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One by U2: a listening comprehension exercise

Listen to the song One by U2 and fill the gaps in the lyrics.

Feel free to stop or rewind the video whenever you feel it’s necessary but ideally you should play it once from start to finish and then for the second time only stop it once after every line.

This task is about B2 level on the CEFR scale.

There will be some more tasks later based on this song — including a text reconstruction listening comprehension exercise, a reading comprehension exercise on the background of the song and also some vocabulary tasks to help you learn the words in the song.

Space Oddity by David Bowie — a listening comprehension exercise

This is one of the most famous songs ever recorded. Space Oddity by David Bowie features practically on every Top Songs list and is also found on Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.

This listening comprehension exercise is at B2 level since the rhythm of the song is fairly slow and Bowie sings clearly enough to understand. The vocabulary is not very difficult, either, but you can alway ask for hints if you get stuck.

Listen to the song and enter the words you hear; feel free to stop the video whenever you like.

No Ordinary Love by Sade — a listening comprehension exercise

This is probably not even B2 level as the vocabulary of the song is not difficult at all and Sade is quite easy to understand too.

Listen to the song and enter the words you hear; feel free to stop the video whenever you like.

John Lennon: Jealous Guy — a listening comprehension exercise

An easier exercise this time — Jealous Guy by John Lennon. Watch the video, listen carefully to try and understand the lyrics, then write the words you hear in the box under the video player, where it says ‘Guess’.

Two words have been added to help you a bit; also, the asterisks show how many letters the words have. When you enter a correct word, it will be added everywhere it appears in the lyrics so you don’t have to type it multiple times.

The difficulty of this exercise is probably a bit higher than B2 level (upper-intermediate) because you have to find all the words, but on the other hand the vocabulary of the song is not very advanced.

You will find more exercises based on this song later here.

Bruce Springsteen: The River — a listening comprehension exercise

This is a listening comprehension task based on the famous Bruce Springsteen song The River.

The difficulty of this exercise is about B2 level (upper-intermediate) or maybe slightly higher.

Your task is to listen to the song and fill the gaps in the lyrics. You can also ask for hints and stop the playback at any time.

We have a few more exercises based on this song:

You can expect even more exercises on The River by Bruce Springsteen, so check back soon.

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