GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Listen actively. Try to catch the main words like verbs, nouns and adjectives/adverbs. Very often, there are keywords among them. But remember that a small word, like ‘his’ or ‘her’, may sometimes influence the answer.
2. Process. Guess which option might be right while listening for the 1st time. When listening for the 2nd time, make your choice. If you’re still not sure, tick the one that seems right to you and move on to the next question.
3. Use your grammar and vocabulary knowledge. They will help to choose the right option.
You can read and listen to more tips and examples in my podcast on FCE Listening Paper.
Now let’s move on to the first task where you have to fill in the gaps with the missing words from a song.
RETURN THE MISSING WORDS TO THEIR PLACES!
Tips from Cambridge listening exam part
It’s important to remember that a gapped text might be just a summary of what a person is saying or singing. Do not always expect exactly the same words you hear. There may be synonymous sentences. But you must catch exactly the speaker’s words to put them in the gaps. So, while reading the summary, try to predict what sort of information is missing in each gap. It can be a place, time, characteristics of an object, age, some numbers etc. It depends on what goes before and after a gap.
For instance, you read: “As a child, Gabe’s interests were playing video games and reading…” The keywords are interesting, playing video games and reading. Reading what? Something. So, we can predict that the information in the gap refers to a genre of literature, an author or a title of a book, right?
Then you hear the speaker say: “Well, it’ll be no surprise to you that when I was a kid, I used to play video games and things like that. I was also a huge fan of science fiction and I used to read whatever I could get my hands on”. The first sentence refers to video games, but the second – to something different. He says he was a huge fan of science fiction. What is science fiction? Correct, a literary genre and, logically enough, it relates to his taste in reading. So, the right words from the gap are ‘science fiction.
More detailed explanations and some other examples are in my podcast on FCE Listening Part 2.
Let’s get started!
First Listening
Watch the video and listen carefully to the song. Try to focus on the lyrics but don’t worry if you don’t understand every word. It’s all right.
Second Listening
Now don’t watch the video, just listen to the song while reading the lyrics. Find the right word for each gap.
Try to challenge yourself with a more difficult version of the task. In it, you don’t have any options so, you have to catch the words and type them into the gaps yourself. Feel free to pause the video to type.
How do you feel? If it’s too much for you, here is an easier variant. Get it! You just need to read the words on the right before listening and then drag-drop them into the gaps while listening.
How are you now? I hope the song has lifted your mood and you feel happy).
Please, leave your comments and recommendations. I always pay attention to them to create better things.
