IELTS Listening Test 11 (2026) with Answers

Teacher section. Do not give this to learners before they take the test.

Original IELTS-style practice material. Not produced or endorsed by IELTS, the British Council, IDP or Cambridge University Press & Assessment.

Note: A script alone does not reproduce a timed audio test. In the real test, candidates hear each recording once, at natural speed, with fixed pauses. If you read these scripts aloud, keep to the pause lengths shown and do not repeat anything.

Pause markers: [PAUSE 30s] means 30 seconds of silence. In the actual recording, each pause is silence only.

Answer locations: In this teacher copy, the words that give each answer are marked like this: ⟦Q1⟧. Remove these markers before recording.

PART 1

Speakers: NARRATOR; LEON (male, assistant at a bakery, friendly and efficient, British accent); HARRIET (female, customer, British accent)

NARRATOR: Part 1. You will hear a woman phoning a bakery to order a birthday cake. First, you have some time to look at questions 1 to 5.

[PAUSE 30s]

NARRATOR: Now listen carefully and answer questions 1 to 5.

LEON: Good morning, Larder Lane Bakery. Leon speaking.

HARRIET: Oh, hello. I'd like to order a cake for a family party, please. Is that something you can do?

LEON: Yes, of course. Celebration cakes are about half of what we do. Let me just open an order form. Can I take your name first?

HARRIET: It's Harriet Quilliam.

LEON: Could you spell your surname for me?

HARRIET: Yes, it's ⟦Q1⟧ Q-U-I-L-L-I-A-M.

LEON: Thank you. And what's the occasion?

HARRIET: It's my father's birthday. We had a big party for my mother's sixty-fifth last year, and now it's his turn. He'll be ⟦Q2⟧ seventy.

LEON: Lovely. And roughly how many people will the cake need to feed?

HARRIET: Well, we sent out forty invitations, but a few people can't make it, so we're expecting ⟦Q3⟧ thirty-five.

LEON: That's fine. Now, what kind of sponge would you like? Most people go for chocolate.

HARRIET: My children would love that, but my dad has never been keen on chocolate, and it's his cake, after all. So I'd like ⟦Q4⟧ lemon, please.

LEON: Lemon's very popular in the summer, actually. And what shape? Our standard cakes are round.

HARRIET: I did think about round, but I've been told that ⟦Q5⟧ square cakes are easier to cut into lots of equal pieces. So square, please.

LEON: That's true, they are.

NARRATOR: Before you hear the rest of the conversation, you have some time to look at questions 6 to 10.

[PAUSE 30s]

NARRATOR: Now listen and answer questions 6 to 10.

LEON: Now, would you like any decoration on top?

HARRIET: Yes. My dad's been cycling every weekend for fifty years, so we wondered whether you could make a little ⟦Q6⟧ bicycle out of icing. My brother wanted a golf club, but Dad only played golf for about a year.

LEON: We can certainly do a bicycle. And would you like a message?

HARRIET: Yes. The cake's a present from the grandchildren, so not "Happy Birthday, Dad". It should say, "Happy Birthday, ⟦Q7⟧ Grandad", spelled G-R-A-N-D-A-D.

LEON: Got it. Is there anything any of the guests can't eat? We do get asked about gluten a lot.

HARRIET: That's not a problem for anyone, but one of my nephews can't eat ⟦Q8⟧ nuts. Can you make sure there aren't any in the cake?

LEON: Yes. I'll put a note on the order, and the bakers will make it separately. Now, when's the party?

HARRIET: Saturday the fourteenth, in the afternoon.

LEON: And when would you like to collect the cake?

HARRIET: On the Saturday morning. You open at eight, don't you? But I can't get there until after I've dropped my son at football, so would ⟦Q9⟧ nine forty-five be all right?

LEON: That's absolutely fine. And the price: a square lemon cake for thirty-five people is fifty-four pounds, and the bicycle adds twelve, so that's sixty-six pounds altogether. We'll take a twenty-pound deposit now, and you can pay the rest when you collect it.

HARRIET: That's fine. Oh, one more thing. Do you have anything to carry it on? Our cake tin is far too small.

LEON: You can borrow one of our cake ⟦Q10⟧ stands. They're quite heavy glass ones, so there's a ten-pound deposit, which you get back when you return it. Or we can give you a cardboard box free of charge.

HARRIET: I'll borrow a stand, I think. It'll look much nicer on the table.

LEON: Perfect. Can I take your card details for the deposit?

NARRATOR: That is the end of Part 1. You now have half a minute to check your answers.

[PAUSE 30s]

PART 2

Speakers: NARRATOR; MAGGIE (female, education officer at a city farm, warm and practical, British accent)

NARRATOR: Part 2. You will hear the education officer at a city farm talking to a group of teachers who are planning school visits. First, you have some time to look at questions 11 to 14.

[PAUSE 30s]

NARRATOR: Now listen carefully and answer questions 11 to 14.

MAGGIE: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for coming to Pennyfield City Farm. My name's Maggie, and I organise all our school visits. In a moment, we'll look at the map, but first, a bit of background.

A lot of people assume that a farm in the middle of a city must be here to grow food. We do sell some eggs and vegetables in the shop, but we produce far too little to make any real difference to our income. And it's true that we keep a few rare breeds, like our Tamworth pigs, and we're proud of that. But that's not really why we're here. The farm was set up in the nineteen-eighties by local parents who realised that their children had never seen a cow or a sheep, and had no idea where milk or eggs came from. ⟦Q11⟧ Helping city children understand animals and food is still what matters most to us. Last year, over two hundred school groups visited.

Now, a few practical points about visits. We can take up to sixty children at a time, so a whole year group is fine. Visits aren't free, I'm afraid, although schools in the borough do get a reduced rate. Lots of teachers ask me about the best time of year, and honestly, every season has something. ⟦Q12⟧ What I would say is that if you can, come in the morning, because that's when the animals are fed, and the children can help. Afternoon groups miss that completely.

There are a few rules I need to mention. You'll see signs everywhere reminding visitors to wash their hands after touching the animals, and that's always been the case. Dogs have never been allowed on the farm, apart from guide dogs, of course. But there is one change. ⟦Q13⟧ Until this year, visitors could buy bags of food to give to the goats. We've had to stop that, because a couple of the goats became ill from overeating. So please tell the children before you arrive, as some of them will remember doing it.

Finally, the shop. It's run by our manager, Dev, with help from volunteers. It's a really important part of the farm, because ⟦Q14⟧ what we earn there covers the cost of feeding all the animals for the year. People often ask us whether it will open on Sundays. We did consider it, but we decided that one day off a week was important for the staff.

NARRATOR: Before you hear the rest of the talk, you have some time to look at questions 15 to 20.

[PAUSE 30s]

NARRATOR: Now listen and answer questions 15 to 20.

MAGGIE: Right, let's have a look at the map. We're standing at the main gate, at the bottom of the map, on Wharf Road. As you come in, the shop and café are on your left, and the car park is on your right.

If you walk up the main path, the next building on the left, just behind the shop, is ⟦Q15⟧ the education room. That's where every school group starts, with a short safety talk from me.

Directly opposite the education room, across the main path, is ⟦Q16⟧ the first-aid point. A lot of people expect it to be in the shop, because that's where it used to be. But we moved it last year so that it's nearer the animals, which is where most accidents happen.

Carry on up the main path and you come to a crossroads. If you turn right there, the path takes you past our little wildlife area, on your left, and then ⟦Q17⟧ at the very end of the path is the duck pond. Children love it, so please make sure an adult is always with them there.

Now, from the duck pond, walk back to the crossroads and carry straight on, towards the orchard. ⟦Q18⟧ The first building on your right is the picnic shelter. That's where groups eat their lunch if it's raining. ⟦Q19⟧ Continue along that path and you'll find the vegetable garden on your right, beside the orchard. In the autumn, children can dig up their own potatoes there.

Finally, if you go back to the main path and walk straight on from the crossroads, you'll reach the stables at the top of the farm. ⟦Q20⟧ The pig pens are immediately to the right of the stables. Don't go past them into the far corner, though, because that's the hay barn, and only staff are allowed in there.

OK. Let's start walking, and you can see it all for yourselves.

NARRATOR: That is the end of Part 2. You now have half a minute to check your answers.

[PAUSE 30s]

PART 3

Speakers: NARRATOR; FREYA (female, archaeology student, thoughtful, British accent); OSCAR (male, archaeology student, enthusiastic, British accent)

NARRATOR: Part 3. You will hear two archaeology students, Freya and Oscar, discussing an excavation they worked on during the summer. First, you have some time to look at questions 21 to 25.

[PAUSE 30s]

NARRATOR: Now listen carefully and answer questions 21 to 25.

FREYA: So, Oscar, we need to start our report on the Hollowcombe dig. Shall we go through our notes?

OSCAR: Good idea. I suppose we should begin by saying why we chose it. Most people in our year went to the castle excavation, because it was so close to the university.

FREYA: And Hollowcombe was two hours away. But Dr Mensah wasn't keen on us going to the castle anyway. She suggested a dig in Wales, actually.

OSCAR: She did. But for me, ⟦Q21⟧ the deciding factor was that at Hollowcombe they trained us to use the 3D scanning equipment. You don't get that on most student digs.

FREYA: Same for me. Even if it meant getting up at five every morning.

OSCAR: How did you find the first week? You looked exhausted.

FREYA: I was. All that digging and carrying buckets of soil. I'm not used to it. You seemed fine, though.

OSCAR: Well, I play rugby, so the physical side wasn't a problem. And the rain didn't bother me much either. ⟦Q22⟧ What I found hard was the paperwork. Every single find has to be photographed, measured and given a number, and the position has to be recorded exactly. I kept making mistakes.

FREYA: Everyone did at first. Now, the aims of the excavation. The director explained them on the first day.

OSCAR: Right. They already knew the size of the farm from the aerial photographs, so that wasn't what they were looking for. And a lot of people in the village were hoping we'd find a Roman building underneath.

FREYA: Which we didn't.

OSCAR: No. ⟦Q23⟧ But the main question was why, and especially when, people stopped living there. That's what the director really wanted to find out.

FREYA: Yes. And I thought the volunteers from the village were great. I was worried they'd slow things down.

OSCAR: So was I. But some of them were really experienced. And Mr Pryor knew the old names of all the fields, which helped the director understand the old maps.

FREYA: ⟦Q24⟧ That kind of knowledge was really valuable, wasn't it? It's something you can't learn from books.

OSCAR: Definitely. So, what should the main focus of our report be? Most students just write about the history of the site.

FREYA: Dr Mensah said she's tired of reading those. I wondered about comparing Hollowcombe with other medieval farms.

OSCAR: That would mean an enormous amount of reading, though. ⟦Q25⟧ Why don't we write about how the site was recorded? The scanning, the photography, the drone. We actually did all of that ourselves.

FREYA: Good idea. Let's do that.

NARRATOR: Before you hear the rest of the conversation, you have some time to look at questions 26 to 30.

[PAUSE 30s]

NARRATOR: Now listen and answer questions 26 to 30.

FREYA: We also need a section on the finds. Let's go through the site, area by area, and list the most important find from each one. Shall we start with the kitchen?

OSCAR: Yes. I expected loads of broken pots there, but there weren't many. ⟦Q26⟧ The interesting thing was the burnt grain: wheat and barley seeds that had fallen into the fire.

FREYA: That was amazing. Then there's the well.

OSCAR: Some of the village volunteers were convinced we'd find coins in it, weren't they? People used to throw them into wells for luck.

FREYA: But there weren't any. ⟦Q27⟧ What we did find was that leather shoe. The wet ground had stopped it from rotting. I couldn't believe it was seven hundred years old.

OSCAR: Nor could I. What about the barn? Animal bones?

FREYA: No, there were hardly any bones anywhere. Not even in the barn. ⟦Q28⟧ The best find there was the iron blade from a farm tool, probably for cutting hay.

OSCAR: Right. Then the rubbish pit. ⟦Q29⟧ That's where most of the pottery came from. There were hundreds of pieces. Hardly anything else.

FREYA: And finally, the ditch along the boundary. That's where the most important finds came from, really.

OSCAR: ⟦Q30⟧ The two silver coins. They were made in about 1340, and nothing on the site is later than that, so they helped the director work out when the farm was abandoned.

FREYA: Yes. I'd been hoping for glass beads, like the ones they found at the castle, but there weren't any.

OSCAR: OK. I'll start writing that section tonight.

NARRATOR: That is the end of Part 3. You now have half a minute to check your answers.

[PAUSE 30s]

PART 4

Speakers: NARRATOR; LECTURER (male, university lecturer in marine science, clear and engaging, British accent)

NARRATOR: Part 4. You will hear a lecturer giving a talk about seaweed. First, you have some time to look at questions 31 to 40.

[PAUSE 45s]

NARRATOR: Now listen carefully and answer questions 31 to 40.

LECTURER: Good morning. Today, I'm going to talk about a living thing that most people only notice when they slip on it at the beach. That's seaweed. Seaweed is one of the oldest resources people have used from the sea, and it may become one of the most important in the future.

Let's begin with what seaweed actually is. Although it looks rather like a plant, it isn't one. Seaweeds are marine algae. One important difference from plants is that ⟦Q31⟧ seaweeds have no roots. They hold on to rocks with a structure that works rather like an anchor, but it doesn't take in any food. Instead, seaweed takes up the dissolved nutrients it needs directly from the surrounding water, through its whole surface.

People have used seaweed for thousands of years, as food, as medicine, and to improve the soil on farms near the coast. But one of the most surprising uses developed in Scotland in the eighteenth century. On the islands off the west and north coasts, people collected huge quantities of seaweed and burned it slowly in pits. This produced a kind of ash, which was known as kelp. It's sometimes said that this ash was used in making paper, but in fact, it was sold to factories in the south, where it was used in making soap and ⟦Q32⟧ glass. For a few decades, the trade made the landowners extremely rich, although the people who did the hard work of collecting and burning the seaweed earned very little. Then, after about 1820, the industry collapsed, mainly because ⟦Q33⟧ cheaper imports were becoming available from abroad.

Now let's move to Japan, where seaweed has been an important food for centuries. The most famous example is nori, the thin dark sheets that are wrapped around sushi. For a long time, nori farmers had a serious problem. Each year, they placed nets in the sea and waited for young nori to settle on them, but nobody knew where the young nori came from, so harvests were very unpredictable. The answer came, surprisingly, from a British scientist, Kathleen Drew-Baker, who was working at the University of Manchester. She was studying British laver, a close relative of nori, and in 1949, she showed that for one stage of its life, ⟦Q34⟧ the laver grows inside shells on the sea bed. Japanese scientists applied her discovery to nori, and used it to develop a way of growing young nori in tanks, and the industry was transformed. Drew-Baker never visited Japan, but she's still remembered there. There's a monument to her near the coast in the south of the country, and ⟦Q35⟧ every year a festival is held in her honour.

Today, most of the world's seaweed is farmed rather than collected from the wild, and almost all of it is grown in Asia. The methods are fairly simple. Nori farmers grow their crop on nets, as I mentioned, but ⟦Q36⟧ kelp farmers often attach young kelp to long ropes, which are held near the surface of the sea by floats. A few months later, the seaweed can be harvested. Many scientists are enthusiastic about seaweed farming because it has very low environmental costs compared with most kinds of farming on land. Seaweed doesn't need any fresh water, it doesn't need any ⟦Q37⟧ fertiliser, and of course, it doesn't take up any land.

So what is all this seaweed used for? Much of it is eaten, of course. But you probably consume seaweed every day without knowing it. Substances taken from seaweed are used to make foods thicker and smoother, for example in ice cream. And you might not expect to find them in your bathroom, but they're also used in ⟦Q38⟧ toothpaste, where they help to keep it smooth.

One of the most exciting areas of research is in farming. Cattle produce large amounts of a gas called ⟦Q39⟧ methane, which contributes to climate change. Several studies have found that adding a very small quantity of one particular red seaweed to their feed can reduce this dramatically. The challenge now is to grow enough of it.

But I should end with a warning. Wild seaweed forests, especially the large brown seaweeds that we call kelp today, are home to thousands of species of fish and other sea creatures. And in many places, they're in trouble. Off the coast of Tasmania, in Australia, around ninety-five per cent of the giant kelp forests have disappeared in recent decades. Pollution has played a part in some places, but the main cause off Tasmania is that ⟦Q40⟧ the temperature of the water has risen. Changes in the currents have also brought water with fewer nutrients to the kelp forests. Scientists are now trying to grow kelp that can survive in warmer seas.

So, in the next lecture, we'll look more closely at...

NARRATOR: That is the end of Part 4. You now have one minute to check your answers.

[PAUSE 60s]

NARRATOR: That is the end of the Listening test. In the IELTS test, you would now have ten minutes to transfer your answers to the answer sheet.