IELTS Online: Course

Short Answer questions

This question type may occur in any section in the test.

Short Answer questions are usually questions that begin with question words, such as:

• What ?
• Why ?
• Where ?
• When ?
• Who ?
• How much?
• How many?
• How often ?

Similar to the other Listening test question types, the answers for Short Answer questions will be the exact words you hear in the listening passage.

There are two types of Short Answer questions - Standard and Listing. Let’s look at an example of each.

Example 1– Standard Short Answer questions

Questions 31-32 Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS OR A NUMBER for each answer. When should employers involve employees in the process? 31......................... How many employees always wear safety equipment? 32.........................

Notice that Question 31 starts with When..., and Question How many...
This tells you what type of answer to listen for, e.g., a time for Question 31 and a number for Question 32.

For this type of Short Answer question there is one answer for one question. However, another type of Short Answer question can have more than one answer.

Let’s look at an example.

Example 2– Listing Short Answer questions

Questions 33-35 List THREE groups of employees who most need to wear safety equipment. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer. 33......................................................... 34......................................................... 35.........................................................

This question requires three short answers (Questions 33–35). This means you should listen for three groups of employees. You can write the employee groups in any order in Questions 33– 35. However, it is usual to write them in the order you hear them.