Updated October 2026
Listen and Choose a Response: how to pick the right reply
Listen and Choose a Response is the shortest task in the 2026 Listening section: you hear one sentence and choose the most natural reply. It moves fast, and it rewards understanding what the speaker wants rather than catching individual words.
What happens
A speaker says one sentence or asks one short question. The prompt is only heard, never shown. You then choose the best reply from written options. Each prompt plays once, and each question has its own short time limit, about 20 seconds by most reports. Then the test moves on, and you cannot go back.
The situations are everyday ones: a classmate, a colleague, a shop assistant, a librarian. The language is natural spoken English, with contractions, polite indirect questions and the occasional idiom.
Why it matters more than it looks
Each item is quick, but the task appears many times across the section. That makes it a reliable source of points, and a place where a run of careless answers adds up.
It also tests something the longer recordings do not: whether you can follow natural spoken English in real time, the way you would in a corridor or at a service desk, without any context to help you. The skills it trains, catching tone and intention as well as words, help in every other Listening task too.
Listen for what the speaker is doing
The key to this task is not the topic of the sentence but its function: what the speaker is doing with it. A good reply responds to that. The same words can do different things, so listen to the whole sentence and its tone.
Asking for information
"Do you know when the lab opens?" A good reply gives the information, or explains why you cannot.
Making a request
"Would you mind taking a look at my draft?" A good reply accepts, refuses or sets a condition.
Making a suggestion or invitation
"Why don't we take the earlier train?" or "We're getting pizza later if you want to come." A good reply agrees, declines or proposes something else.
Sharing news or a problem
"I didn't get the internship." A good reply reacts appropriately: sympathy, surprise, congratulations or a practical offer.
Three examples
The examples below were written for this guide. On the test you would only hear the prompt; it is written here so you can study it. Choose your answer before reading the explanation underneath each one.
Prompt (heard): "Do you know if the printer on the third floor is working again?"
(A) I need to print my essay today.
(B) Someone fixed it this morning, I think.
(C) It's on the third floor, next to the stairs.
(D) No, I've never worked there.
Answer: BPrompt (heard): "Why don't we just take the bus instead of waiting for a taxi?"
(A) Because the taxi was too expensive.
(B) I waited for an hour yesterday.
(C) Good idea, there's one every ten minutes.
(D) The bus driver was very friendly.
Answer: CPrompt (heard): "I still haven't figured out how to submit the assignment online."
(A) Here, let me show you. It's under the Course Tools tab.
(B) The assignment was really difficult.
(C) I submitted mine yesterday too.
(D) You should figure out the answer first.
Answer: AWhat the examples show
In the first example, the speaker is not asking where the printer is or what you need to print. "Do you know if..." is a polite question about whether it works, and B answers it with useful information. Options A, C and D each borrow a word from the prompt (print, third floor, working) and answer a different question.
In the second, the speaker is making a suggestion. C responds to it with a reason to accept. In the third, the speaker shares a problem, and the natural reply is an offer to help: A. Notice that none of the right answers is a simple yes or no. Indirect answers are very often correct in this task, because that is how people actually reply.
Common traps
The echo
An option that repeats a word from the prompt, or a word that sounds like one, is attractive under time pressure and often wrong.
Right topic, wrong function
The option talks about the same subject but does not answer the question or respond to the request.
Wrong time or person
The prompt asks about the future and the option answers about the past, or the prompt asks about "you" and the option answers about "she".
Taking an idiom literally
"Can you give me a hand?" is about help, not hands. Everyday idioms appear because they are part of real speech.
Pace and focus
Read the options as soon as they appear, and choose. If you are between two, ask which one a real person would actually say in reply, and pick it. The next prompt needs your full attention, and there is no going back to the last one.
Because this task appears in both Listening modules, steady accuracy here helps in the first module, where your result decides whether your second module is harder or easier.
How to practise
Listen to everyday dialogue: podcasts with conversation, sitcoms, interviews. Pause after a question or comment and say a natural reply aloud before the other person speaks. Then compare your reply with theirs.
Collect indirect replies you hear, such as "I think it's in the drawer" in answer to "Have you seen my keys?". They are exactly the kind of answer this task tests. Then try the real format on the free Listen and Choose a Response practice page.
This is an independent summary written for test takers. ETS publishes the official specification of the test on its own website.