IELTS Listening map, plan and diagram labelling: how not to get lost

Map and plan questions are the ones where people say the recording “went too fast”. It usually did not. The speaker kept walking, the listener stopped following, and after one wrong turn every later answer was wrong too. One lost bearing costs you several marks, not one.

This guide is about keeping your bearings. It covers maps, plans and diagrams, one of the six question types on the map in the IELTS Listening test format and question types.

What the task is

IELTS.org’s Listening format page lists plan, map and diagram labelling as one of the six question types. You complete labels on a picture, using options you are given or words from the recording. IDP’s guide to common Listening mistakes describes what the task asks of you: you need to figure out where things are, what something is made up of, or how it works. Maps and plans are the first of those, a diagram of an object or a process is the other two.

IELTS publishes no rule about which part of the test carries a map or how often one appears. The details below apply wherever the task turns up.

Get oriented before the recording

IDP tells you to read the questions first, and for a map that means reading the picture itself. You have the time before the recording to do four things.

1. Find the entrance or the starting point. A route has to start somewhere, and if the picture shows an arrow or a marked entrance, that is the likely starting point.
2. Read every label already printed on the picture. Places that are already named are your landmarks. They let you place each new answer.
3. Look for north. If the picture has a compass arrow, keep it in mind, because the speaker may say “north of the car park”.
4. Note the options. If the task gives letters, see where each letter sits and how the letters are laid out. They are not in the order of the speaker’s route.

Then look at the questions. The places you must label are named there, and the order in which they are named is the order of the route, because IELTS.org states that questions follow the order of the information in the recording.

The language of directions

Most of the skill is a small set of phrases. Learn them so that you hear the meaning without translating.

• Left and right are usually given from the point of view of the person walking the route. “On your left” means left of that walker, so imagine yourself facing the way they face.
• Opposite means facing across a space: “opposite the library” is across the corridor or the road.
• Next to, beside and adjacent to mean side by side.
• Between means in the gap with a place on each side.
• At the end of means the far end of a road, corridor or row.
• Behind and in front of depend on the direction of travel.
• Beyond and past mean you have walked by the landmark and it is now behind you.
• The first, the second, the third turning are counted as you walk.
• North, south, east, west are fixed on the picture and do not change with your position.

IDP’s guide lists getting lost with directions on a map or plan among the common Listening mistakes. Practise by drawing a simple plan on paper, describing it aloud to yourself with these phrases, and then checking your description against the drawing.

Follow the route, not the words

A worked example, invented for this guide. The picture is a plan of a small sports centre with the entrance at the bottom and places marked A to F. The first question is “Changing rooms”, the second “Café”. The speaker says: “From the entrance, walk straight ahead, and the changing rooms are the first door on your right. Carry on to the end of the corridor and you’ll find the café. It’s next to the gym, which is on the left.”

• Put your pen at the entrance.
• “Straight ahead, first door on your right”: find the first door on the right side along the main corridor. That letter is the answer for the changing rooms.
• “Carry on to the end of the corridor”: move the pen to the end.
• “Next to the gym, on the left”: find the place beside the gym on the left of the corridor. That letter is the answer for the café.

Nothing in it needs fast English. It needs a pen that moves as the route moves. Stop tracking for a sentence and the rest goes wrong.

Do not write a letter until the speaker has finished describing the place, because a second detail may settle the answer. Cross out a letter once it is used only if the instruction line says each letter is used once.

Letters or words

IELTS.org states that labelling uses options given to you or words from the recording, so you must read what the task wants.

• If the task gives a list of letters, write the letter. Writing the place’s name in place of the letter is not what was asked.
• If the task wants words from the recording, apply the word limit. IELTS.org states that you lose the mark for writing more than the word limit, and that hyphenated words such as “check-in” count as one word.
• Spelling counts. IDP states that if the spelling is incorrect the answer will be marked as wrong.

Write letters clearly: an unclear letter is a mark you earned and lost.

Diagrams of a process or an object

A diagram task asks you to label parts of an object or steps of a process, for example a device, a structure or a cycle. IDP says you need to figure out what something is made up of or how it works. The speaker describes the parts in an order, and IELTS.org states that the questions follow the recording.

So the method is the same: look at the diagram first, find the labels that are already printed, and work out where the gaps sit in relation to them. Listen for words of order, such as first, then, next, after that and finally. IDP also advises listening for signpost words such as “firstly”, “although” and “finally”. These tell you when the speaker has moved from one part to the next. Write what the speaker calls the part, in the form the word limit allows.

A short invented example: the diagram shows a water filter with labels “inlet”, “gap 1”, “gap 2” and “outlet”. The speaker says “Water enters at the top, passes first through a layer of sand, and then through charcoal before it leaves at the bottom.” Gap 1 is sand and gap 2 is charcoal. The order in the sentence is the order on the diagram.

When you lose the route

Every candidate loses the route sometimes. The recovery is short.

1. Stop tracking the lost question. Do not try to reconstruct what you missed.
2. Listen for the next place you can find on the picture: a landmark already printed, or the next question’s place.
3. Put your pen there and continue.

One lost answer stays one lost answer. The marks are worth it: IELTS.org lists about 16 marks out of 40 for band 5, about 23 for band 6 and about 30 for band 7, and a route that goes wrong can cost several answers at once. For the wider set of habits behind such slips, see IELTS Listening common mistakes and traps.

Practising maps

Practise the parts separately. Describe a place you know, such as your street, in the phrases above, and draw a plan from someone else’s description. Then practise a full recording heard once, and review each wrong label by finding the direction word you missed. The band score calculator shows what a few recovered marks do to your Listening band. For the other question types, see multiple choice and matching questions and form, note and table completion.