Hello everyone, I’m Priya Sharma, IELTS Listening instructor at IELTS Zone. After learning about Note Completion, it’s time to look at another common task in Section 1 — Table Completion (Social Context) in IELTS Listening.
In this task, you’ll listen to a conversation between two people in an everyday setting — like confirming travel schedules, booking events, or comparing service options — and fill in missing details in a table.
This question type checks your ability to understand structured information such as names, dates, prices, quantities, or features. With the right technique, it can become one of the easiest parts of the IELTS Listening test.
In a typical question, you’ll see a table summarising key details from the recording. For example:
Tour Type | Duration | Cost per Person |
City Bus | ________ | £25 |
River Cruise | ________ | £40 |
Your task is to fill in the missing gaps accurately while following word-limit instructions.
Key features:
This type of task reflects real-life listening — like noting down booking details over the phone or comparing prices while travelling.
Before the recording starts, take 30 seconds to scan the table carefully.
Ask yourself:
Example:
If the column heading says “Price per night (£)”, the missing word must be a number.
If it says “Service included”, the answer will likely be a noun phrase (e.g., breakfast or airport pickup).
Identifying structure first makes you listen more purposefully.
Table Completion tasks often include comparisons like “The standard package includes X, but the deluxe version includes Y.”
You must notice which row or column this detail belongs to.
Example:
“The budget tour costs £25 per person, but the premium one costs £45 and includes lunch.”
Correct answers:
| Tour Type | Cost per Person | Inclusions |
|————|—————-|————-|
| Budget | £25 | — |
| Premium | £45 | lunch |
Listen carefully for contrast markers such as but, however, whereas, and instead. These signal table differences.
In Section 1, speakers often use numbers, addresses, or spelling — areas that can cause confusion.
Here are some tips:
IELTS uses realistic British English conventions, so exposure to UK-based recordings (BBC, Cambridge practice tests) helps tremendously.
Cambridge recordings often contain self-corrections designed to test your focus.
Example:
“The single room is £80… oh, actually, that’s £85 per night including breakfast.”
Many students write the first number they hear and miss the correction. The correct answer is £85.
In my experience, it helps to pause your writing for two seconds after hearing a number or detail, just to confirm it’s final before recording it.
Always check the instruction line — it might say “NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER.”
If the audio says “free city bus service” and the space only allows two words, the correct answer would be city bus — not free city bus service.
Also, ensure your answer fits grammatically into the table. For example:
Facility | Distance from Hotel |
________ | 10 minutes |
Answer → train station, not the train station (the article isn’t needed). |
These small grammar checks make a big difference in scoring accuracy.
By correcting these, you can easily recover 3–4 marks per test.
Day | Task |
Mon | Practise with a Cambridge Section 1 recording focusing on prices and comparisons. |
Tue | Listen to one-minute BBC travel clips and summarise details in table form. |
Wed | Identify all distractors and corrections from a practice test. |
Thu | Do one full-length table completion test under timed conditions. |
Fri | Review your errors and note patterns. |
After one week, you’ll start recognising data structures and listening cues automatically — the key to confident Section 1 performance.
To summarise, Table Completion (Social Context) in IELTS Listening teaches you to:
Once you’ve mastered this skill, you’ll be ready for the final Section 1 task type — Sentence Completion (Two Speakers).
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