DET Interactive Listening
A conversation you take part in — you hear a turn and choose how to respond, several times over — followed by a task asking you to summarise what was said. There are two sets of eight to ten questions.
Two different skills in one set
- Responding — choosing the reply that fits what was just said. This is about function and register, not vocabulary.
- Summarising — reporting the conversation afterwards. This needs you to have followed the whole thread, not just answered each turn.
Candidates who treat each turn as an isolated question answer them well and then cannot summarise. Hold the thread: who wants what, what was offered, what was agreed.
Under the clock
- Listen to each turn fully before choosing.
- Pick the response that fits the speaker's purpose, not the one with familiar words.
- Keep a mental note of the outcome of each exchange.
- For the summary, cover the whole conversation rather than its last turn.
Both halves are scored. A perfect run of responses followed by a vague summary loses marks the responses had already earned.
Interactive Listening — FAQs
2 questions
No, this is a listening item — you select responses and then summarise.
Two, each of about eight to ten questions.
More adaptive question types
Sources
Written from the test board's own published material and checked on 1 October 2026.