IELTS Listening Course · Lesson 3 of 10 · 15 min read

Part 1 – names, numbers, dates and spelling

How to get full marks in IELTS Listening Part 1 - letters of the alphabet, phone numbers, prices, dates, addresses and the spelling mistakes that cost marks.

Part 1 is the easiest part of the Listening test, and that is exactly why it deserves serious practice. A candidate who wants Band 7 needs around thirty correct answers; if two or three are thrown away in Part 1 through careless spelling or a misheard number, they have to be won back in Part 4, where marks are much harder to find. Your target for Part 1 should be ten out of ten.

What Part 1 tests

A conversation between two people in an everyday situation: one usually wants information or a service, and the other provides it. The task is nearly always a form, a set of notes or a table, with a limit such as ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER.

The answers are simple, concrete facts:

names of people, streets and places (often spelt out)
telephone numbers, reference numbers, postcodes
prices, quantities, measurements
days, dates and times
single everyday nouns: gloves, library, terrace, apron

There is no difficult vocabulary. The challenge is accuracy.

The alphabet

When a name is unusual, the speaker spells it. You need to recognise every letter instantly. These are the ones that learners most often confuse:

Letters	Say them aloud
A – E – I	A = ‘ay’, E = ‘ee’, I = ‘eye’. Speakers of many languages hear English ‘E’ as their own ‘I’.
G – J	G = ‘jee’, J = ‘jay’
B – P – V – D – T	all rhyme with ‘ee’
M – N	listen for the difference in the final sound
S – F – X	‘ess’, ‘eff’, ‘ex’
U – Q – W	‘you’, ‘kyoo’, ‘double-you’
Y	‘why’
R	British ‘ah’, American ‘ar’
Z	British ‘zed’, American ‘zee’
H	‘aitch’

Other things you will hear:

‘double L’ = LL (Hartwell: H-A-R-T-W-E-double L)
‘capital B’, ‘all one word’, ‘with a hyphen’, ‘new word’
‘that’s M for mother’: speakers sometimes clarify a letter with a word.

Practice: ask a friend to spell ten surnames at natural speed, or use recordings of spelling online, and type them. Then do it again faster.

Numbers

Telephone and reference numbers

Digits are said one at a time, in groups, with a small pause between groups.

0 is ‘oh’ or ‘zero’.
77 is ‘double seven’; 555 may be ‘triple five’ or ‘five double five’.
Type the digits as you hear them; do not wait until the end.

The 13/30 problem

The pairs thirteen/thirty, fourteen/forty … nineteen/ninety are distinguished by stress and by the final sound:

	Stress	Ending
thirTEEN	second syllable	clear ‘n’
THIRty	first syllable	‘tee’ (in American English often ‘dee’)

When the context allows only one (‘the course lasts thir-?-weeks’), think about which is realistic, but trust your ear first.

Big numbers and decimals

2,500 = two thousand five hundred. 1,250,000 = one and a quarter million.
3.5 = three point five.
15% = fifteen per cent.
A hundred and fifty (British speakers say ‘and’; Americans often do not).

Money

£42.50 is ‘forty-two pounds fifty’ or just ‘forty-two fifty’.
£96 → write 96 if the pound sign is already printed on the form.
15p = fifteen pence; $4.99 = four ninety-nine.

Measurements

Know the common units and how they sound: metres, kilometres, square metres, kilograms, litres, degrees. If the unit is printed after the gap, write only the number.

Dates and times

Dates

You can write a date in several accepted ways: 22 June, June 22, 22nd June. All are marked correct. The shortest is the safest. Do not write 22 of June if the limit is one word and/or a number.

You must be able to spell the days and months. The ones that cause trouble: Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, February, August.

Ordinals: first, second, third, fourth, fifth, eighth, ninth, twelfth, twentieth, twenty-second, thirtieth, thirty-first.

Years: 1987 = nineteen eighty-seven; 2005 = two thousand and five; 2026 = twenty twenty-six.

Times

6.30 = ‘six thirty’ or ‘half past six’
6.15 = ‘six fifteen’ or ‘a quarter past six’
6.45 = ‘six forty-five’ or ‘a quarter to seven’
am / pm: if they are printed after the gap, do not write them again.

Addresses and postcodes

A typical British address: 14 Easterby Road. The house number comes first; the street name is often spelt. Know the common endings: Road, Street, Avenue, Lane, Drive, Close, Square, Crescent, Way.

British postcodes mix letters and numbers, for example BS8 4TQ. Type what you hear; spacing does not matter.

Spelling: the words people get wrong

Because Part 1 answers are everyday words, they are words you ‘know’. But knowing a word and spelling it are different things. These are frequent in IELTS and often misspelt:

accommodation · address · available · beginning · business · calendar · certificate · colleague · comfortable · different · equipment · excellent · experience · February · foreign · government · library · necessary · neighbour · opposite · questionnaire · receipt · recommend · restaurant · secretary · separate · temperature · tomorrow · vehicle · Wednesday

Make your own list from your practice tests. Any word you misspell once goes on the list and is tested again a week later.

Singular or plural?

This is the single most common reason for a lost mark in Part 1. Tool and tools sound almost the same, and only one is correct.

Listen for the final ‘s’ or ‘z’ sound.
Look at the form. ‘Students need to bring their own ____’ could take either, but ‘use of all the ____’ strongly suggests a plural, and ‘a ____ with table and chairs’ must be singular.
Check in the two minutes at the end: does each answer fit the grammar around the gap?

Worked example

Read this extract and complete the notes. (ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER)

Agent: …It’s about three kilometres outside a village called Aldwick. That’s A-L-D-W-I-C-K. Greg: Got it. And how many of us could stay there? There’d be six of us altogether. Agent: That’s fine. It sleeps six. There are three bedrooms, two doubles and a twin, and there are two bathrooms. Greg: One thing I need to ask about is our dog. Agent: You can bring her. There’s a charge, I’m afraid. It used to be fifteen pounds, but it’s twenty-five for the stay now. Greg: What time can we get in on the first day? Agent: You can arrive any time after four pm. And on your last day, we ask you to leave by ten.

Nearest village: 1 ________

Number of bedrooms: 2 ________

Charge for a dog: £ 3 ________

Earliest arrival time: 4 ________ pm

Answers: 1 Aldwick · 2 3 (or three) · 3 25 · 4 4 (or four)

What made these harder than they look?

Gap 2: four numbers are heard close together (six, six, three, two). Only three goes with bedrooms.
Gap 3: fifteen is the old charge. ‘It used to be… but it’s… now.’
Gap 4: ten is the leaving time. The form asks for arrival.

Training plan for Part 1

Dictation of letters and numbers, five minutes a day for two weeks. Use any source: a friend, a podcast giving phone numbers, online spelling recordings.
Do every Part 1 on this site. After each, list your errors under three headings: misheard, misspelt, wrong form (singular/plural, word limit).
Type your answers. The real test is on computer, so practise typing while listening.
Aim for 10/10 three times in a row before you consider Part 1 finished.

Key points

Part 1 answers are simple facts; aim for full marks.
Master the alphabet, especially A/E/I and G/J, and ‘double’ letters.
Distinguish -teen from -ty by stress.
Write dates and prices in the shortest correct form; do not repeat units already printed.
Check singular and plural against the grammar of the notes.

Now try it in a real section

A complete IELTS listening section in the official format — every answer explained.

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