Hi there, this is Fiona from IELTS.
With Fiona, and in today's podcast we're going to look at listening part four from book 18.
Now book 18 is the most recent book that we have.
This is July 2023 and I've been listening and trying to find out what kind of difficulty there is in Book 18.
What's different, and I'm going to talk about that in these podcasts.
The one I've chosen today, I think, is slightly more difficult, for different reasons than I've seen before.
I've noticed in this one that you have to retain more information than normal.
Now, it could be just this particular recording.
I'm not sure yet, but it seems to me that it's quite easy to get lost in this one.
And the lesson I've called it in the Members Academy is retaining information.
Now, listening tests should never be memory tests because that doesn't test your comprehension.
But I found in this listening, you have to remember what they just said.
You almost don't realise that you should have been listening for the answer.
And then you only realise it when it's kind of too late and you have to hang on to what they just said.
So it really tests your comprehension because again, if you're a lower level learner, you're just listening, able to manage writing down exactly what you hear, which is fine for part one.
You know, you hear numbers, you write numbers.
You hear letters, you write letters.
But of course it has to get more difficult and in part four, it really finds ways to test your, your kind of global understanding and not just understanding individual words or letters or numbers or whatever.
I'm going to talk you through this and I'll explain as I go through.
Again, if you're in the Members Academy, the video that I've included about this also has highlighted areas on the question paper so that you can follow where you need to be, and it gets you into that habit of just maybe processing information a little bit faster, being a bit more focused on where the question will come up.
I'll explain that now.
So it's a listening about Victor Hugo, a famous writer who wrote you probably know the musical Les Miserables.
Les Mis is a short version of it.
If you don't, I would really Google him, or Google Victor Hugo and then Google his house, which he bought on the island of Guernsey.
So, this listening is really about his house.
It's not about his writing at all.
So, go and Google the house.
It's on Guernsey, that's G-U-E-R-N-S-E-Y, and it's really kind of spectacular how he furnished it, how he decorated it, and now it's actually a museum.
I've never been there, but it's definitely now on my bucket list, having read about it and seen the images on Google.
It might give you bit of background knowledge that might help you with this listening as well.
So let's go.
It does kind of mention his background.
So the first heading and, by the way, this is all gap fill and it's all one word only.
It's a series of bullet points about his life story.
It starts with his novel Les Miserables.
It's a French word, obviously his French.
And it has two bullet points.
It says it has been adapted for theatre and cinema.
And then we know more about its overall something than about its author.
So it's here, reference word, referring back to his novel.
So what do you know about his novel?
What could come in that gap?
What do you know about the story?
And that's a little clue, because it is really guessable that we do know about the story more about that than we know about him.
So start your prediction skills going.
And the presenter says, The person I've chosen to talk about is the French writer Victor Hugo.
Many people have heard of him because of his novel Les Miserables, which he wrote in 1862, which is famous around the world.
It became a stage musical in the 1980s and a film version was also released.
So you see that film version and the synonym is cinema.
So you know where you are.
She says.
So some of us, I'm sure, have a pretty general idea of the plot, but we know much less about the author.
So that's the answer.
We know about the plot, P-L-O-T.
We know what happens, but we don't really know much about him.
So then she goes on to talk about his early career.
She does mention that she's going to talk later about the home he had on the island of Guernsey in the British Channel Islands.
Now, I think that's quite distracting because you immediately jump down to the last section, which is about his house on Guernsey.
So we need to avoid that trap and then go back to what she said about his early career.
It says in Paris his career was successful and he led the romantic movement, so stick with that.
It says he was at the height of his career in Paris, synonym his career was successful As far as literature was concerned.
He was the leading figure of the Romantic movement.
So, that's the first bullet point.
The next bullet point says he spoke publicly about social issues such as something and education.
Now, if you know anything about Les Mis...
And I don't.
Apart from, I did the book as part of my degree.
I haven't seen the musical, but I kind of know it's about.
You know, terrible conditions for poor people.
So this is a social issue.
What other social issues could there be?
Well, listen for the gap.
It says.
As well as being a literary genius, He also gave many speeches about issues like the level of poverty in his society.
So, there we have the answer, poverty.
Synonym, gave many speeches.
He spoke publicly.
Social issues is the same word.
Like, such as the level of poverty.
Now, Poverty is on lots of my lists.
Of course it's a really useful word for task two, but it's also on my word formation list because it's irregular.
The word poor is the adjective and then poverty is the uncountable noun.
So it comes up quite a lot in the listening test and that's why it's on two of my lists.
So what we know next is that napoleon the third disliked his views and exiled him.
And the next heading and gap fill is all about his exile from france.
Where did he go?
Again, try to predict, get ready to listen for a place.
The gap says victor hugo had to live.
Had to live Elsewhere, in somewhere.
And the answer comes actually really quickly.
It says Victor Hugo was forced.
That's the synonym for had to.
Was forced to reside, synonym for live.
So Victor Hugo was forced to reside in other parts of Europe.
And that is the answer.
Other parts, elsewhere.
Europe is the gap fill.
E-U-R.
OPE.
I guess quite difficult sound spelling association.
Europe is the pronunciation and the spelling is OPE at the end.
I am sorry about those things.
OK, so what's next?
Now, this is where I
I mentioned the fact that things come in almost like a back to front order.
So 34, it says he used his income from the sale of some gap.
So income from the sale of something that he had written.
So he wrote something to buy a house.
Guernsey.
So what did he write?
What did he sell in order to buy this house?
And this is what it says?
To do this, he had to spend a great deal of time in the home that he had on Guernsey.
This was a property that he bought using the money he'd made in France from the publication of a collection of his poetry and poetry is the answer.
But it took a kind of roundabout way to get there.
So the property that he bought using the money that he'd made in France from the publication of a collection of his poetry and that's what I think is making this text more difficult.
Also, poetry kind of an irregular word, a bit like poverty really.
Poem is the singular, a poem, and poetry is the uncountable noun, a collection of poems.
Less common.
I guess that's one that you would really need to know.
So then it goes on to talk about his house on Guernsey, and again to stick with, so you don't lose your place.
It says he lived in this house until the end of the empire in France.
And it does say he lived there for 15 years, returning to France in 1870 when Napoleon's empire collapsed.
So this is where you are.
But then It talks a lot about him decorating and furnishing each level of the house in a unique and wonderful ways.
And you might start to get lost.
So the next bullet point is about the ground floor.
And the ground floor contains three things.
Portraits, gap, we don't know, and tapestries.
So what does he say?
What comes in between portraits and tapestries?
It says he lived in the house with his family, and portraits of its members still hang in rooms on the ground floor, along with drawings that he did during his travels that he felt were important to him.
In other ground rooms there are huge tapestries that he would have designed and loved.
Now there's a lot of information there for each of the three items.
So the first one is portraits of members hanging the rooms on the ground floor along with drawings, and that's the answer that he did during his travels he felt were important to him.
So there's a lot of like padding around the word and you have to isolate that one word drawings.
The same happens in in gap 36.
He bought cheap something made of wood, so you've got to listen for something wooden that was also cheap.
He says the walls are covered in dark wood panelling.
Now I think that's a bit of a trick that Victor Hugo created himself using wooden furniture that he bought in the market.
The items were relatively inexpensive.
So you see, they say wooden furniture that he bought in the market.
The items were relatively inexpensive.
It's a lot of information when all you're looking for is he bought cheap something made of wood.
So what did he buy that was inexpensive and made of wood?
Wooden.
And the answer is furniture.
Now, furniture is another word that's on my list of common IELTS answers.
Why?
Because of the pronunciation.
So, it ends in CH like nature and culture.
And because of the spelling, which is T-U-R-E, people often pronounce it as, well, kultur, for example. and that means that it's more difficult to hear as furniture and so the answer is furniture now let's come to gap 37 and it's another example of where it's really easy to get lost it talks about the first floor which has furnished areas with wallpaper and something else that have a Chinese design.
So we're looking for really two things with a Chinese design.
One of them is wallpaper and the other is the thing that we want to put in the gap.
So what does it say?
It says on the next level of the house, so you have to work out that the first floor is the next level.
There are two impressive lounges where he entertained his guests.
So I guess you have to guess that furnished areas are lounges.
One lounge has entirely red furnishings such as sofas and wall coverings.
Now that's a trick.
The wall coverings does not refer to the wallpaper. that we need.
It's really hard.
It says such as sofas and wall coverings and the other blue.
So that's really all irrelevant for what we need.
The important thing comes next.
There's a strong Chinese influence in these areas, in things like the wallpaper pattern and the lamp, So lamps is the answer.
I think quite difficult to hear.
L-A-M-P-S.
I think it's difficult because of the consonant cluster.
So if you struggle with those consonants like M, P and S all together, then you might say lampusa, which a lot of people do.
And again, if you find that difficult to pronounce, then you'll find it difficult to recognise in the text, even though it's one of those quite simple words and a simple spelling.
Next, it talks about the library, so you can find your place.
It says, he left many of his favourite books in his library, which forms the hallway to the third floor and was a comfortable area where he could relax and enjoy his afternoons.
Then at the very top of the house, and this is what we're listening for.
We're listening for this gap.
He wrote in a room at the top of the house that had a view of the something.
We just need to know what was the view.
And it says there's a room called the lookout.
Called that because it looks out over the harbour.
And harbour is the answer.
Again, listen to the schwa in the second syllable.
It's just buh.
But the spelling could be American, could be British.
Both are OK.
Is h-a-r for har and then b spelling is b-o-u-r in British spelling or b-o-r in American and both are perfectly okay.
So the answer is harbour.
And just a side note, we did a listening a few weeks ago about Matthew's Island holidays And they had almost exactly the same kind of gap.
It was about a hotel which looks out over a river.
And the gap Phil was, which has a view of the, and the answer was river.
So, as we know, these geographical features rivers mountains harbours stations, things that you see in everyday life are quite common in hotels.
IELTS gap.
Fill question 39 again.
We're looking for two things.
He entertained other writers as well as poor something in his house, so he obviously entertained two types of people.
The first one is other writers and the second one is types of people who are poor, And it says he was a man of many talents, but he was also true to his values.
While living in his house on Guernsey, he entertained many other famous writers.
But he also invited a large group of local children from the deprived areas of the island dinner once a week.
Again, there's a lot to process there.
Because it didn't say poor children, it said local children from deprived areas, which of course we know is poor children.
Children, quite a common gap fill word.
Because because again, it's irregular.
They love children and women and people and men in the gap fill.
And the last one is a really common one.
I've seen this three or four times now.
If you look at my list of common answers in the gap fill, you can get it in my shop on my website.
This is one of them and it's the last one.
Question 40.
It says Victor Hugo's something gave ownership of the house to the city of Paris in 1927.
So if you take a step back and you think, OK, in 1927, he was probably dead.
So somebody gave his house to the city of Paris.
So who would have the right to do that?
Well, You could think maybe his wife or his children.
And here's what it says.
It says in 1927, so it's kind of going backwards again.
In 1927, the house was owned by his relatives and they decided to donate it to the city of Paris.
So the answer was guessable.
It's relatives.
It's plural.
But could easily miss that, because it only says it was owned by his relatives.
It doesn't say like his relatives gave it to the city of Paris.
It says the house was owned by his relatives and they so it's the reference word they decided to donate it reference word to the house to the city of Paris.
So the importance of Reference words cannot be underestimated.
These are the micro skills you need for listening.
Half the time you think, well, I need vocabulary, I need synonyms.
But the other half of the time you just need these very obvious short, small words, these reference words.
He she it because they often refer back to the previous phrase or clause.
And that is almost like the key or the sign of a good listener is somebody who can retain that information and those chunks.
So that is something that comes with time.
It's not a strategy that you can just suddenly apply.
You go through the tape scripts, you notice these things.
And little by little it will help kind of train that skill of listening to chunks and understanding the full meaning in order to get that one word.
Alright, that's it for today.
Thank you very much for listening.
If you want the full video, the full text and all the tips, they are, of course, in my listening course, which also is connected to my two other courses, which is Connected Speech for Listening and the 101 Most Mispronounced Words course.
Because if you mispronounce them, then you also won't hear them.
So that is all connected and the word formation is connected and the spelling patterns are connected and the list of the most common words in the listening test.
So that's all included in the Members Academy.
And if you've got your exam coming up soon...
I would start now, because there is a lot of information in that course and I'm adding to it every week.
All right.
Thank you very much for listening.
Do let me know if you've got any questions.
Bye bye.
