Part 1: Problem Solving, Question by Question
Eight questions, the joint largest block on the test, delivered in three chunks with a short pause between them. Part 1 is the only part that lets you reset in the middle.
The shape of Part 1
Part 1 is called Listening to Problem Solving. Two speakers, one man and one woman, who do not know each other. One of them has a problem and the other is in a position to help with it. The whole conversation exists to move that problem toward a resolution.
The structural feature that makes Part 1 different from everything else in the section is that the conversation is broken into three audio sections, each running roughly a minute to a minute and a half. After each section you answer the questions belonging to that section before the next section plays. The eight questions are spread across the three blocks, typically three, then three, then two.
There is a short preparation screen between the audio sections, giving you a few seconds before the next block begins. It is brief, and most candidates waste it. It exists so you can finish a note, settle, and remind yourself where the conversation had got to.
The questions themselves work the way all of Parts 1 to 3 work. Each one is spoken to you, the four options appear as text, and you have about thirty seconds before the test moves on. You answer in order and you cannot go back.
One further structural point is worth holding on to. Because each block of questions follows its own section of audio, the gap between hearing something and being asked about it is shorter here than anywhere else on the test. That is why Part 1 is the part where light notes are sufficient and heavy notes are actively counterproductive.
Why it matters that the speakers are strangers
The stranger relationship is not decoration. It shapes the language in ways you can predict and exploit. People who do not know each other explain themselves. They state context that friends would leave out, they use full names and job titles, and they check understanding out loud.
That makes Part 1 the most explicitly signposted conversation in the section. When the helper says 'so if I have understood you, the issue is the second invoice', that is a summary handed to you at no cost. When the person with the problem says 'sorry, I should explain', what follows is background you can rely on.
It also fixes the politeness register. Requests are indirect, refusals are softened, and disagreement is hedged. A speaker who says 'that might be a little difficult' is declining, and Part 1 inference questions are frequently built on exactly that gap between the polite surface and the actual position.
The arc, and where the answers sit
Almost every Part 1 conversation follows the same underlying arc, even though the topics vary completely. The first section establishes who these people are and what the problem is. The second explores options, with the helper suggesting things and the other speaker responding to them. The third lands on a decision and usually an action with a time attached to it.
Knowing the arc tells you what to expect from each block of questions. The first block skews toward general meaning and situation: what the problem is, what the speakers' roles are. The middle block is where the specific-information questions cluster, because that is where the concrete detail is generated. The final block is where you find decisions, next steps, and the inference questions about what someone will probably do.
This also tells you where to concentrate your writing. The first section rarely needs more than two or three anchors. The second and third are worth more ink, because they are producing the answerable material.
Strike through a rejected suggestion the instant it is rejected, rather than waiting to see what replaces it. The revision trap works on candidates whose notes show three options with no indication of which survived.
The revision trap
The most reliable way Part 1 catches people is by mentioning an option and then abandoning it. The helper suggests coming in on Thursday, the other speaker explains why Thursday does not work, and they settle on the Monday after. Thursday is now the wrong answer and it is sitting in the options.
This works because Thursday was said clearly, said first, and probably written down. The correct answer was said later, possibly more briefly, and possibly phrased as 'the following Monday then' rather than as a date.
The defence is a notation habit rather than an act of memory. When a suggestion is made, write it. When it is rejected, strike it through immediately, in the moment, without waiting to see what replaces it. A struck-through note is unambiguous thirty seconds later; a list of three dates with no marking is not.
Note that the questions follow roughly the order in which the answers appeared in the audio. That is useful for locating which part of your notes a question refers to, but it does not protect you from the revision trap, because the suggestion and its rejection often sit inside the same stretch that a single question covers.
Treat the preparation screen between audio sections as a reset, not a review. Finish your last note, reload where the conversation stands from your anchors, then stop writing. Each block of questions is about its own block of audio.
Using the gaps between sections
Part 1 is the only part of the section with a structural pause in the middle of the content, and it gives you something the other parts do not: a chance to recover before the next block.
If the first section went badly, the second section is a fresh start. The conversation continues, but the questions for section two are about section two. A candidate who spends the break berating themselves carries the damage forward; a candidate who uses it to reread their two anchors and register where the conversation stands does not.
Use the preparation screen for three things, in order. Finish any note you were mid-way through. Glance at your anchors to reload the situation. Then stop, because a few seconds spent quietly is better preparation than a few seconds spent revising.
Practising Part 1 specifically
Because Part 1 carries eight questions, it repays targeted work more than the shorter parts do. Two drills are worth building into your preparation.
The first is the reversal drill. Play a Part 1 clip and, on a blank sheet, write only the suggestions and their outcomes: what was proposed, whether it was accepted or dropped, and what finally stood. Ignore everything else. Done a few times, this makes the accept-or-reject pattern audible rather than something you reconstruct afterwards.
The second is the relationship drill. Take any two-speaker clip and decide, in the first fifteen seconds, whether these people know each other. Then check. This sounds trivial and it sharpens something real, because that single judgement tells you whether you are in a Part 1 conversation with explicit signposting or a Part 2 conversation where half the context is assumed and never stated.
Listen for the helper's summary lines, the ones starting 'so what you are saying is' or 'just to confirm'. Strangers restate each other's positions out loud, and those restatements are frequently the general-meaning answer handed to you in clean form.
Practise it
Five questions on the structure of Part 1 and the mistakes it is built to catch.