Cambridge IELTS 20 Academic Listening Test 4

• Each audio plays once. You CANNOT pause or rewind during the exam.
• Take notes on the question section as you listen.
• After audio ends, you have 10 minutes to review and finalize answers.

Cambridge IELTS 20 Academic Listening Test 4 packs the four classic IELTS contexts into roughly thirty minutes of audio, and the second half is where most candidates leak their easiest marks. Section 1 features a hotel reservation call; Section 2 moves into a tour-guide briefing for a visiting group; Section 3 shifts into students discussing an upcoming assignment; and Section 4 closes with a lecture on bees and pollination.

Section 1 uses note completion; Section 2 uses multi-answer multiple choice plus matching; Section 3 uses multi-answer multiple choice plus multiple choice; Section 4 uses note completion. In Section 2, treat the option list as fixed and the questions as moving targets — most matching errors come from re-reading the option list mid-audio rather than during the preview.

Read the preview gaps backwards from the last to the first — this forces you to notice the late-section cues that students normally miss. Pencil rough answers and circle anything you doubted, then resolve those during transfer. Watch your word limits: a four-word answer in a NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS task is automatically wrong. Steady, methodical work earns a clean band 7.

New to this skill? Read the Listening question types guide for tactics, scoring rules, and frequency analysis across Cambridge 10–20. Or browse all Listening practice tests.

Looking for written strategy? See the IELTS Blog for in-depth posts.