Map, Plan and Diagram Labelling in IELTS Listening: a step-by-step method

You label places or parts on a map, plan or diagram by following a speaker who describes a route or layout. It most often appears in Part 2. It tests whether you can follow directions and position words in real time while matching them to a picture.

Format

• Most common in Part 2, usually a set of about 5 questions with more lettered positions than questions.
• Answers are usually letters on the map. A diagram task can instead ask for words, with a limit such as ONE WORD ONLY, so read the instruction.
• The questions follow the order in which the speaker walks you round or describes the places. The letters on the map are not in that order.
• Recent maps normally show a 'You are here' marker and a compass, which you should use to orient yourself before the recording starts.
• On computer you click or drag a letter to a position and can highlight the instructions.

Strategy

1. Use the first seconds of the reading time to locate 'You are here', the compass and any entrances. Every direction the speaker gives is relative to where the tour starts.
2. Read the list of names and look at the map as a whole: roads, water, doors, labelled buildings. Notice which areas have no letter, because the speaker may use them as landmarks.
3. Predict the route. A guide who starts at reception will usually move to the nearest room first and finish at the far edge of the map.
4. Listen for the name of each place and then for the position phrase that follows it. 'The café is next to the library, opposite the car park' gives you two reference points.
5. Learn the position vocabulary: opposite, next to, beyond, between, behind, in front of, at the end of, on the corner of, in the north-east corner, on your left as you go in.
6. When the speaker gives a turn, turn in your head: 'at the lift, turn left' changes which way you are facing, and 'on your right' then refers to the new direction.
7. Listen for corrections such as 'the gift shop is on the right - sorry, the left'. The corrected position is the answer.
8. If you lose your place, wait for the next place name you can recognise and carry on from there. A missed label costs one mark; panic costs the next two.

Common traps

• Not orienting before the recording starts, so left, right and north have nothing to attach to.
• Choosing a letter when the place name is heard instead of waiting for the position phrase. Speakers often walk past a place before saying where it is.
• Confusing left and right because you imagine the speaker facing the map rather than walking through it.
• Choosing a letter that sits near a landmark but not in the position stated, such as 'opposite the pond' against 'beside the pond'.
• Forgetting that a change of direction ('then turn right') alters every later 'left' and 'right'.

FAQ

More IELTS Listening guides

• Form, note & table completion
• Sentence completion
• Short-answer questions
• Multiple choice
• Choose two answers
• Matching

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