The MUET Listening test format clearly shows the importance of listening for details. You will see this clearly when answering the test questions.
The MUET Listening test may cause you some worry. You feel that you are not sure of what to expect in this paper.
Do not worry because in this article we are going to go through the MUET Listening test format step by step. Knowing the test format will help you understand the test paper better.
Setting a target of getting a perfect score
As a teacher I would put great hope that my students will do well in this paper. This is because if compared to the other 3 papers namely the speaking, reading and writing tests; the listening test I believe provides the candidates with a greater chance of scoring higher marks in.
In fact I will encourage my students to try and get a perfect score of 30 over 30! This is due to the fact that I truly believe that getting a perfect score in the listening paper, can be done.
I notice also that because I have set such a high bar for my students to achieve, I could see that they are trying extra hard to do well in the listening paper. They seem to be extra careful when answering the listening test.
As a result more students are making lesser and lesser mistakes.
This is by no means to say that the listening test is an easy one. In fact, it is far from being easy. I would even say that the listening test is rather tricky at times.
Nevertheless, I do believe that this paper has the potential of helping candidates in their overall MUET marks. Students have a better chance to get a higher band for MUET if they could do well in the listening paper.
The first step to achieve this is for the students to first of all understand the MUET lsitening test format.
MUET Listening Test General Information
The purpose of the MUET Listening test is to measure the candidates’ ability to understand spoken language. Students will need to be able to understand spoken English. They will face this during their course of studies in the degree programmes and also in their everyday life.
Understanding spoken English would be experienced both during the more formal situations namely listening to lectures, discussions during tutorials, talks, briefings etc. and the more informal contexts such as having a chat with someone, listening to podcasts, having telephone conversations etc.
Before we go any further let’s see what you will be facing during the MUET Listening test.
Here is what you can expect:
- During the listening test students will be sitting in an exam condition.
- The question papers are then going to be given to each candidate.
- The recording is then switched on.
- The invigilators [invigilator: teacher in charge of the exam] will not be speaking any longer as you will see that all instructions will be coming from the recording.
- Indicate your answer in the answer sheet. You will need a 2B pencil to do this.
- Once the test has started, you will first of all be given 15 to 30 seconds reading time. This reading time will be given for each part of the test.
- Then the recording will be played the first time.
- Listen carefully and indicate your answer on the answer sheet at the same time.
- There will be a 5 seconds pause after the first listening.
- Then the recording is played the second time.
- By now you must have answered all the questions for that part.
- Move on to the next part of the paper.
MUET Listening Test Specification
Here is the MUET Listening Test specification at a glance.
Listening Test Specification
The paper is made up of 5 parts and is quite a long paper as it will take 50 minutes to complete. You will be answering 30 multiple choice questions (MCQs). This will provide you with a maximum of 90 marks for the paper and has a weighting of 25 % of the whole test. So you can see that the listening paper represents a quarter of the whole MUET test.
As you will know by now that the MUET test is made up of 4 papers which are Paper 1 Listening, Paper 2 Speaking, Paper 3 Reading and Paper 4 Writing. The speaking paper that is MUET Paper 2 will be held first which is a few days or a few weeks before the three other papers. Candidates will then be sitting for the reading, writing and listening tests on one designated [designate: to give a specified date, day etc.] Saturday. The listening test is the third and last paper for the day.
MUET Listening Test Overview
You will find that the listening texts that you will be listening to are made up of a variety of topics that ranges from topics that you find to be quite familiar to the more unfamiliar ones. The familiar topics are for instance taking care of your health and applying for a place in university to the more unfamiliar topics like infants’ [infant: a baby] vaccination and white-water rafting.
All of these topics would be presented in the form of recordings of monologues (1 person speaking) or dialogues (2 speakers speaking to each other).
MUET Listening Test Structure
Here is how the MUET listening test is going to be laid out.
Listening Test Structure
As mentioned earlier you will be given 15 to 30 seconds reading time to read the questions first before the recording is played. Read through the questions quickly to find out the main topic of the listening text. This reading time is for you to go through the questions and get some idea of the questions being asked in the section. Read my blog on 3 awesome strategies to score the listening paper to really be able to score this paper.
Each part of the paper is made up of 3 to 7 questions. I understand that the 15 to 30 seconds may not seem to be much time for you to make sense of all the questions but it will help you identify what the questions will be focussing on in general.
As the recording is being played for the first time, try and answer the questions as you go. This is not an easy task as you will be needing to read the question, make sense of it, listen to the recording that is going on, understand what is being said and at the same time choose the correct answer from the selection of answers and indicate your answer on the answer sheet given. That is such a tall order! [tall order: (informal) to refer to something that is difficult to do].
Nevertheless, [nevertheless: in spite of that – Malay: walaupun begitu] I believe that you will be able to choose the correct answer for the question. This is because the questions are worded mostly in a simple way. The way the questions are going to be asked is very straightforward [straightforward: easy to do and understand] for most part.
Some of the questions are made up of sentence completion type questions. So what you need to do is to listen for details for this type of questions to complete the sentence.
Also another reason why I think that you will be able to do well in this paper is because all the questions are MCQs. There is no need for you to write the answer and construct the sentence on your own that I feel is quite hard to do.
So after the first recording is finished, there will be a 5 seconds pause [pause: stop for a short time]. This is the time when you need to go back to questions that you have not answered and read the questions again and understand them again.
The recording is then going to be played for the second time. This is the time for you to listen out for the information that you have missed and complete the answering of the questions for that part of the test.
MUET Listening Test and CEFR
The CEFR (Common European Framework of References) for languages level here would be referring to the level of English used in the segments. A1 represents the basic level of English to C2 the most advanced level.
You can see in the diagram above that the level of English used in the listening test will be within the level of B1 to C1. Personally I think this is being very fair to the candidates.
This is because the highest CEFR level for the listening texts used that is in Part 5 will be at the level of C1. This level you will find is less advanced (less difficult) than the highest level which is C2. So, in other words the listening texts will be prepared using the more intermediate level of English. It will not be too easy nor too hard. This is another reason why I believe that my students and you as a MUET candidate will get a better chance in scoring this paper.
From the diagram above also, you will see that the texts used would gradually increase in difficulty from Part 1 being prepared at CEFR level B1 to the harder section of Part 5 that would be prepared at CEFR level C1.
You can read more about the CEFR in my What is MUET? blog.
MUET Listening Test Text Description
As stated before the listening texts are made up of a combination of dialogues and monologues. The dialogues between 2 people could be found in Part 1, Part 4 and Part 5 of the paper.
The listening text for Part 2 is based on a monologue by one person that is a recording of the person giving a speech, a description about a personal experience, a description of an item and others.
In Part 3 you will find that it is based on 3 short monologues by 3 different people. All three people will be talking about a common topic but will be giving their own perspective [perspective: point of view] of the topic.
I would like to point out also that all the characters talking in the recording for the listening paper will be clearly identified. This means that they will be given a name and who they are will also be stated clearly. In cases when no names are mentioned the setting of the speech will be given clearly.
The example of an instruction is given here:
Listen to a radio interview between a radio DJ and a dentist. As you listen, choose the correct answer for questions 18 to 24. Indicate your answer on the answer sheet.
MUET Listening Test – Tricky but Fair
As you would already know by now that the texts you will listen to and the questions asked in any of the 5 parts of the paper could be tricky at times. Firstly you will see that there is a gradual rise in the level of difficulty from one part to another. This level of difficulty could be seen in the choice of words used from Part 1 to Part 5.
Secondly, a candidate will realise that the production of the listening texts starts off with a much slower pace with more stress used on words and phrases to make them sound clearer in the earlier parts of the paper. You will notice then that this will gradually move on to a more natural pace of speech.
Thirdly is you will find that the topics chosen for each part will also be gradually moving from familiar topics in Part 1 to less familiar topics in Part 5.
However, I do not think that you should start to worry about the listening test as there is still light at the end of the tunnel [light at the end of the tunnel: (idiom) means that there is still hope]. This is because the MUET Listening Test provides a candidate with quite a bit of help in answering the test paper.
For one is that all the characters in the dialogues and monologues are clearly named and on top of that their roles and relationships are clearly stated in the instructions. By stating the names and their roles earlier on a candidate may get an idea of what to expect in the conversation that follows.
Examples:
- Listen to a conversation between Izzat a radio DJ and Joanna a dietitian. As you listen…
- Listen to a talk by a career guidance councillor about writing a good resume. As you listen…
From the first instruction you know that you will be listening to an interview with a dietitian. Even before the conversation starts you can guess that there will be some content on taking care of the food we eat, about weight control, food intake in connection to health and caring about your general health. So, you are more or less ready of what to expect.
In the second instruction a career guidance councillor will be talking about the best way to write a resume. Therefore, from the instruction alone you can expect to hear perhaps a list of items that should be present in your resume, what to avoid when writing a resume, and the correct way of writing one.
Another type of help provided to candidates in the listening test is the short few seconds given for you to read through the questions before the text is played for the first time as discussed earlier.
You will see the key words or key phrases in the wordings used in the questions. Identify them immediately and try and remember them and what is asked in the questions you have just read. As you listen to the recording for the first time, you will quickly relate to what you have just read before.
There will be moments when as you listen you will think “Hey, I read the question on this just now!” and you will make the link and choose the correct answer for that particular question. Kudos to you!
MUET Listening Test Step by Step
Let’s go through again of what to expect in the MUET listening test paper.
You will be listening to different texts talking about many different topics that you may find to be quite interesting. Take the chance to explore about the topics more. You will find that as your listening skill improves so will you knowledge about the world around us.
Grab your MUET reference book now and have a go at the listening section. Make sure you attempt all the listening exercises before the exams. You will slowly get used to listening in English as well as get very familiar to the type of questions you will find in the listening paper. Work hard and good luck!
