How to Write Numbers, Dates and Times in IELTS Listening

Picture a test taker who hears "fourteen pounds fifty" and writes "fouteen pounds fifty". They heard it right, and the mark is still lost.

A word with a spelling error in Listening is marked incorrect source: IDP.

The rules your answer is marked against

• In form, note, table and flow chart completion, you can use the words from the recording. You do not have to change them in any way source: ielts.org.
• A word limit is given in the instructions, such as "NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER". You lose the mark if you write more than the limit source: ielts.org.
• The limit can change from task to task, so read it each time source: ielts.org.
• A hyphenated word such as "check-in" counts as one word. Contractions such as "they're" are not tested source: ielts.org.

Write digits, not words

"60" and "sixty" can both be correct. Writing the number in digits avoids a spelling mistake source: IDP.

"Forty" loses the "u" that "four" has, so it is easy to misspell source: IDP. You can write 40 instead.

"Sixty kilometres", "60 kilometres", "60 km" and "60 kms" are all correct source: IDP.

Dates

"March 5th", "Mar 5th" and "5th of Mar" are all acceptable ways to write a date source: IDP.

Write the month as a word or a short form, so it cannot be misread.

Most ordinal numbers end in "th" source: IDP.

The exceptions are 1st, 2nd and 3rd, and 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 31st. But 11th, 12th and 13th take "th" as normal. Check the ending of every date you write.

Times

A time can be said in several ways, but it is written the same way source: IDP.

source: IDP

Take care with "quarter to". It points at the next hour, not the one you just heard.

Money, decimals and thousands

Dollars and pounds are the currencies you are most likely to meet. Write "four dollars fifty cents" as $4.50. Write "four pound fifty pence" as £4.50 source: IDP.

You may hear a price as "four fifty". You still write $4.50, with the decimal point.

In English, a comma separates thousands, so three thousand is 3,000, not 3.000. A decimal takes a full stop, so six and a half is 6.5, not 6,5. The same goes for money: $10.05, not $10,05 source: IDP.

If your first language uses the other convention, practise this one until it is automatic.

Phone numbers and other strings of digits

A zero is sometimes said as "O", like the letter. A number said twice or three times in a row may be called "double" or "triple". For example, "double seven" and "triple three" appear in 2450 7762 3338 source: IDP.

If you hear "double nine" and write one 9, you have lost a mark you heard correctly.

Thirteen or thirty

The ending "teen" is stressed, while "ty" is often unstressed. So you hear thir-TEEN but THIR-ty source: IDP.

You hear each recording once only source: ielts.org.

So practise these pairs until you can tell them apart the first time.

Where numbers turn up

Numbers are most likely in Part 1, but they can appear in any of the 40 questions source: IDP.

So these forms are worth practising early. The IELTS Listening test format covers the four parts and the six question types. The Listening raw score converter shows what a mark out of 40 is worth. If Listening is your weakest section, the Improvement plan for band 7 shows where it fits. The Listening improvement plan takes Listening one band step at a time.

The word limit, hyphen, contraction and completion rules and the once-only recording come from ielts.org's Listening format page. The number, date, time, currency and measurement forms come from IDP, one of the three organisations that own IELTS, in an article dated 20 May 2020. The spelling rule and the "forty" rule come from a second IDP article dated 24 May 2021, and the comma and decimal rules from a third, dated 30 June 2023. These IDP articles give guidance, not rules published by ielts.org. The worked examples are original. Last checked September 2026.