IELTS Listening matching questions
Matching gives you a list of items and a short set of options, and asks which option goes with which item. It is the one IELTS Listening task where the answers are not guaranteed to arrive in the order of the question paper, and that single fact is what makes it hard.
It usually appears in Part 2 or Part 3, where two or more people are talking. The recording goes through the items conversationally — somebody volunteers for one thing, somebody else takes another, one person changes what they offered. Your job is to keep three or four pairings in your head while the conversation moves.
The failure mode is not mishearing. It is writing down the pairings in the order they were mentioned and ending up with every one shifted by a place.
What it looks like on the paper
A list of numbered items and a box of lettered options, often reusable. In the computer-delivered test you drag each option into place; on paper you write the letter.
Where it appears
Parts 2 and 3. It needs more than one speaker to work, so you will not meet it in a Part 4 lecture. In Part 3 it often shares a recording with multiple choice.
Try one
Try one — no sign-up
Three friends are organising a picnic. Who is bringing the plates?
Where the marks actually go
Matching in the order you hear
The recording does not follow the list. Pair by pair the answers are right, and against the numbering they are all one out.
What to do: Write the letter next to the item as you hear it, wherever that item sits on the page, rather than filling the gaps downwards.
Swapping who did what
With three speakers, the voice you are listening to and the person being discussed are not the same person.
What to do: Note the name, not the voice. "Ben's bringing the drinks" may be said by Amy.
A pairing that is then changed
Someone offers to do something and later swaps with another speaker.
What to do: Leave your pencil marks light until the topic closes. The last word on a pairing is the answer.
The method, in order
- 1Read the options box first — there are only a few and you can hold them.
- 2Read the items and expect to meet them out of order.
- 3As each item is settled, write its letter beside it immediately.
- 4Listen for names rather than voices.
- 5If two items end up with the same letter and the options are not reusable, one of them is wrong — recheck the one you were least sure of.
How to practise this one on purpose
Practise with three-speaker audio and a pencil. Mark each pairing beside its item the moment it is settled, out of order, and resist filling the list downwards. Then check whether two items ended up with the same letter — that is the signature of having matched in the order you heard.
Common questions
Can I use an option more than once?
Only if the instruction says so. Read it: some matching tasks say options may be used more than once, and others give exactly as many options as items.
Why is matching harder than it looks?
Because it removes the one thing you can rely on everywhere else in the paper — that the answers come in order. It also usually sits in a three-speaker conversation, so you track people as well as content.
How does matching work in the computer-delivered test?
You drag each option into place rather than writing a letter, and you can move it again before the recording ends. That is easier than paper in one way and harder in another: it is quick to change your mind, and quick to leave an item empty because you meant to come back to it. Place something in every slot as you go.
Is this the type costing you marks?
The free listening check is six short clips and three minutes. It gives you an indicative band and, more usefully, which listening skills the misses cluster in — so the next month of practice goes somewhere.
Take the free listening test →The other question types
Lisenia is an independent study tool. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the British Council, IDP or Cambridge Assessment English. Band figures here are indicative practice guidance, not official scores.