In learning English for entry into a foreign university one has to accept an integrated approach. It is a system which gets the student to learn English by several means such as reading, writing, listening and speaking. The more popular of the four means are listening and speaking. There are passages which the student has to listen to, from a book which may be the IES book or the current Longman IBT series.
There is a corresponding audio CD that the student can listen to and follow a written text at the same time or he could learn to listen to the text without following it, at the same time time and improve his aural comprehension. At the same time he should have his eyes on the questionnaire the follows the passage, so as to familiarize himself with the type of questions he will be asked. Answers are multiple choice and the student has to take the best answer or answers. He has to follow instructions, as he may be asked to select two answers instead of the classic one.
He should also understand the words or expressions in the potential answer to the best of his ability. He is advised never to leave a question unanswered as a unanswered question will definitely be considered wrong. The approach I have taught uses a lot of negative deduction especially if the answer is not readily understandable. Students that way eliminate the least likely answer. When there is multiple choice, there are always a choice of answers where one is completely unrelated to the question.
When hearing or reading a passage, students have to be aware of what the topic is as opposed to the subject and the main idea of the passage. The topic deals with what the passage is talking about and would be different from the subject of the material. For example on a text about study habits, which would be the subject , the student may be reading which study habits are better than others, and that is the main idea especially if in the paragraph there are short references to study habits in children as compared to adults. The main idea is still about study habits but to back up knowledge about what they are, the educator refers to statistics he has from different population groups.
Students are then encouraged to ask themselves what the main idea of the passage is that they are listening to while they are listening to it. They might also learn to listen to the intent of the speaker so that they will know what the sub context is of the passage is and why a speaker uses certain words to express an intent and not others.
This brings me to mention that the listener will also learn how to distinguish certain attitudes from others based on the choice of language or how a sentence is said. Intent and attitude are often asked for in listening to passages.Sometimes the person is unable to grasp what the motive for a certain expression is and so should relisten to the text later or look at the practice answer to understand the relationship of the intent to the spoken expression.
