Listening is a paper many candidates underestimate or fail to prepare for correctly. Contrary to what you may sometimes read, there are very specific skills needed to improve your listening. Whatever happens, it is not a case of practice, practice, practice. Rather you need to focus your practice as you would for any other paper.

Here is a summary of a few of my simpler suggestions on what you should think about when you are practicing:

1. Read before you listen - predict the answer, think grammar
2. Read as you listen - focus on the whole question, not just key words
3. Look at 2 questions at once - often they come one after the other very quickly
4. Don't leave the writing to the end - you're not going to remember the detail
5. Practice your shorthand - you need to write quickly as you listen, you get time at the end for writing correctly
6. Check your spelling - wrong spelling, no mark
7. Don't write the answer too quickly - often the speaker corrects himself and you need the second answer, not the 1st answer
8. Don't leave any blank answers
9. Listen for repeated information - sometimes the answer word is repeated or reformulated
10. Look for clues in the question - other questions or the layout of the table can often help

The big one here is number 2. This is what causes a huge amount of errors in the exam: simply focusing on keywords as opposed to the whole question. There is a definite skill to this:

My suggestion is that each listening test you do at least 3 times:

1. Test yourself
2. Read the transcript as you listen - seeing where the answers come
3. Retest yourself a week or so later.

The important stage here is stage 2 - that is where you are going to learn. You will little or nothing just by doing test after test. Aim for quality not quantity if you want to improve.