numbers because it is

very different in other languages. Absolutely. And the instructions come into play here as well, because if you write out $1,500, that's way more than three words and a number, right? So you can write in English, dollar sign, 1,500 would be accepted here. Jessica, a

question that we've gotten from students, what if they write 1.500, which is how numbers are written in many countries? True. That would also be wrong. There is some difference in like British English and American English, but that doesn't come into play here. We still write numbers the same way, you know, so that has to be a comma. And I understand it's a point in other countries, but it's not in any English speaking countries.

Yeah, so this is vital that you practice that because this is so second nature for a lot of you to write a point instead of a comma in a number and that will be considered incorrect. Now, what about that dollar sign, Jessica? Is that required or could they just write 1,500? You need the dollar sign because if you just have the number, it doesn't indicate dollars and the answer is incomplete.

You need that dollar sign to know what the cost is. The unit matters. And that is also a great tip for writing task one academic, guys. Make sure you're including the symbols that you see on the chart. So if it's euros, if it's dollars, like that is important.

an identifier of the number that must be present for the number to be correct. Right. Very important. Task one academic essays will see it's pounds and then they say dollars. That would be incorrect. Another final question with this question, could students write out the words $1,500? Yes, you can. And what a great way to solve this. Sometimes you're not sure, right? If it's a comma, a point with the, you know, what do I do here?

If you hear the person say $1,500 and it fits with the instructions, three words, write that. There's nothing wrong with doing that. You're doing exactly what they say, right? You're writing down exactly what they say in the audio. So that would be correct. And it's a great way to avoid problems if you have any insecurities about writing numbers.

Absolutely. Oh, such great information here. We get questions all the time about these little nuances of what is accepted on the listening exam. So I'm glad we were able to give you guys so many details. Be sure to come back Friday because we are doing a follow-up with

the parallel expressions between the questions and the article here. Didn't really go into that, but you probably noticed that the words weren't the same in the questions and the article. So we're going to break that down so you know how to find parallel expressions or listen for them. Yes, exactly. All right, everyone. Thank you for joining us today and we'll see you on Friday. Awesome. See you Friday. Bye. Bye. Bye.

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