L07: Part 4 explained: the lecture

Part 4 is the final boss of IELTS Listening. One speaker gives a short talk on an academic topic. It could be about bees, old buildings, ocean plastic or the history of chocolate. There's no break in the middle, and the speaker doesn't stop for you. But Part 4 also has a hidden gift. Let me explain.

Why this matters

Part 4 has 10 questions, which is a quarter of your score. Many students give up on it and accept 4 or 5 out of 10. But Part 4 is usually note completion, and the notes follow the talk in order. If you learn to follow the structure, you can get 7 or 8 here even if you don't know the topic.

What Part 4 sounds like

The speaker usually:

1. Introduces the topic
2. Gives some background
3. Talks about two or three main points
4. Ends with a conclusion or a future idea

The notes on your paper follow the same order. Often they even have headings. Those headings are your map.

The hidden gift

The notes already tell you most of the lecture. Look at this:

Urban bees

• Bees in cities often have more __________ than bees in the countryside.
• Main reason: more variety of __________ in gardens

Before hearing anything, you know the talk is about city bees. You know they have "more" of something, probably a noun like food or flowers. You know gardens have variety of something, probably plants or flowers. You've done half the work before the audio starts.

A short example

"Now, you might expect that bees living in cities would struggle. In fact, research shows the opposite. Urban bees often have more food than their country cousins. Why? Mainly because private gardens contain a far greater variety of plants than farmland, which is often planted with just one crop."

Notice the speaker said "more food", just like the notes. But for the second gap, the notes say "variety of" and the speaker says "greater variety of plants". The answer is in the same place, with slightly different words around it.

Four rules for Part 4

1. Use the headings. They tell you when the speaker moves to a new point.
2. Predict the word type. Is it a noun, a verb, an adjective or a number?
3. Answers come close together. Sometimes two answers are in one sentence. Keep your eyes one question ahead.
4. Spelling still counts. Academic words like environment and agriculture must be spelled correctly.

Why Bangladeshi students struggle here

Many of us learned English from textbooks, not lectures. We're not used to a long talk with no visual help. The fix is simple but takes time: listen to short academic talks every day. Lesson L43 gives you a 30-day plan.

Try it yourself

"The first lighthouses were simply fires lit on hills. Later, towers were built, and by the 1800s most lighthouses used oil lamps with large glass lenses."

Early lighthouses: fires on __________. By the 1800s: oil lamps with glass __________.

Honest note

You won't understand every word in Part 4, and that's fine. Nobody expects you to. Focus on the gaps, not on understanding the whole lecture.

Your task today

Take a Part 4 you've done before. Before listening again, read only the notes and write down what you think the lecture is about, in two sentences. Then listen and see how close you were.