🎧 IELTS Listening – Practice 2
Section 2 · Monologue · Questions 11–20. A head ranger welcomes a group of new volunteers to Brackenfield Country Park and shows them round the site.
Section 2 is where the map is – and where bands are lost
Only one person is speaking, so Section 2 feels easier than Section 3. It isn’t. The speaker walks you round a place you cannot see, at their speed, once. If you lose your position on the plan you will lose four or five marks in a row. Read the three rules, do the two drills, then press play.
Warm-up A – Follow the directions 6 questions
Warm-up B – Not this, but that 6 questions
Listening – Section 2 Questions 11–20
💡 Tip: do not rewind on your first attempt. Mark what you missed, then replay with the transcript open and find the exact sentence that beat you.
Questions 11–14 – Multiple choice
Questions 15–20 – Plan labelling
Plan of Brackenfield Country Park. North is at the top. You enter at the main gate at the bottom.
| # | Your answer | Correct | Why |
|---|
Open the transcript below and trace the route again with your finger – every trap is marked so you can see the exact word that moved you to the wrong box.
📜 Audio transcript (open after you check your answers)
Narrator: Section two. You will hear a park ranger giving a welcome talk to a group of new volunteers at Brackenfield Country Park. First, you have some time to look at questions eleven to fourteen.
Narrator: Now listen carefully, and answer questions eleven to fourteen.
Ruth: Morning everyone, and welcome to Brackenfield. My name's Ruth, I'm the head ranger here, and you are the biggest volunteer group we have ever had, so thank you for coming out on a wet Tuesday.
Ruth: Let me start with what has changed since last season, because people always ask. We did apply for money for a second car park, and I'm afraid that application was turned down ← trap for B, so the little one by the gate is still all we have. And our opening hours haven't moved either, eight in the morning until dusk, exactly as before ← trap for C. The genuinely new thing this year, and the thing I would like you all to tell visitors about, is the minibus. It meets the eleven fifteen train at Brackenfield station and it brings people right to our gate. It is free, and hardly anybody knows about it yet. ← Q11 = A
Ruth: Now, safety by the water. There are life jackets hanging in the boat store, but you only need one if you are actually getting into a boat. Walking along the bank, you don't. ← trap for A Radios we have given up on completely, because the signal down by the lake is hopeless. ← trap for B What I do insist on, and there are no exceptions to this one, is that nobody works at the water's edge on their own. Find yourself a partner, every single time. ← Q12 = C
Ruth: You will have noticed the tape across the northern woodland. We did lose several trees in the February storms, but all of that was cleared weeks ago. ← trap for A And yes, there is a boardwalk planned up there, although not until the autumn. ← trap for B The reason the tape is there this week is that we have a pair of goshawks nesting, and if they are disturbed now they will abandon the nest altogether. ← Q13 = C
Ruth: Quite a few of you have asked about leading the Sunday guided walks. Please don't tell me about it this morning, because I will simply forget by lunchtime. ← trap for C There is a training day, but that was back in March and the next one isn't until next year, so don't worry, you haven't missed anything. ← trap for A What you need to do is go to the volunteers' page on our website and fill in the short form you will find there. That comes straight through to me, and I will pair you up with an experienced leader. ← Q14 = B
Narrator: Before you hear the rest of the talk, you have some time to look at questions fifteen to twenty.
Narrator: Now listen, and answer questions fifteen to twenty.
Ruth: Right. Let me take you round the site, so that you know where everything is when a visitor asks you. Have the plan in front of you. You are standing at the main gate, at the bottom of the plan, and the car park is behind you, on your left.
Ruth: The first two buildings are the ones everybody asks about, and they are both before you reach the south path. As you walk in from the gate, the toilets are on your right hand side. ← Q15 = I
Ruth: Directly opposite them, on your left, right next to the car park, is the children's playground. Do point that one out to families, because half of them walk straight past it. ← Q16 = H ("opposite" = the other side of the path)
Ruth: Carry on up to the south path and cross over. Along this next stretch there are two buildings on your left. The one in the far corner is the tool store, which is staff only, so nobody needs to know about that one. ← D is named, so D is not an answer The cafe is the nearer of the two, the one right beside the main path. Visitors always expect the cafe to be down by the water, and it isn't, so you will be pointing that out a great deal. ← Q17 = E
Ruth: On your right along the same stretch there are also two buildings. The first one you come to is the education room, where the school groups go. ← F is named, so F is not an answer Keep walking to the far end, right over on the eastern side, and that one is the boat store, sitting directly below the lake. ← Q18 = G
Ruth: Now cross the middle path. The lake is ahead of you on the right. There is one small building on the near shore, on the western side of the water, and that is the bird hide. Go in quietly, and please shut the door behind you. ← Q19 = C
Ruth: And finally, on the left of this top stretch there are two more. The one closest to the main path is the plant nursery, which is where you will all be working on Thursday. ← B is named, so B is not an answer The wildlife garden is the further one, right in the corner underneath the woodland. That is the one we open to the public at weekends. ← Q20 = A
Narrator: That is the end of section two. You now have half a minute to check your answers.
What to do next
Scored 8 or more? Go straight on to Section 3, where two speakers disagree with each other. Lost marks on the plan? Do this recording again tomorrow with the transcript open, and each time you meet a position word – opposite, the far end, the nearer of the two – stop the audio and point at the box before you read on. The vocabulary is small and it repeats in every test.