The whole Listening paper, in the shape and the order of the real one — with the help switched on. Every part opens with its support showing and its transcript open: the strategy, the steps, and under each question the line to listen for. Do the part with the help, press Check, then clear it, close the transcript, and do the part again by ear alone. That second attempt is the one the page reports.
This is the scaffolded mock: every part opens with its support showing. Use it, check, then clear it and try the part alone — that second attempt is the one to watch.
For each question, choose the correct answer. You hear each recording twice. In the real exam the three options are pictures; here they are in words, which changes nothing — all three things are mentioned, and only one of them answers the question.
Part 1. There are seven questions in this part. For each question there are three answers. You will hear each recording twice.
Question 1. You will hear a girl talking about a market.
Girl: I nearly came home with a lamp — a lovely old brass one — but the man wanted forty pounds and wouldn't come down. There was a mirror too, which would have been perfect for my room, except it was cracked right across the corner. So in the end I spent three pounds on a book about London in the fifties. Second-hand, a bit torn, but the photographs are amazing.
[pause 5s] Now listen again. [repeat] [pause 5s]
Question 2. You will hear two friends arranging to meet.
Boy: Shall we just meet at the cinema?
Girl: You'll never find it — it's down a side street and the sign's tiny. What about the café by the bridge?
Boy: It's closed on Mondays, isn't it?
Girl: Oh, it is. OK — I'll be at the station at six, by the ticket machines, and we walk from there.
Boy: Perfect.
[pause 5s] Now listen again. [repeat] [pause 5s]
Question 3. You will hear a man booking swimming lessons at a sports centre.
Man: Hi — I'd like to book the adult swimming lessons. How much are they?
Woman: They come in blocks of six. Sixty pounds for the block, or forty-five for members.
Man: I'm not a member.
Woman: Are you under nineteen? Membership's free under nineteen.
Man: I'm eighteen.
Woman: Then you're a member as soon as you fill in the form, and it's the lower price. Do you want to try a single lesson first? That's twelve pounds.
Man: No, I'll take the block.
[pause 5s] Now listen again. [repeat] [pause 5s]
Question 4. You will hear Tom and Nila talking about the school play.
Tom: So did you get a part?
Nila: I didn't go for one, in the end. I can't learn lines — I'd be standing there with nothing coming out.
Tom: Costumes, then? You're good at that.
Nila: Mrs Adeyemi asked me, but my sister's already doing costumes and I'm not spending six weeks in a room with her. No — I'm up in the box at the back with the lights. You press buttons in the dark and nobody looks at you. It's ideal.
Tom: Until you press the wrong one.
[pause 5s] Now listen again. [repeat] [pause 5s]
Question 5. You will hear a woman talking about her journey to work.
Woman: For years I got the bus — twenty-five minutes on a good day, an hour when it rained, and it always rained. Then last spring my brother gave me his old bike, and I was going to use that, but honestly, the main road terrified me. So now I just walk. It takes forty minutes, I've stopped paying for the gym, and I've never once been late.
[pause 5s] Now listen again. [repeat] [pause 5s]
Question 6. You will hear an announcement in a school.
Teacher: Good morning, everyone. A change to this morning: assembly is not in the main hall, because the floor's being repaired. It will be in the sports hall instead, and it starts at nine as usual. Years seven and eight, please go straight there from registration — do not go through the playground; the gate is locked while the builders' lorry is there. Thank you.
[pause 5s] Now listen again. [repeat] [pause 5s]
Question 7. You will hear a girl talking about a concert she went to.
Girl: We got there early, we were near the front, and the band came on right on time, which never happens. The sound was fine — I'd taken earplugs and didn't need them. The thing was, the man in front of me was about two metres tall, and he held his phone up for the whole of the first half, filming. I heard the concert. I watched it on his screen.
[pause 5s] Now listen again. [repeat] [pause 5s]
That is the end of Part 1.
How to read this part. Part 1 never asks you to catch a word; it asks you to follow a decision. All three options are said out loud, and two of them are then knocked down. With the help showing, the line under each question is the signpost — the rejection or the “in the end” — that comes just before the answer. Learn to hear those signposts now, so you can hear them without the page later.
Do it in this order.
Two traps live here. The first is the right fact under the wrong label — a real price or place, attached to the wrong person or the wrong tense. The second is the nearly option: something the speaker almost did, said clearly, and then walked away from. When you hear nearly, was going to or I thought about, what follows is not the answer.
On each question. The help for the ones you missed is now attached to the question itself — the options that cannot be right are crossed out, and the place to look is marked.
You will hear six different recordings. For each question, choose the correct answer. These are longer than Part 1 and they are not about facts: they ask what somebody feels, means or wants. You hear each one twice.
Part 2. Now listen to six different recordings. For each question, choose the correct answer. You will hear each recording twice.
Question 8. You will hear a boy talking about his weekend job in a café.
Boy: Everyone said the six o'clock starts would kill me, and the first two Saturdays they did — but you get used to it, and by now I'm awake before the alarm. Customers are mostly fine; you get one grumpy one a morning, and Dev, the owner, deals with those. What I still can't do is hold four orders in my head at once. I write everything down now, on my hand if I have to, and I still bring the wrong toast to the wrong table about once a shift.
[pause 5s] Now listen again. [repeat] [pause 5s]
Question 9. You will hear two friends talking about a school trip to the Tower of London.
Girl: I could have stayed all day. We had forty minutes with the crowns and then it was back on the coach.
Boy: The guide was the problem for me. Twenty minutes on one gate.
Girl: I liked him, actually — I'd have listened for another hour. But forty minutes in that place is nothing. It's enormous.
Boy: True. I didn't even see the ravens. And the shop — nine pounds for a pencil case!
Girl: You looked at the wrong shelf. I got a poster for four. But honestly, we needed the whole day.
[pause 5s] Now listen again. [repeat] [pause 5s]
Question 10. You will hear a man talking about his allotment.
Man: I waited four years for it — there's a list, and people don't give them up. And I'm not a gardener; I'd never grown anything. What happened was the flat. Two rooms, no balcony, and a job where I look at a screen from eight till six. I needed something I could stand in. So now I've got ten metres of ground behind the railway, half of it weeds, and I go there before work and just… dig. The vegetables are a bonus. Most of them die.
[pause 5s] Now listen again. [repeat] [pause 5s]
Question 11. You will hear a girl leaving a voicemail for a friend.
Girl: Hi Sam, it's Freya. You've still got my jacket — the green one, from the party. Don't post it, it'll cost more than the jacket did. And don't worry about tomorrow, I'm not in school, I've got the dentist. What would be brilliant is if you could drop it at my house on your way home — my mum's in all afternoon, so just ring the bell and give it to her. Thanks. Sorry to nag.
[pause 5s] Now listen again. [repeat] [pause 5s]
Question 12. You will hear a radio presenter introducing a competition.
Presenter: …and this month's competition is about your street. Not your house — your street. We had a lot of videos last time, and lovely as they were, we can't play them on the radio, so not this time. What we want is words: up to a hundred of them, describing your street to somebody who has never seen it. You can send a photo as well if you like, but it's the words we're judging. Entries to the usual address by Friday.
[pause 5s] Now listen again. [repeat] [pause 5s]
Question 13. You will hear a boy talking about a book he has read.
Boy: I saw the film first, like everyone, and I only read the book because my sister left it on the bus and I had two hours. It's long — six hundred pages — but I didn't notice, which tells you something. The ending's the same as the film, more or less. The difference is you're inside the girl's head the whole time, so when she makes that decision at the end, you understand it. In the film she just looks sad and it's over.
[pause 5s] Now listen again. [repeat] [pause 5s]
That is the end of Part 2.
How to read this part. Part 2 is about people, not information. The question always asks for a feeling, an opinion, a purpose or a point of agreement — and the speaker almost never says it in the words of the option. With the help showing, the line under each question is the moment just before the point lands: a rejection, or a signpost like what I still can't do. Hear the signpost, and the answer is the next thing said.
Do it in this order.
Listen for the signposts that carry the answer in this part: but, the thing is, what I still…, the difference is, what would be brilliant is. Everything before them is set-up. And treat I was going to and everyone said as warning labels: what follows is a wrong option.
On each question. The help for the ones you missed is now attached to the question itself — the options that cannot be right are crossed out, and the place to look is marked.
You will hear a teacher called Mrs Adeyemi telling her class about a trip to the British Museum. For each question, write the correct answer in the gap: one or two words, or a number. Write the word you actually hear — this part does not want your paraphrase, it wants her word. You hear the recording twice.
Go in through the 14 ______ entrance.
Groups: 15 ______ students with one adult.
First stop for every group: the 16 ______ gallery.
Lunch: meet at 17 ______
Lunch is in the 18 ______.
Hand in the worksheet on 19 ______.
Part 3. You will hear a teacher called Mrs Adeyemi talking to her class about a trip to the British Museum. For each question, write the correct answer in the gap. Write one or two words, or a number. You now have twenty seconds to look at the notes.
[pause 20s]
Mrs Adeyemi: Right, Year Nine, listen, because I'm only saying this once and half of you weren't here on Tuesday.
Mrs Adeyemi: Thursday. The coach leaves at eight — not quarter past, eight — and it drops us on Montague Place, which is round the back of the museum. We are not going in through the main entrance on Great Russell Street; the queue there can be an hour. We use the north entrance. It's smaller, it's quieter, and it's ours.
Mrs Adeyemi: Inside, I'm splitting you into groups. Last year we did groups of ten and it was chaos, so this year it's eight — eight students with one adult, and you stay with your adult. If you can't see your adult, you have gone wrong, not them.
Mrs Adeyemi: Every group starts in the same place: the Egyptian gallery, on the ground floor, because that's what the worksheet is about, and because by eleven it's so full you can't see the mummies for phones. Do that first. The Greek rooms are next door and you can do those after.
Mrs Adeyemi: Lunch. We meet at half past twelve — not one o'clock, we're back on the coach by two — in the Great Court. That's the huge room with the glass roof in the middle of the building; you cannot miss it. Bring a packed lunch. The café is lovely and it's about eight pounds for a sandwich, so unless your parents are feeling very generous, packed lunch.
Mrs Adeyemi: And the worksheet. I know. But it's not homework, it's the visit — you fill it in as you go round, and you hand it in on Monday. Not Thursday on the coach, when it's covered in crisps. Monday, first lesson.
Mrs Adeyemi: Questions? No? Good. Eight o'clock.
[pause 10s] Now listen again. [repeat] [pause 10s]
That is the end of Part 3.
How to read this part. This part is not a memory test, it is a form. The notes on the page are in the exact order Mrs Adeyemi speaks, and every gap has its answer said once, in her words. With the help showing, the line under each gap is what you will hear just before the answer — usually the wrong option being knocked down. When you hear that line, the next thing she says is what goes in the gap.
Do it in this order.
The trap in Part 3 is the near-miss: the main entrance, groups of ten, one o'clock, the café, Thursday — every one of them is in the recording, said clearly, and every one of them is last year's, somebody else's, or the thing she is telling you not to do. Her habit is to say the wrong one first, so if an answer arrives before she has finished the sentence, wait.
On each question. The help for the ones you missed is now attached to the question itself — the options that cannot be right are crossed out, and the place to look is marked.
You will hear an interview with a young man called Ben Okoro, who works as a lifeguard on a beach in Cornwall. For each question, choose the correct answer. The six questions follow the order of the interview, so if you are lost, the next question will find you. You hear it twice.
Part 4. You will hear an interview with a young man called Ben Okoro, who works as a lifeguard on a beach in Cornwall. For each question, choose the correct answer. You now have twenty seconds to look at the questions.
[pause 20s]
Interviewer: Ben, you've grown up by the sea. I suppose being a lifeguard was the obvious job?
Ben: I'd like to say it was the sea. Honestly, it was a Tuesday in August when I was fourteen. My mate Josh got pulled out by a rip current on a beach with no lifeguard on it, and a surfer got him back. I remember standing there thinking: if that surfer hadn't been there. So the next spring I did the course.
Interviewer: And the training — is it as hard as people say?
Ben: People think it's the swim — four hundred metres in under eight minutes, in the sea, in March. That's hard, but you train for it, and it's over in eight minutes. First aid is a list; you learn the list. The bit that nobody's good at is the watching. Six hours of looking at the same piece of water and staying interested in it, because the one time you look at your phone is the one time it matters.
Interviewer: What do people on the beach get wrong?
Ben: The flags. Red and yellow means swim here, between them — that's the bit we watch. Black and white means surfboards only. Red on its own means don't go in at all. And every single day, somebody walks straight past the red-and-yellow and swims in the bit with no flags, because it looks quieter. It looks quieter because the current's taking the water out. When we tell them, they come in. They're not stupid, they just haven't read the sign.
Interviewer: Are the visitors harder work than the locals?
Ben: Locals know the beach; they've been swimming here since they were three. Visitors have had one week off all year, they've driven six hours, and they are going in that water whatever it looks like. I don't blame them. But it means they're mine — for that week, I'm the only person on the beach who knows what the sea's about to do.
Interviewer: You must have some dramatic stories.
Ben: The day I think about isn't a rescue. It was flat calm, nobody in trouble all day, and at four o'clock a little girl — five, maybe — came up to the tower and gave me a shell. Because, she said, I'd been watching her all day and she wanted to say thank you. I'd never noticed her. That's the job. You watch a thousand people and none of them are yours, and then one of them is.
Interviewer: And next year?
Ben: The season's five months, and you can't live on five months. A lot of the lads go to Australia for the winter, which is their summer — I've done that once and it was brilliant, but it's the same job in a warmer place. They've asked me to help run the training course in March, and I will, but that's a fortnight, not a plan. I've applied to do paramedic training in September. Same thing, really — watching people and turning up when it goes wrong — but all year, and on land.
Interviewer: Ben Okoro, thank you very much.
[pause 10s] Now listen again. [repeat] [pause 10s]
That is the end of Part 4. That is the end of the test.
How to read this part. Part 4 is one long interview and the six questions run in the same order as the answers. You are never searching the whole recording — only listening for the next one. With the help showing, the line under each question is where to start listening — the interviewer's assumption, or Ben clearing one option away. He turns away from what the interviewer expects in almost every answer, and the real answer is what comes after the turn.
Do it in this order.
The options in this part are paraphrases, never quotations — “staying alert” for “staying interested”, “a different job” for “paramedic training”. A student waiting to hear the words of an option will hear none of them. Listen for the idea, and expect it just after Ben has knocked down what the interviewer assumed.
On each question. The help for the ones you missed is now attached to the question itself — the options that cannot be right are crossed out, and the place to look is marked.
The marks below are your unaided attempt on each part — the one you did after clearing the support, with the transcript shut.
If a part only worked with the transcript open, that is a reading result, not a listening one — and it tells you exactly which part to take to Mock 2, where the transcript stays closed until you ask for it.