Part 4 – lectures and note completion

How to follow an academic lecture in IELTS Listening Part 4 - using the notes as a map, recognising signposting language and catching one-word answers.

Part 4 is a talk by one speaker on an academic subject: the history of a material, the behaviour of an animal, a development in technology. It lasts five or six minutes and, unlike the other parts, usually runs without a break. Ten questions are answered in one continuous stretch of listening. Most candidates lose more marks here than anywhere else, yet the task is more predictable than it appears.

What the task looks like

Nearly always, Part 4 is a set of notes with ten gaps and the instruction Write ONE WORD ONLY for each answer.

The history of salt

Early production

• On the coast: seawater was left in shallow 31 ________ to evaporate
• Inland: water from salt springs was boiled in pots made from 32 ________

Importance in the ancient world

• Salt was mainly needed to preserve 34 ________ and meat
• Roman soldiers received money for salt – a possible origin of the word ‘35 ________’

Occasionally you will see sentence completion, a table, or a few multiple choice questions instead.

The notes are a map of the lecture

A lecturer organises a talk into sections, and the notes follow the same organisation, with headings. Before the recording starts you have about 45 seconds. Use them like this:

1. Read the title and the headings. They are the outline of the lecture: early production → importance in the ancient world → trade and politics → salt today.
2. Read each line and predict the gap (word type and likely meaning), exactly as in Lesson 2.
3. Highlight one anchor word per line: a name, a date, a technical term. Those words are likely to be spoken and will tell you where you are.

During the lecture, the headings tell you when the speaker moves on. If you are waiting for gap 33 under ‘Early production’ and you hear ‘So why did salt matter so much?’, the lecturer has moved to the next heading, and you must move too.

Signposting language

Lecturers tell the audience what they are doing. These phrases are your best friends in Part 4, because they mark the boundaries between sections and warn you that something important is coming.

Rhetorical questions deserve special attention. ‘So what is a sourdough starter?’ is not a real question; it is a heading spoken aloud. The answer to the next gap is usually in the next two sentences.

The answers are usually nouns you can picture

Look at a typical set of Part 4 answers: pans, clay, staircase, fish, salary, gold, tax, march, roads, health. Most are concrete nouns. Lecturers describe materials, objects, animals, places and people, and those are what the notes ask for.

The word is nearly always said exactly as you must write it. What is paraphrased is the rest of the note:

So: unpopular = hated; in winter = with cold winters. The gap word itself does not change.

Distractors in lectures

A lecturer does not change their mind as speakers in Parts 1 and 3 do, but there are still traps.

Two possible words.

‘a typical coastal light was simply a fire of wood, or later of coal, burning in an iron basket’ Notes: fires of wood or ________ in iron baskets

The notes already contain ‘wood’, so the answer must be the other one. Always check which word is printed.

The common belief that is wrong.

‘People used to believe these organisms drifted in from the air of the kitchen. We now know that they come overwhelmingly from the flour.’ Notes: The microbes in a starter come mostly from the ________

The benefit you might expect.

‘You might think bakers adopted it because the bread tasted better. It didn’t. What factory yeast offered was speed.’

Coping with the pace

There is no pause in Part 4, so you must read, listen and type together.

• Type quickly and move your eyes to the next gap. Do not admire your answer.
• If you are unsure of a spelling, type your best attempt and correct it in the two minutes at the end.
• If you miss a gap, let it go. Listen for the anchor word of the next line. One lost answer must not become three.
• Keep one line ahead. While listening for gap 35, be aware of what gap 36 needs, in case the lecturer reaches it sooner than you expect.

Unknown words

Part 4 contains academic and technical vocabulary. Three things help.

1. Technical terms are normally explained. ‘an outbreak of mange, which is a skin disease caused by a tiny parasite’. The answer is more likely to be in the explanation (disease) than to be the technical word.
2. You do not need to understand everything. If a sentence does not relate to any line in the notes, let it pass.
3. Answers are spellable. IELTS does not ask you to write a word that a well-prepared candidate could not spell. If you think you heard something very obscure, look for a simpler word nearby.

Worked example

Read the notes, then the extract.

Foxes in the city Living conditions

• Favourite place for a den: under 34 ________
• Most common cause of death: 35 ________
• Bristol, 1990s: most foxes were killed by a skin 36 ________

‘As for where they live, foxes dig their dens in quiet corners, on railway embankments for instance, but the place they seem to like best is underneath sheds, where they’re dry and rarely disturbed.

You might think that the city is a safe environment, with no hunters and plenty to eat. It isn’t. The average city fox lives for less than two years. Disease and fights with other foxes account for some deaths, but the largest single cause is traffic.

Populations can also collapse suddenly. In the city of Bristol, in the 1990s, an outbreak of mange, which is a skin disease caused by a tiny parasite, killed more than nine out of ten foxes.’

• 34 – Two places are mentioned: railway embankments (‘for instance’) and sheds (‘the place they seem to like best’). Favourite = like best → sheds.
• 35 – Disease and fights ‘account for some deaths, but the largest single cause is traffic’. Most common = largest single → traffic.
• 36 – The anchor words Bristol and 1990s tell you exactly when to listen. ‘Mange’ is explained as ‘a skin disease’. The notes say ‘a skin ____’ → disease.

Practice routine

1. Outline first. Before playing a Part 4, write the headings from the notes on paper. While listening, tick each heading when you hear the lecturer move to it. Do nothing else. This trains you to follow structure.
2. Second listening for answers. Now do the task normally.
3. Signpost hunt. With the transcript, highlight every signposting phrase.
4. Listen to real lectures. Short talks on science, history and society, the kind found on educational podcasts and university channels, are the best general preparation. Try to note the three or four main points of each.

Key points

• Part 4 has no break: read all ten questions in the pause before it starts.
• The headings in the notes are the structure of the lecture.
• Signposting phrases and rhetorical questions mark each new section.
• Answers are mostly concrete nouns, spoken exactly; the surrounding words are paraphrased.
• If you miss a gap, move on at once and listen for the next anchor word.

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