In B1 Preliminary Listening sentence completion you read a set of notes with gaps and hear one speaker giving information. You write the word or short phrase you hear — usually one to three words, often a number, a day, a place or an object. The marks go to candidates who predict what kind of word each gap needs before the recording starts.
Read the whole set of notes before the recording starts. It tells you the topic and the order, which means you always know roughly where the speaker is.
Write ‘time’, ‘number’, ‘place’ or ‘noun’ beside each gap. Knowing you need a day of the week makes a day of the week audible in a stream of speech.
The sentence before the gap is usually paraphrased in the recording, and it is your signal that the answer is arriving in the next second or two.
This task wants the speaker’s word, not your version of it. A synonym that changes the grammar of the sentence loses the mark.
One to three words. If you are writing a clause, you have misheard the task; the gap is a slot in a sentence, not an answer to a question.
If you miss one, draw a line and get your eyes to the next sentence immediately. Staying on a missed gap is how candidates lose the three that follow.
Read each sentence with your word in it. If it produces ‘the cost is £12 pounds’ or ‘on Tuesday morning at’, something went in that should not have.
An answer the examiner cannot read scores nothing. Write days, months and numbers out in a form you are confident of rather than a half-remembered spelling.
Not thisThe gap said ‘costs £___’ and I wrote ‘£8’.
ThisI wrote ‘8’, because the pound sign was already printed.
Repeating a symbol or word already in the sentence produces ‘£ £8’ and can cost the mark.
Not thisI heard ‘on Wednesday’ and wrote ‘on Wednesday’ in a gap after ‘on’.
ThisI wrote ‘Wednesday’.
Reading the words either side of the gap prevents this, and it is the commonest careless loss in this task.
Not thisThe speaker said ‘swimming pool’ and I wrote ‘place for swimming’.
ThisI wrote ‘swimming pool’.
The task tests whether you caught the words, so a paraphrase is treated as not having caught them.
Not thisI missed gap four and spent the next twenty seconds on it.
ThisI drew a line and moved to gap five.
The recording does not wait, and one missed gap turns into three.
Not thisI wrote ‘Thursday’ as ‘Thuesday’.
ThisThursday.
Days and months are predictable answers, so their spelling is worth ten minutes of revision before the exam.
Not thisI filled a gap with a whole sentence to be safe.
ThisI filled it with two words.
Extra words can contradict the grammar already printed and turn a right answer into a wrong one.
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 the present simple of one verb, third person.
4Complete with the present simple of one verb, third person.
6Complete with one adjective.
7Explain in one sentence why you should predict the word class of each gap during the pause.
One good answer
If I know a gap needs a day of the week or a price, my ear picks that kind of word out of the speech automatically, instead of trying to understand every sentence in full.
8Complete with one adjective.
10Complete with one noun.
12Complete with one noun.
15Complete with one uncountable noun.
16The note reads: ‘The centre is closed on ___.’ Write one sentence saying what kind of answer you expect and what you would listen for.
One good answer
I expect a day of the week or a month, so I would listen for words like Monday, Sunday or January, especially after phrases like ‘we’re closed’ or ‘apart from’.
17Complete with one noun.
19Complete with one plural noun.
22Complete with one noun.
24Complete with the present simple of one verb, third person.
26You have written ‘on Saturday’ in a gap that follows the printed word ‘on’. Write one sentence saying what is wrong and how to fix it.
One good answer
The sentence now reads ‘on on Saturday’, so I should cross out my ‘on’ and leave only ‘Saturday’, which is all the gap needs.
27Complete with one noun.
29Complete with the present simple of one verb, third person.
33Complete with one adverb.
35Write one sentence describing what you would do in the pause before this task begins.
One good answer
I would read every sentence in the notes, then write one word beside each gap — day, price, place, noun — so I know exactly what kind of word I am waiting for.
36Complete with one noun.
38Complete with one plural noun.
Note
Pick Two Activity is an independent tool. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Cambridge University Press & Assessment, the British Council, IDP, ETS, Duolingo or any other exam board. Exam names are trademarks of their owners and are used here only to describe the exam you are preparing for. Every question on this page is original practice written by us: we do not provide, copy or reproduce official exam papers.
One to three. If your answer needs a comma or a verb of its own, you have written too much and may break the printed grammar of the sentence.
Enough to be understood. Small slips are usually tolerated, but a word that could be read as a different word is a risk, so revise the spellings you know you will need: days, months, numbers, common nouns.
Yes, and it is safer and faster. Write 12, not twelve, and leave out any symbol that is already printed in the sentence.
Look at the printed sentence again. One of the two will fit the grammar and the meaning of that sentence; the other belongs to a different gap or was rejected.
Follow the notes with the tip of your pen. Moving the pen down as the speaker moves on keeps your eye and your ear in the same place, which is most of this task.