CELPIP Listening Part 6: Listening for Viewpoints

CELPIP Listening Part 6, Listening for Viewpoints, closes the section. One speaker delivers part of a prepared, formal talk of around three minutes, and then six sentence completions appear on a single screen with one shared time budget. Difficulty in this section is designed to rise from Part 1 to Part 6, so this is the hardest listening you will do on the day.

The mistake almost everyone makes here is chasing vocabulary. Part 6 talks are technical on the surface and the questions are not about the technical words. They are about the shape of the argument: what the speaker claims, what evidence she gives for it, and what she concedes.

The talk on this test

Listening Test 10 is set in Saskatoon, and Part 6 is a prepared talk to a city committee about the street lighting retrofit the city has just completed. It is an argument for turning the lights down, and it is the shape of an argument the questions want: the claim, the evidence offered, and the objection the speaker deals with rather than ignores.

How to work Part 6 in eight minutes

• Listen for the structure, not the nouns. Claim, evidence, objection, response. Four notes are worth more than four technical terms.
• Note the concession. A prepared talk almost always gives ground somewhere, and that sentence is heavily examined.
• The completions are printed on one screen and can be answered in any order. Read all six before you answer any.
• Do not let an unfamiliar term stop you. The talk defines what it needs you to know inside the sentence that uses it.
• Fill every gap. There is no deduction for a wrong answer and this is the last chance you get.

The rest of Listening Test 10

Test 10 is rated Medium and runs on Saskatoon paperwork and Saskatoon winter. Part 1 is a man who cannot find his Social Insurance card, at a Service Canada office. Part 2 is two former coworkers who have met at a community rink while their children skate. Part 3 is a homeowner whose basement concrete has cracked and the foundation contractor he has asked to look at it. Part 4 is a news report on a volunteer repair cafe that has opened in an old bank. Part 5 is Myron, Roberta and Charmaine, three winter festival organisers, arguing about whether the festival can be held on the frozen river again. An unscored practice task at a campus parking pay station runs first.

CELPIP Listening format: where Part 6 sits

How Part 6 is scored

Six marks, one correct answer per gap, no penalty for a wrong one. Part 6 is auto-marked with the whole section on submit, and the CELPIP listening score chart converts your raw score out of 38 into a CLB level.