Part 2 Mastery: Listening to a Daily Life Conversation

In Part 2 you hear a man and a woman who know each other talk about something in their daily life. The conversation plays once, without a break, for about two minutes. Then the five questions come.

This is the big difference from Part 1. In Part 1 the conversation stops after each section and you answer two or three questions. In Part 2 you must hold the whole conversation until the end. So your notes matter even more.

What Part 2 looks like

Source: CELPIP Listening Pro study pack, 2026. The same rules as Part 1 apply here: the clip plays one time only, the questions come one by one, in order, and a wrong answer does not lose points.

The two people know each other. They might be coworkers talking about a project, teammates getting ready for a game, or a husband and wife planning their weekend.

The tone is friendly and polite, like a normal chat, but not too casual or personal. So you will hear everyday phrases, such as sounds like a plan. You will not hear heavy slang.

What the five questions usually ask

This pattern is ours, not CELPIP's. We read the questions in 30 of the 104 Part 2 practice sets on CELTESTPIP. CELPIP does not promise any order, but in our sets the five questions followed the same plan most of the time.

This tells you what to write down. You need the topic, the details of who does what, each person's opinion, and the plan at the end.

Our method: two columns, HIM and HER

This method is ours, not CELPIP's. It answers the most common problem in Part 2: you remember what was said, but not who said it.

Before the audio starts, draw a line down the middle of your paper. Write HIM on one side and HER on the other.

Draw the line before the audio starts, not after it begins.

Then, while you listen:

1. Read the introductory statement first. It tells you who the two people are and what they are talking about, so it is your free head start. Read it closely.
2. Write each idea in the column of the person it belongs to. If she offers to do a job, it goes under HER. If he agrees with her idea, write agrees under HIM.
3. Write every plan with its time. Email today and meeting next week are two different plans. The time tells you which one comes first.
4. Write one word for each opinion. Likes, worried, not sure. Listen to how each person sounds, not only to their words.

Keep your notes very short. Two minutes is a long time to listen without a break. If you miss a sentence, let it go. Hold on to what you did understand, and keep listening for the next idea.

🎥 CELPIP Listening Part 2: the two columns on a real practice set (12:30)

The HIM and HER columns filled in while a free practice conversation plays, then all 5 questions answered from the notes.

Jump to: 0:21 the Part 2 format · 1:05 Part 1 and Part 2, the difference · 1:35 what the 5 questions usually ask · 2:47 the 2 columns · 3:29 the free practice set · 6:35 questions 1 and 2 · 7:41 question 3, right words, wrong person · 8:23 questions 4 and 5 · 9:32 3 tricks · 10:40 recap

The example on this page

We wrote this short example for the page. It is a little shorter than a real Part 2 conversation.

Introductory statement: You will hear a conversation between a man and a woman who work together. They are talking about a farewell party for a coworker.

The two columns, filled in

Five questions on the example

Every answer is in a column. Look at how the questions follow the usual plan: the big picture, two details, what someone thinks, and what happens next.

Three tricks in the wrong answers

These three are ours. They are the tricks we see most often in Part 2 practice sets, including the free one in the video.

The two columns catch the first trick. Writing the time next to each plan catches the third. For the second trick, do not look for your exact words in the options. Look for your idea.

Practice

1. Columns only (5 minutes). Play a Part 2 conversation and fill the two columns. Do not look at the questions. Then read the questions and count how many your notes answer.

2. Who said it? (5 minutes). After a conversation, cover your notes and write five facts. Next to each one, write him or her. Then check your notes or the transcript.

3. The full part. Do a complete Part 2 set once, with no pausing and no replay. For every wrong answer, ask which of the three tricks caught you.

• Try the free CELPIP Listening Part 2 practice set from the video (Maple Avenue Block Party)
• Practise more CELPIP Listening Part 2 sets

Related:

• Lesson 5: Part 1 Mastery for the three note boxes
• Lesson 7: Part 3 Mastery for the next part
• Lesson 12: Answer Engineering for more wrong-answer patterns.