In the latest in a series of blog posts designed to help you prepare your students for IELTS, Pauline Cullen, author of The Official Cambridge Guide to IELTS, offers some advice on following IELTS instructions, and how to deal with numbers.
A few weeks ago I was asked, ‘In the IELTS Listening test, what should I do if the question says ‘write one word and / or a number‘ but the answer is ‘two and a half’? What should I write?’
Following IELTS instructions
The most important piece of advice is that, for every paper in the IELTS test, you must always follow the instructions carefully. If you write too many words, then your answer will be marked wrong. There are no half marks in the listening or the reading test.
To help you understand this type of instruction, look at the following question from a listening section 1 task where 2 speakers, John and Susan, are planning a special breakfast:
Tapescript: John: So, we need to get some ingredients for the pancake breakfast tomorrow at school. |
Question:Complete the sentence below.
Write NO MORE THAN ONE WORD AND / OR A NUMBER for each answer. |
John and Susan decide to buy two and a half kilos of flour. Your task here is to ‘complete the sentence’ and the words ‘kilos of flour’ are already written in the sentence, so you only need to write the number (remember, the IELTS instructions say ‘one word and/or a number’).
How to write the answer
In the IELTS test, ‘two and a half’ is seen as one number, even if you write it in words.
You could write this answer in several different ways, for example:
- 2½
- two and a half
- 2 and a ½
- two and a ½
The following are also examples of ‘one number’:
- fifty percent
- twenty five
- six thousand five hundred and fifty
Here are some tips for the listening test
Pay close attention to the information that is already written in the question – use this to help you work out what type of information you need to write.
Make sure you are accurate and precise in your answers. If you write ‘some’ for this question then the answer is incorrect because they decide to buy a precise amount of flour not just ‘some’ or ‘lots’.
For the listening test, it is best to always write numbers as a numeral (e.g. 2½ etc.). If you decide to write any numbers in words, you run the risk of making a spelling mistake, which will lose you the mark.
Pauline Cullen is the author of The Official Cambridge Guide to IELTS.
Read the other posts in this series:
Help with IELTS #3: tips for the Academic Reading test