The format
Five people speak in turn on a related theme, each for around half a minute. Beside them on the page are two question sets — Task One and Task Two — each with its own list of options, and each asking something different about the same five speakers.
| Task One | Task Two | |
|---|---|---|
| Typically asks | The speaker's main point, or why they are speaking | Something else about them — their attitude, what they now feel, what they are doing |
| Questions | One per speaker | One per speaker |
| Options | More options than speakers | More options than speakers, a separate list |
The whole set is played through, then played through again. Both tasks are marked independently, so an answer in one does not constrain the other, and within each task an option is used at most once.
Why it is harder than it looks
This is not B2 Part 4 with longer words. It is a different task. At B2 you match five speakers against one list; here you are tracking two unrelated dimensions across sixteen or so competing options while a thirty-second monologue goes past at natural speed.
The cognitive load, not the language, is what makes it the hardest part of the paper. Candidates who try to answer both tasks on the first play typically end up with a scattering of half-confident answers in both and no clean record of which they trust.
The strategy: one task per play
- Before the audio starts, read Task One’s options. You will not have time for both lists, and Task One is usually the more concrete of the two.
- First play — answer Task One across all five speakers. Mark provisionally; do not agonise over a single speaker and lose the next.
- Between the plays, read Task Two’s options.
- Second play — answer Task Two, and confirm any Task One answer you were unsure of as it goes past.
This works because the second play is a complete second pass over the same material, not a review. Treating it as a safety net for extracts you did not concentrate on is the way to waste it.
Underline the questions, not the options
The instinct is to mark up the option list, since that is where the answers live. It is the wrong way round.
The options are deliberately paraphrased away from what the speakers actually say — matching them by keyword is what the distractors are built to punish. What is worth underlining is the question stem: whether you are listening for a reason, an opinion, a change of mind or an intention. Knowing which of those you are hunting for is what lets you ignore the rest of a monologue.
The trap: options that are almost right
Nearly every wrong option is a paraphrase of something the speaker genuinely said — just not in answer to the question asked. A speaker might mention that a course was expensive; the option “the cost put them off” then feels obviously correct, even though what they actually said was that they paid it gladly.
- Wait for the whole extract. C1 speakers frequently reverse themselves — “at first I thought… but actually…”. The answer is nearly always where they land, not where they start.
- Distrust the option that matches a word you heard. Lexical overlap is a warning sign, not evidence.
- Do not eliminate an option because it sounds like another speaker. Options belong to a task, not to a speaker, and the unused ones exist precisely to catch answers reached by elimination.
Listen for stance, not subject
All five speakers share a theme, so topic will never separate them. What separates them is position — enthusiastic, resigned, sceptical, surprised. If you can summarise each speaker in two words of your own while they talk, the matching becomes almost mechanical.
What the two tasks feel like side by side
A concrete shape, so the dual-task mechanic is not abstract. Say the theme is people talking about a career change:
| Task One asks | Task Two asks | |
|---|---|---|
| The question | Why each speaker changed career | How each speaker feels about the change now |
| Sample options | a financial pressure · a chance conversation · a health scare · redundancy | relieved · quietly regretful · surprised by their own reaction · impatient for more change |
| What you listen for | A cause, usually stated early in the extract | An attitude, usually revealed late — often in the last sentence |
Notice the asymmetry, and it is typical: the Task One answer tends to arrive first and be relatively concrete, while Task Two is carried by tone and often only settles at the end of the extract. That is another argument for taking Task One on the first play — it is the one you can catch while still orienting yourself.
It also explains the commonest wrong answer on Task Two. A speaker spends twenty seconds describing how difficult the change was, then finishes with “…and I’d do it again tomorrow”. Everything before that last clause points at regret; the answer is relief.
Practising it
Practise the full part rather than single extracts. What this task actually tests is sustained divided attention for three or four minutes, and doing one thirty-second monologue at a time rehearses none of that — it is the accumulation that makes it hard.
C1 Advanced Listening Part 4 practice plays each recording twice, as the exam does, and every exercise comes with a full transcript so you can go back and find exactly where a distractor caught you. That transcript check is worth more than another attempt.
For the rest of the exam, see all eight Reading & Use of English parts, the Speaking test explained, and the C1 Advanced exam preparation guide.