Two task types come round again and again on this test: Listen & Type (you hear a sentence and write it exactly) and Read & Complete (a passage with letters missing). Together they make up a large slice of your score — and unlike speaking, they are almost pure trainable skill. Ten focused minutes a day moves them fast.
These tasks don’t reward clever ideas. They reward accuracy.
What each one is really testing
1Listen & Type is testing how much language you can hold in your head at once. Most people don’t mishear the sentence — they hear it correctly and then lose the end of it while typing the beginning.
2Read & Complete is testing whether you can predict a word from its shape and the sentence around it. Strong readers do this constantly without noticing.
The good news: both improve with the same habit — noticing whole words rather than single letters, and using the sentence to predict what must come next.
Before you start: these exercises use your browser to read sentences aloud. Turn your sound on, and if you hear nothing, use the Show sentence button instead — read it once, look away, then type it from memory. That trains the same skill.
Listen & Type
You will hear a sentence. You can replay it, but on the real test replays cost you time. Type exactly what you hear — every word, correct spelling, correct punctuation at the end.
The method that works
1First play: don’t type. Just listen to the whole sentence and hold the meaning. Typing while listening is what makes people lose the ending.
2Type immediately after it stops — while the sound is still in your head. Speed matters here.
3Use the second play to check, not to write from scratch. Fix small words: a / the / is / was / -s endings.
Small words lose the most marks: a, the, is, are, was, were, and plural –s.
1. Listen and type the sentence exactly.
The library closes early on Sunday afternoons.
2. Listen and type the sentence exactly.
My brother has been living abroad for almost three years.
3. Listen and type the sentence exactly.
The results of the experiment were surprisingly clear.
4. Longer — hold the whole sentence before you type.
Most students find that reviewing their notes regularly is more useful than studying all night.
5. Longer — watch the small words at the end.
She was offered the job because she had the right experience for it.
Memory-span drill (2 minutes)
Play any sentence above and, instead of typing, say it back aloud from memory. Whatever you can say, you can type. Stretch until you can hold a full long sentence in one go.
02:00
Read & Complete
A passage appears with letters missing from some words. You must finish each one. The first letters are given — your job is to work out the whole word from the shape and the sentence.
How to attack it
1Read the whole passage first, skipping the gaps. You cannot guess a word without knowing what the passage is about.
2Count the missing letters. The number of spaces tells you how long the word is — that alone rules out most wrong guesses.
3Say the sentence in your head with your answer in it. If it sounds wrong, it is wrong.
4Never leave a gap empty. An empty gap scores nothing; a sensible guess sometimes scores.
Type only the missing letters — the beginning of the word is already there.
Passage 1
Most peo who start learning a lang want to impro as quickly as possible. Many beli that the answer is simply to learn more grammar rules. In practice, the most diffic part is usually building enough vocabulary to unders ordinary conversation. The learners who succeed are the ones who prac regu, make plenty of mist, and slowly build the conf to speak.
Passage 2
Working from home has become nor for millions of people. Support argue that it saves time, reduces traf and lets people work when they concen best. Critics reply that it dama teamwork, because a quick conver across a desk is impos on a screen. The truth prob depends on the job: some tasks need quiet, while others need constant discu.
If you get one wrong, don’t just read the answer. Cover it, look at the letters that were given, and say the sentence aloud again. The point is to train the prediction, not to collect the word.
Real or Fake Word
You are shown words one at a time and must decide, fast, whether each is a real English word. Fake words are built to look English — real prefixes and endings glued to nothing.
The trap: hesitating. This task is scored on speed as well as accuracy. If you have never seen it and it doesn’t feel like a word you could meet in a book, call it fake and move on.
Click every word below that is real English. Leave the invented ones alone.
Notice what the fakes did.absorbment takes a real verb and adds an ending English doesn’t use for it (the real word is absorption). prosperate invents a verb from prosper. That is the whole trick — a real root wearing the wrong coat.
Spelling Traps
In Listen & Type, a correctly heard sentence can still lose marks on spelling. These are the words that cost test-takers the most.
1. You hear a word meaning a place where people live and work together. Type it correctly: c_______y
2. Type the correctly spelled word meaning happening every year.
3. Type the correctly spelled word meaning said or done without being planned.
4. Type the correctly spelled word meaning an event that happens (not incidence).
5. Type the correctly spelled word meaning separate, not connected.
The doubling rule that fixes half of these: when a word ends in a single consonant after a single stressed vowel, double the consonant before -ed or -ing — begin → beginning, refer → referred. When the stress is earlier, don’t — offer → offered, visit → visited.
Five Minutes a Day
These two tasks reward daily contact far more than long sessions. Five focused minutes beats an hour on Sunday.
1Two minutes — dictation. Play two sentences from tab 2, type them, check every small word.
2Two minutes — one passage. Do one Read & Complete passage against the clock.
3One minute — word check. Run through the real-or-fake list until it is instant.
Do it now — the full five minutes
Work through the three steps above without stopping. Note anything you got wrong; those are tomorrow’s five minutes.
05:00
Track yourself
I can hold a long sentence in my head before typing it.
I check a / the / is / plural –s before submitting.