Listening

Listening is allocated 45-57 minutes. In this section, the question format includes multiple choice, summarize spoken text, fill in the blanks, highlight correct summary, select missing words, highlight incorrect words and write from dictation.

• Summarize spoken text assesses listening and writing. The task is to summarize the content of the audio in 50-70 words. At the end of the audio, the test taker has 60-90 seconds to deliver their response.
• The subskill tested is identifying a speaker’s purpose, style, tone or attitude, understanding academic vocabulary, inferring the meaning of unfamiliar words; comprehending explicit and implicit information, comprehending concrete and abstract information, classifying and categorizing information
• Multiple Choice questions assess listening skills. It is divided into two parts. In part 1, the test taker has to select multiple answers based on the content of the audio. This part is 40-90 seconds long.

• Multiple-choice, choose multiple answers – This part assesses listening
• In part two, you only select one correct answer after listening to the audio.

The subskill tested in multiple choice question are identifying a speaker’s purpose, style, tone or attitude, Identifying specific details, facts, opinions, definitions or sequences of events, identifying a speaker’s purpose, style, tone or attitude, identifying the overall organization of information and connections between pieces of information, inferring the context, purpose or tone; inferring the meaning of unfamiliar words, predicting how a speaker may continue.

• Fill in the blanks assesses listening and writing skills. There will be a passage with blank spaces. The task is to fill in the blanks in 30-60 seconds with appropriate words learned from the content of the audio.
• The subskills tested in this section are understanding academic vocabulary, Identifying words and phrases appropriate to the context, understanding academic vocabulary, comprehending explicit and implicit information, following an oral sequencing of information.                             

• Highlight correct summary and highlight incorrect words assess listening and reading skills. In both scenarios, there will be an audio playing a lecture. In highlight correct summary, the task taker has to select a summarized paragraph that best describes the content of the audio in 30-90 seconds. In highlight incorrect words, there is written text whose content matches the content of the audio. The task is to select words different from the written text.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

• The subskills tested in this section are inferring the meaning of unfamiliar words; comprehending explicit and implicit information, comprehending concrete and abstract information, classifying and categorizing information, understanding academic vocabulary, Identifying errors in a transcription, speed and accent; ; following a logical or chronological sequence of events, reading a text under timed conditions, matching written text to speech

• Write from dictation assesses listening and writing skills. The task is to type the exact content of the audio in 3-5 seconds.

The subskill tested in this section is using correct spelling.

• Selecting the missing word assesses listening,

The subskill tested in this section is inferring the meaning of unfamiliar words; comprehending explicit and implicit information, comprehending concrete and abstract information, Identifying words and phrases appropriate to the context, understanding academic vocabulary, forming a conclusion from what a speaker says, speed and accent;

• The subskills required in all other sections except in write from dictation and fill in the blanks is Identifying the topic, theme or main ideas.
• The subskills required in all other sections except in write from dictation, fill in the blanks, select the missing and highlight the missing words are identifying supporting points or examples, identifying supporting points or word
• The subskill tested in all other sections except in both multiple-choice question is following an oral sequencing of information
• The subskill tested in all other sections except in both multiple-choice question and fill in the blanks comprehending variations in tone, speed and accent

In this section there is negative marking in highlight incorrect answer and multiple-choice, choose multiple answer for any given wrong answer while the correct answer gets 1 mark.

Enabling skills score for summarize spoken text are scored as thus:

Content

• In summary writing, a test taker is awarded 2 marks for a good summary. A good summary must contain all important and relevant aspects. 1 mark is awarded if the summary is missing some points and fairly written while zero is if there is lack of misrepresentation of main points.

Form

• A summary in this section must be 50-70 words long. When this requirement is adhered to the mark awarded is 2 however if the test taker writes 40-49 and 71-100 words the mark scored becomes 1. Zero is awarded in case of less than 40 words and above 100 words.

Grammar

• Correct grammatical structure is awarded 2 marks while 1 mark is awarded if there are grammatical errors but communication can still be understood. Zero mark is awarded in case of bad grammar that hinders communication.

Vocabulary

• 2 marks is awarded for appropriate choice of words while 1 mark is awarded if there is minor error that doesn’t hinder communication. Zero mark is awarded to choice of words that hinder communication

Spelling

• If the entire is free from spelling mistakes the test taker gets 2 marks and 1 mark is awarded if there is only one spelling error. More than one spelling error gets a zero mark.