IELTS Listening Map Labelling: Two Worked Examples, Step by Step

Map labelling, which usually appears in Part 2 of IELTS Listening, is the question type least like anything else on the test: you follow a spoken tour of a place while matching letters on a plan to a list of locations. Strategy articles can list the principles, but this type is genuinely best learned by slow-motion example — seeing exactly how a sentence of audio turns into a correct label, and exactly where the wrong-but-tempting letter comes from. This guide walks through two worked examples at reading speed. For the general method and preparation routine, pair it with our main map labelling strategy guide.

Before the audio: the thirty-second survey

Both examples below assume you have used the preview time properly, because every downstream decision depends on it:

• Find the entrance or "you are here" point — tours almost always start there.
• Read every printed label. Locations already named on the map will not be answers, but they will be used as reference points: "opposite the library" only helps if you already know where the library is.
• Note the compass if there is one. If the map shows north, expect "the north side," "in the south-east corner" in the audio.
• Say the candidate letters' positions to yourself: "A is top-left near the gate, B is centre beside the pond…" Naming positions in advance is what lets you keep up later.

Worked example 1: the campus tour

Imagine a college map: main gate at the bottom, a central path running up to a fountain, the library printed on the path's right, letters A–E scattered around. Question: label the Student Services Office.

Audio: "Come through the main gate and head straight up the central path. You'll pass the sports hall on your left — we'll come back to that — and when you reach the fountain, turn right. Student Services is the second building along, just past the café, directly opposite the library."

Now trace it as the candidate must, in real time. "Through the main gate, up the central path" — your pencil is at the bottom, moving up. "Sports hall on your left — we'll come back to that" is a deferred item: note nothing, it is not your current target. "At the fountain, turn right" — you are now moving right along the cross path. "Second building along, just past the café, directly opposite the library" — three confirmations of one location. If letter D sits second along that path facing the library, D is the answer.

Where the trap was: the first building past the fountain — say, letter C — is the café, and candidates who hear "turn right" and grab the first letter they meet choose it. The audio's stacked detail ("second… past the café… opposite the library") exists precisely to separate careful listeners from momentum listeners. When a speaker gives multiple locators, the answer must satisfy all of them.

The orientation point: "on your left" is left as you walk up the map from the gate — which, for a tour heading up the page, matches the map's left. But had the tour entered from the top, "your left" would be the map's right. Anchor every left/right to the walker's current direction, never to your own seat.

Worked example 2: the town redevelopment

Part 2 monologues often describe changes to a place — a park being redesigned, a town centre scheme. These swap the walking tour for compass-and-landmark language, and add a time trap: the speaker describes both what was and what will be.

Question: label the new children's play area.

Audio: "You might remember the play area used to be beside the car park on the west side — that site's becoming additional parking, I'm afraid. The new play area will be over in the north-east corner, between the pond and the walking trail, where families can get to it without crossing the access road."

The decoy is served first and generously: the old location, west side, beside the car park — and there is always a letter sitting on it. The tense is the trap's tripwire: "used to be" versus "will be." The question asks for the new area, so the answer is the letter in the north-east corner between pond and trail. Candidates who write the moment they hear "play area… beside the car park" lock in the decoy before the sentence finishes. The discipline: on any map task involving changes, wait for the tense that matches the question.

The transferable lessons

• Stacked locators are a gift: every extra "just past the…, opposite the…" removes a candidate letter. Use the last locator to confirm, not the first to commit.
• "We'll come back to that" means drop it: tours mention future stops constantly. Track only the current target of the current question.
• Left and right belong to the walker; north and south belong to the map. Sort every direction word into one of those two systems as you hear it.
• Past layout vs new layout is a tense test, and the decoy always arrives first.
• Questions follow the audio's order, so if you miss one, dash it and re-anchor on the next location's name — the tour will not wait, and one dropped label must never become three.

Building the skill

Replay-based practice is what makes this type click: do a map task from our Listening practice bank, then replay the audio with the answer key open and your finger on the map, watching each trap mechanism operate in slow motion. Three or four sessions of that turn map audio from a blur into a sequence of predictable moves. Then test the skill under full-section conditions in a mock test, where map labelling arrives mid-test with your concentration already taxed — and see our guide to common Listening traps for the patterns this type shares with the rest of the paper.