Follow these tips for answering cloze (also called Fill-in-the-blank) question in the IELTS Listening and Reading tests. These tips will help you understand how you need to write your answers on your answer sheet. Knowing these simple rules will help you avoid some common mistakes in the IELTS test and improve your IELTS Listening and Reading scores!
Answering Fill-in-the-blank questions effectively takes more than English ability. You also need to know how to write your answers in ways that will help you get all the correct answers you deserve.
Check the maximum number of words & numbers you are allowed
At the beginning of a group of Fill-in-the-blank questions, you will be told the maximum number of words you are allowed to use for each answer. This means that some answers only need one word but at least one answer will likely require two words to be correct.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.
If you saw these directions on test day, if you write down three words for any question, it will be marked incorrect. This is true even if some of the three words you wrote are actually the correct answer.
You may also be told that it is okay to use a number as part of an answer. This means one answer might be only a number (such as a phone number or amount of money), or an answer will be a combination of one or two words and a number (such as an address or date).
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.
For Fill-in-the-blank questions in the Reading Test, the instructions will be phrased a little differently.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
We recommend you always circle how many words you are allowed in your test book! In addition, when you are transferring your answers to your Answer Sheet, double-check that you don’t have too many words for each answer.
IMPORTANT: Articles (‘a‘, ‘an‘, and ‘the‘) are words, too! You need to include them in your word count.
Don’t worry about capitalization
For Fill-in-the-blank questions in the IELTS Listening and Reading Tests, it is not necessary to capitalize the first letter of names. Also, it is okay if you write all your words with upper-case (capital) letters. Alternatively, you could write all your words using lower-case letters.
Look at these ways of writing ‘Japan’.
- Japan
- japan
- JAPAN
These would all be acceptable ways to write the name ‘Japan’ if that was a correct answer on the test. They are all equal in the eyes of the IELTS Examiner!
Many students choose to write all their answers with every letter being upper-case. They do this because capital letters are usually easier for others to read.
IMPORTANT: It is important to use appropriate capitalization in the IELTS Writing Test in your Task 1 and Task 2 responses.
Abbreviate months, days, and street words
In Section One of the IELTS Listening test, some correct answers will just be the name of the a month, such as ‘March’ or ‘July’. It is okay to use a 3-letter abbreviation for months. This can be very helpful for months that are difficult to spell, such as February and September!
Months
| Month | Abbreviation |
| January | Jan |
| February | Feb |
| March | Mar |
| April | Apr |
| May | (no abbreviation) |
| June | Jun |
| July | Jul |
| August | Aug |
| September | Sep or Sept |
| October | Oct |
| November | Nov |
| December | Dec |
Also, you can abbreviate days of the week!
Days of the Week
| Day of the Week | Abbreviation |
| Sunday | Sun |
| Monday | Mon |
| Tuesday | Tue or Tues |
| Wednesday | Wed |
| Thursday | Thu or Thur |
| Friday | Fri |
| Saturday | Sat |
You can see that for some of the days of the week you can use a 4-letter abbreviation!
You can also abbreviate ‘road words’ (such as ‘street’ and ‘avenue’) if they are being used in an address.
For example, if the correct answer for a question was ‘1542 Southwest Montgomery Street’, you could write your answer like this:
1542 SW Montgomery St
The types of roads listed below are ones that are most common to hear in Section One of the IELTS Listening test.
Types of Streets
| Type of Street | Abbreviation |
| Avenue | Ave |
| Boulevard | Blvd |
| Lane | Ln |
| Place | Pl |
| Road | Rd |
| Street | St |
| Terrace | Ter or Terr |
Finally, it is also acceptable to abbreviate ‘compass directions’ (such as ‘north’ and ‘southeast’) in the IELTS Listening and Reading tests.
Compass Directions
| Compass Directions | Abbreviation |
| north | N |
| south | S |
| east | E |
| west | W |
| northeast | NE |
| northwest | NW |
| southeast | SE |
| southeast | SW |
IMPORTANT: In the IELTS Writing test, DO NOT use abbreviations!
Use either British or American styles for writing dates
In Section One of the IELTS Listening test, some correct answers will be a date, such as ‘October 8’. However, because IELTS test-takers live in different countries, how they learned to write dates may be different. Luckily, if you need to write a date for a Fill-in-the-blank question, the IELTS accepts any every-day, normal style of writing a date.
So, all of these styles for dates would be acceptable!
| October 8 | Oct 8 | 10-8 |
| October 8th | Oct 8th | 8-10 |
| 8 October | 8 Oct | |
| 8th October | 8th Oct |
You may have noticed that if you wrote ’10-8’ or ‘8-10’, the IELTS Examiner wouldn’t know if you meant ‘October 8th’ or ‘August 10th’. Fortunately, the IELTS Examiner doesn’t care! Either one is fine because the IELTS Examiner understands that native English speakers could write dates either way, too. So, they will accept either way, even though the date is not totally clear.
Don’t write your answers in ‘cursive’ style
Because it important for the IELTS examiner to be able to read every your words, DO NOT use cursive when writing your answers on your answer sheet.
What is ‘cursive’? It is a style of writing where the letters in words are connected to each other.
Unfortunately, if the IELTS Examiner thinks your cursive ‘m’ might be an ‘r & n’, or if they think your ‘a‘ might be a ‘u‘, they may mark your Fill-in-the-blank answer as ‘incorrect’ because they think you misspelled the word!
Make sure your letters are clear
Because many students write their answers too fast on their answer sheet, they often will write letters in ways that make them easily misunderstood. However, if the IELTS Examiner can’t tell if you wrote a ‘K’ or an ‘R’ in a word, they might mark that answer wrong because they think you misspelled the word!
Make sure your ‘K’ looks different from your ‘R’, ‘H’, and ‘N’.
Also, make sure your ‘N’ looks different than your ‘W’ and ‘M’
In addition, make sure your ‘O’ looks different from your ‘D’, and that your ‘C’ looks different from your ‘G’.
So, use either upper-case or lower-case letters, whichever your can write more clearly!
Summary
So, remember these tips to help you avoid common mistakes in writing down answers for cloze questions in IELTS Listening and Reading tests. Know which kinds of words you can and should abbreviate, and practice writing words in a style that is easy to read. Make sure your letters are clearly written, so that IELTS Examiners don’t think you misspelled a word. These tips can help you get the IELTS score that you deserve!
More IELTS exam tips!
- Top 5 IELTS Listening Tips
- IELTS Listening Question Types
- Top 5 IELTS Reading Tips
- IELTS Reading Question Types
- Top 5 tips to Improve IELTS Reading Skills
Want to know how to start IELTS preparation at home? Learn the best way to prepare IELTS Listening questions with the Portland English Language Academy. You can learn many IELTS preparation tips for how to improve your IELTS score with PELA Online’s Academic IELTS Preparation course, with Modules to help you with listening, reading, writing, and speaking test questions.
Learn more IELTS Listening skills by watching Lesson 1, Module 1 for IELTS Listening for FREE!
Want to learn more IELTS Listening tips? Learn what to listen for with IELTS map questions!
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