B1 Preliminary Listening Part 1 plays short recordings and gives you three pictures for each. Everything in all three pictures is usually mentioned, so the answer is decided by one phrase — a change of plan, a correction, a rejection. Looking at the pictures before the recording starts is what makes that phrase audible when it comes.
Find the difference between them first. If the pictures show a bus, a train and a bike, you are listening for a means of transport and nothing else matters.
Say the words each picture would need — ‘umbrella, raining, wet’ — silently before the recording starts. Predicted words are heard; unpredicted ones go past.
‘Actually’, ‘but in the end’, ‘I was going to, but’ and ‘we changed our minds’ almost always come immediately before the correct answer.
The first thing mentioned is very often rejected two seconds later. Wait for the speaker to finish the sentence before you decide.
Put a small mark by your answer rather than committing. The second listening then has a job: confirm or change, rather than hear it all again from scratch.
If you missed it, let it go and get ready for the next one. Chasing a lost answer is how candidates lose two marks instead of one.
Go into the second listening knowing which two questions you need. Your attention is limited, and spending it where it is needed doubles its value.
Before the paper ends, fill every remaining answer. A guess between three pictures is a real chance; a blank is none.
Not thisI heard ‘umbrella’, so I chose the umbrella picture.
ThisThe speaker said she took an umbrella but left it on the bus.
Every option is mentioned. Hearing a word is not evidence; hearing what happened to it is.
Not thisI spent the second listening on the question I had already answered.
ThisI spent it on the two I had not.
The second listening is a resource with a fixed size, and most candidates waste it on questions that were already secure.
Not thisI didn’t hear question three, so I stopped concentrating.
ThisI let question three go and caught question four.
A lost question costs one mark; losing concentration costs several.
Not thisThe man said half past seven, so the answer is 7.30.
ThisThe man said half past seven but the woman corrected him to half past eight.
In two-speaker recordings, the second speaker frequently corrects the first, and the correction is the answer.
Not thisI wrote my answers at the end from memory.
ThisI marked each answer as I heard it.
Short recordings arrive quickly, and memory for three unmarked answers fails within a minute.
Not thisI read all three options while the recording was playing.
ThisI read them in the pause and listened with my eyes on the pictures.
Reading and listening at the same time means doing neither well, and the pause exists exactly to prevent this.
40 original questions. The first 10 are open to everyone. Answers are checked in your browser and never sent to us, so you can share this page with a class as it is.
1Complete with one adverb signalling a correction.
4Complete with the past simple of one verb.
6Complete with the past participle of one verb.
7The three pictures show a train, a coach and a car. Write one sentence saying what you would listen for.
One good answer
I would listen only for the means of transport the speaker actually used in the end, ignoring the ones they mention but reject, and for change words like ‘actually’ or ‘instead’.
9Complete with one verb.
11Complete with one word.
14Complete with one verb.
15Explain in one sentence how you should use the second listening.
One good answer
I should go into it knowing exactly which one or two questions are still open, and spend my attention on those instead of listening to everything again from the beginning.
16Complete with the past simple of one verb.
18Complete with one word.
21Complete with one verb.
23Complete with the past simple of one verb.
25You missed question five completely. Write one sentence saying what you should do next.
One good answer
I should stop thinking about it, get my eyes onto question six straight away, and come back to five on the second listening, guessing if I still have nothing.
26Complete with one word.
28Complete with the past participle of one verb.
30Complete with the present simple of one verb, third person.
33Complete with the past simple of one verb.
35The three pictures show a bicycle with a flat tyre, a bicycle with a broken chain, and a bicycle with no lights. Write one sentence saying what language you would listen for.
One good answer
I would listen for the specific part that went wrong — words like ‘tyre’, ‘flat’, ‘puncture’, ‘chain’ or ‘lights’ — and especially for a sentence saying which problem actually stopped the ride.
36Complete with one verb.
38Complete with the -ing form of one verb.
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Twice. That is why a missed answer is not a lost one — but only if you mark what you have and know what is still open before the second play begins.
Because the task tests whether you follow what happens, not whether you recognise a word. Every option is named so that word recognition alone cannot get you the mark.
No more than a mark or a number. Writing takes your attention away from the recording, and these items are short enough that you will miss the sentence that matters.
Wait for the end of the speaker’s turn. One of them will be rejected, corrected or replaced, and the rejection usually arrives in the last few words.
Use any short audio in English and pause it before the end of a sentence, predicting how it finishes. That builds exactly the anticipation this task rewards.