Quick answer: OET Listening Part A has 24 note completion questions across two healthcare consultations, 12 blanks each. You hear the audio once only. Before each consultation you get about 30 seconds to read its blanks. You write the exact words you hear, and abbreviations and numbers are allowed. Part A is the foundation of your whole Listening grade.
Here is the sentence I open every Listening batch with. The Listening test is won or lost in Part A. Not in Part C, where students spend all their worry. In Part A. Twenty four of the 42 marks live here, the answers are spoken clearly, and no deep interpretation is needed. You hear, you catch, you write. This guide gives you the complete system from my live classes: the 30 Second Scan, the Same Page Rule, the Sound Rule for spelling, and the abbreviation shortcut that buys you seconds when seconds matter.
Part A at a glance
| Questions | 24 note completion blanks |
|---|---|
| Audio | Two healthcare consultations, 12 blanks each |
| Plays | Once only. No repeat, no pause. |
| Prep time | About 30 seconds to read the blanks before each consultation |
| Answers | The exact words you hear. Abbreviations and numbers allowed. |
| Weight | 24 of the 42 listening marks |
22/24
A good score, and an achievable one. The answers are spoken clearly and no interpretation is needed. You hear, you catch, you write.
Why Part A decides your Listening grade
Do the math with me. Part A has 24 marks. Part B has 6. Together that is 30 of the 42. In my teaching, Part A and Part B combined cover 70 to 75 percent of what you need to clear this exam. Even if Part C goes badly, a strong A and B keep you alive. The opposite is not true. Nobody rescues a destroyed Part A with a brilliant Part C. So give Part A your maximum respect, your maximum practice, and your maximum focus on exam day. These are spoken answers waiting to be written down. Collect them.
And one scoring secret from my tracking. Every question you mark wrong costs you roughly 10 to 15 points on the 500 scale. And after 35 raw marks, your scaled score starts climbing fast. So the difference between a careless Part A and a clean Part A is not small. It is the difference between grades.
The One Play Rule
The audio plays once. This single fact should design your whole behavior. There is no pausing, no rewinding, no second chance, no asking the speaker to repeat. So your job is not perfect understanding. Your job is staying with the speaker, every second, and catching the words as they pass. Students who practice with normal videos, pausing and replaying, build a comfortable habit that the real exam destroys. From today, every practice session runs on the One Play Rule. One play, live writing, real speed.
The 30 Second Scan
Before each consultation, you get about 30 seconds to read its 12 blanks. Most students waste this gift. They read casually, like reading a menu. You will use it like a professional. Go through the blanks fast and ask one question at every gap: what type of word lives here? A number? A drug name? A symptom? A body part? A time? The words around each blank tell you. Now your brain has a map. When the audio starts, you are not hearing a random conversation. You are waiting at twelve specific doors, and you already know what shape of visitor is coming to each one.
The Same Page Rule
This is the discipline that separates trained candidates from lost ones. At every moment of the audio, you must know which blank the speaker is near. Your eyes on the notes, your ears on the speaker, both connected. Are you on the same page as the audio? That is the question running in your head the whole time.
And here is the hard part of the rule. If a blank passes and you missed it, let it go. Immediately. Stay with the speaker. Missing one blank costs you one mark. Chasing one blank costs you five, because while your mind replays the lost sentence, the speaker keeps walking, three more answers pass, and now you have truly lost the page. One mark is a scratch. Losing the page is the wound. Move with the audio, always forward, never backward.
The Sound Rule for spelling
Now listen carefully, because this rule is widely misunderstood. In Listening Part A, if your written word sounds exactly the same as the spoken word, a small misspelling can still be marked correct. That is real. But here is what I tell every batch: never rely on it. I have watched many students hear the word perfectly, write it carelessly, and lose the score they deserved, because their version did not clearly sound the same. The safe path is simple. Train the spelling of the words this exam loves: medications, procedures, symptoms, equipment. Write clean. Treat the sound forgiveness as an emergency net, not a pillow.
The abbreviation shortcut
Here is the legal shortcut most students do not use. Abbreviations and numbers are allowed in Part A. The speaker says blood pressure, you write BP. The speaker says hemoglobin, you write Hb. The speaker says seventy five, you write 75. Use the commonest medical abbreviation for the word, the one every clinician recognizes. Why does this matter so much? Because writing costs time, and time in Part A is attention. Every second your hand spends spelling out a long word is a second your ears are alone with the speaker. Short hand, fast hand, ears free.
Test all five rules on a real mock. My free OET Listening test plays once, like the real exam.
What the blanks want. Listen for specific information.
Part A is specific information listening. The blanks want facts: numbers, dosages, drug names, symptoms, durations, dates, test names, body parts. The same answer magnet families from my Reading Highlight Trick. So while you listen, your ears should sharpen every time a number or a medical term approaches. Those are the moments blanks get filled. General understanding of the consultation is nice. Specific catching of the details is the score.
How to practice Part A. My protocol.
Practice with real format mocks under the One Play Rule, pencil and paper, numbers one to 24 written before the audio starts. After the test, my listening review protocol: for every wrong answer, replay that part of the audio again and again until your ears finally catch the word. Then write the full sentence separately, and write one line on why you missed it. Could not hear it? Heard it but spelled it wrong? Lost the page? Your error log will show your personal pattern within a week, and that pattern is your training plan.
One honest warning about materials. Free Part A practice on YouTube is fine for volume. But be careful building your confidence on easy materials, because the real exam has moved harder, and comfortable practice creates painful exam days. Your true level only shows on current difficulty mocks.
Find your real Listening level today. My free trial gives you a full Listening mock test with real audio that plays once, plus a full Reading mock, both marked instantly with your grade estimate. 7 days free. No card needed.
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Next in the series: OET Listening Part B: the complete guide, where six questions hide behind signal words most candidates never learn. Then Part C, where the audio never stops.
Reading also on your list? The complete Reading system is here. OET Reading: the complete guide.
About the author. Dr. Nasir Bukhari, MBBS, is an OET Certified teacher. He completed OET's official Teacher Training in all four skills, Reading, Listening, Writing and Speaking, certified by OET's Head of Education. He has taught OET to healthcare professionals in more than 40 countries. He is the founder of CliniVerba, the house behind OET HQ.