Quick answer: OET Listening Part C has 12 questions across two long extracts, 6 questions each, with 3 options per question. You get 90 seconds before each extract to read its questions. The audio plays once and never stops, so you answer while listening. With Part A and Part B secured, every Part C mark is a bonus that lifts your grade.
Part C is the deep end of the Listening test. Two long healthcare talks, and an audio that keeps moving while you answer in real time. Students fear it more than any other listening part. But here is my honest teaching after three years: Part C is not where your exam is decided. Part A and Part B combined cover 70 to 75 percent of what you need to clear. Part C is where your grade gets lifted. When you walk in knowing that, your shoulders drop, your ears open, and you catch more. This guide gives you the complete system from my live classes: the Track First Principle, the two keyword families that act as your GPS, the 90 second weapon, and the rule that saves students from drowning: no time to think. For the whole sub test, start at the OET Listening guide.
Part C at a glance
| Questions | 12, two extracts with 6 questions each |
|---|---|
| Audio | Two long healthcare talks. Plays once. Never stops. |
| Format | Multiple choice, 3 options per question |
| Prep time | 90 seconds before each extract, for that extract's 6 questions |
| Extract types | Conversation with two speakers, or a single speaker presentation |
| Position | With A at 22 plus and B at 4 plus, your clearing core is already banked |
6/12
Half of Part C, on top of 22 in Part A and 4 in Part B. Your clearing core is already banked, so every mark here lifts the grade rather than saving it.
The Pressure Free Part
Let me repeat the math from my classes, because it changes how your ears work. Part A holds 24 marks. Part B holds 6. Together, 30 of the 42, and in my teaching that combination covers 70 to 75 percent of your clearing requirement. So if you followed my Part A and Part B systems, you enter Part C with the exam essentially in your pocket. Every mark you now collect pushes your grade higher. This is not permission to relax. It is permission to be calm. And calm ears catch words that frightened ears miss. Fear makes you deaf. Freedom makes you sharp.
The Track First Principle
Now the sentence I make every batch repeat. Right or wrong, do not worry about that. Never lose the track. In Part C, your position in the audio matters more than any single answer. As long as you know which question the speaker is on, you can attempt all twelve. The moment you lose the track, you are done: students who lose the page stop listening, start guessing, and mark options randomly. And guesses, in my tracking, are wrong about 90 percent of the time.
Know your enemy too. Part C extracts come in two types. The conversation type, with two speakers, an interviewer and a guest, where the questions themselves help you follow the flow. And the single speaker type, a presentation or research talk, one voice, no breaks, no back and forth. This second type is where students drown, because there is no second voice to reset your position. For single speaker extracts, the Track First Principle becomes everything, and the keyword system below is how you hold it.
Constant keywords and synonymous keywords. Your GPS and your signal.
This is the heart of my Part C teaching. There are two families of words, and each one has a different job.
Constant keywords are your GPS. These are words from the question that the speaker will say in exactly the same form in the audio. Names, technical terms, specific things that have no synonym. In my tracking, more than 90 percent of the time, constant keywords appear in the audio as they are, and their job is to tell you which question the speaker has reached. You hear the constant keyword, and your position updates: he is on question 33 now. That is how you never lose the track, even in a single speaker extract.
Synonymous keywords are your answer signal. These are the meaning words in the question and the options, and the audio will say them in different clothes. The option says important, the audio says crucial. The option says shows, the audio says demonstrates. When you catch a synonymous keyword being spoken, that option lights up, and in my tracking, around 60 percent of the time the option carrying that caught synonym is the correct one. Sixty percent is not a blind rule, it is a strong signal that your judgment then confirms. The full synonym families live in my 100 Clue Words system, and studying them once serves you in Listening and Reading both.
The 90 Second Weapon
Before each extract, you get 90 seconds for its 6 questions. That is roughly 15 seconds per question, and this small window can hand you two or three answers per extract before the audio even starts. Here is how to spend it like a professional.
First, the trap that catches even good students. I made this mistake myself in my first sitting: the 90 seconds appear and you start reading all 12 questions. No. You get 90 seconds for each extract separately. Read only the 6 questions of the current extract, carefully, and hold their key words in your mind.
Second, choose your reading approach. Some students read only the questions and mark the important words, because reading options too early confuses them. Other students read questions and options both, marking key words in each. Neither is wrong. Test both at home across two or three practice tests, keep the one that scores higher, and lock it. My personal method: I make sure I know the question words, not memorized, just known, so that during the audio I never read the questions again. I only glance at the options, with the question already sitting in my mind, checking in real time: is it A, is it B, is it C.
Third, do your elimination NOW. If an option is clearly not going to appear in this audio, remove it during the 90 seconds. Because once the audio starts, there is no time for elimination. There is no time for anything.
The No Time To Think Rule
This rule explains why Part C feels so different from every other part. While the audio plays, there is no time to think. None. Either you are understanding what the speaker is trying to say, in the moment, or you are not. The thinking work, reading, marking, eliminating, belongs to the 90 seconds. The audio time belongs to pure judgment: ears on the speaker, eyes gliding over the circled words, position updated by constant keywords, options lighting up on synonymous keywords. Students who stop to think during the audio pay with the track, and the track is everything. And connected to this, my Move On Law: if a question passes and you could not catch it, best pick and forward, immediately. The next question is already coming, and it might be an easy one. Never donate two marks to one hard question.
Feel the moving audio on a real mock. My free OET Listening test plays once, like the real exam.
How to practice Part C. My protocol.
Part C practice has one purpose: building ears that keep the track under pressure. Always practice under the One Play Rule, full extracts, real timing, the 90 seconds used properly. After the test, my listening review protocol: for every wrong answer, replay that section of the audio again and again until your ears finally catch the line. Write the sentence down. Write one line on why the correct answer is correct and what pulled you to the wrong one. Reasons, always reasons, never guesses. And when the practice feels hard, remember what I tell my classes: I have watched students start at 240 and 250 and clear this exam. Effort beats fear here, every single time. This is not a one day job, and it does not need to be. It needs to be a daily one.
Your clearing core plus a calm Part C is the full Listening grade. 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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The rest of the series: OET Listening Part A builds the clearing core, and OET Listening Part B gives you the Question Type Code.
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.