2.4 Listening Part 4: Three-Option Multiple Choice

2.4 Listening Part 4: Three-Option Multiple Choice

Quick Answer: Flyers Listening Part 4 is 5 questions, 5 marks. Children hear five separate short dialogues, each with a printed question and three pictures labelled A, B and C, and tick one box. Speakers are clearly differentiated by age or gender. The correct answer may be given at any point in the dialogue and is not necessarily the last thing mentioned. The task tests listening for specific information of various kinds.

How Part 4 differs from Part 3

A2 Flyers Listening is a single recorded paper. Candidates cannot pause, rewind, or ask the invigilator to replay a line. They follow the recording through five parts of five questions each — about 25 minutes, 25 questions, 25 marks, a maximum of five shields. Every part opens with one or two examples, and every recording is heard twice. Recordings use adults and children speaking clearly in standard British and American English, and answers in either standard variety are accepted.

Part 3 is one continuous recording covering five linked items; Part 4 is five independent conversations. That difference changes the tactics. In Part 3 a misread heading can damage several boxes. In Part 4 a mistake on question 1 cannot infect question 2 — the child resets, reads the next printed question in the short pause, and predicts what the three pictures differ in (place, object, activity, time of day, how someone travels).

Part 4 consists of five questions, each a 3-option multiple choice with pictures. Candidates listen to five separate dialogues in which the speakers are clearly differentiated by age or gender. They listen and tick the correct picture.

Each question has:

• a printed question (Which museum is Jack's grandma going to work in?)
• three pictures, A, B and C
• one example at the start of the part so children see the tick format

Because the dialogues are separate, a mistake on question 1 does not have to infect question 2. Reset. Read the next printed question during the short pause. Predict what three kinds of difference the pictures show (place, object, activity, time of day, how someone travels).

The answer may arrive at any point

The Handbook is explicit: it is very important that candidates listen to the whole of the dialogue before choosing their answer. The correct answer to each question may be given at any point in the dialogue and is not necessarily the last thing mentioned.

That cuts both ways:

• Sometimes the first suggestion is right, and later talk is about why the other ideas are impossible.
• Sometimes the first suggestion is a plan that is then cancelled.
• Sometimes the middle turn carries the fact, and the last turn is only a comment ("Great!" / "That's a pity.").

A child who always waits for the last noun will get some items wrong. A child who always ticks the first noun will get a different set wrong. The only stable method is: hold all three pictures in mind, listen for the printed question, and tick after the dialogue has answered that question.

Age, gender, and who actually knows

Speakers are differentiated by age or gender so children can track who is asking and who is answering. The printed question often belongs to one speaker's experience: what Jack enjoys, where Grandma is going to work, which sport the girl prefers now. Ticking the picture that the other speaker suggested is a common miss. Listen for whose plan, job, hobby or object the question names.

Grammar and vocabulary range

Part 4 covers a wide range of the grammar and vocabulary on the Flyers syllabus. Teachers should not treat it as a "pictures only" paper. Dialogues regularly use:

• past simple and past continuous (I was looking for my bag when…)
• present perfect (I've already seen that film)
• going to and will
• comparatives and superlatives (the most interesting museum)
• should, could, might
• used to versus now

The pictures show the outcome of that grammar. I've already seen that film rules out the picture of sitting in a cinema this afternoon. We were going to take the bus but we took the tram instead rules out the bus picture even though bus is said clearly.

First listening and second listening in Part 4

First listening: hover the pencil over a picture but delay a heavy tick while the conversation is still moving. Second listening: confirm that later language did not cancel the choice, then make one clear tick in a single box. Do not tick two boxes "to be safe", and do not write a letter here — letters belong to Part 3.