ESL Doctors Listening

The ESL doctors listening exercises on this page will help you get better at understanding spoken English and vocabulary related to going to visit a doctor and being ill.

ESL doctors listening skills will help you if you need to visit a doctor in a different country.

There are four exercise on this page as follows:

  • Identification of spoken words in the correct order.
  • Identification of the word that matches a spoken definition.
  • Listening comprehension passage.
  • Short dictation passage.

On the ESL doctors vocabulary page there is a spoken vocabulary list that you can listen to first to learn how to pronounce the words related to visiting a doctor.

ESL Doctors Listening Exercises

Exercise 1 – Identification of Spoken Word Order

In this ESL doctors listening exercise, listen to the recoding below that has 5 groups of 5 words each and then identify the option (A-D) from the questions that has the words in the same order. If you need to, stop the recording after each group of words.



ESL Doctors Identification of Spoken Word Order


Listen to the recording of the five groups of five words each given above and decide which option (A-D) in the five questions in this test has the correct order.

1) Which is the correct order for group of words one?
        A) Sneezing, Bed rest, Cut, Wheelchair, Patient
        B) Wheelchair, Cut, Sneezing, Patien, Bed rest
        C) Patient, Wheelchair, Sneezing, Cut, Bed rest
        D) Bed rest, Patient, Wheelchair, Cut, Sneezing
2) Which is the correct order for group of words two?
        A) Prescription, Health, Fever, Poorly, Virus
        B) Virus, Prescription, Poorly, Fever, Health
        C) Fever, Poorly, Virus, Health, Prescription
        D) Health, Fever, Virus, Poorly, Prescription
3) Which is the correct order for group of words three?
        A) Rash, Cut, Treatment, Health, House call
        B) Health, Rash, Treatment, Cut, House call
        C) House call, Health, Rash, Cut, Treatment
        D) Treatment, House call, Cut, Rash, Health
4) Which is the correct order for group of words four?
        A) Diagnosis, Treatment, Patient, Consulting room, Pharmacy
        B) Pharmacy, Diagnosis, Treatment, Consulting room, Patient
        C) Patient, Pharmacy, Consulting room, Treatment, Diagnosis
        D) Treatment, Consulting room, Patient, Diagnosis, Pharmacy
5) Which is the correct order for group of words five?
        A) Cold, Medicine, Wound, Consulting room, Ill
        B) Ill, Cold, Medicine, Consulting room, Wound
        C) Wound, Ill, Consulting room, Medicine, Cold
        D) Medicine, Consulting room, Wound, Cold, Ill

Score =

Correct answers:

Exercise 2 – Identify Meaning of Spoken Definition

In the following recording there are 5 definitions of words. Identify the word in each of the questions that matches the spoken definition.



ESL Doctors Listening Identification of Vocabulary Meaning


Listen to the recording of the meanings of the five vocabulary words given above and decide which word out of the options (A-D) in each question matches the meaning.

1) What is the meaning of the first definition in the recording?
        A) Appointment
        B) Dehydrated
        C) Health
        D) Flu
2) What is the meaning of the second definition in the recording?
        A) Allergy
        B) House call
        C) Medicine
        D) Prescription
3) What is the meaning of the third definition in the recording?
        A) Vomit
        B) Well
        C) Ache
        D) On-call
4) What is the meaning of the fourth definition in the recording?
        A) Accident and emergency
        B) Consulting room
        C) Examine
        D) Recover
5) What is the meaning of the fifth definition in the recording?
        A) Receptionist
        B) Symptoms
        C) Test results
        D) Waiting room

Score =

Correct answers:

Exercise 3 – Listening Comprehension

In this ESL doctors listening exercise, listen to the recording of the passage ‘Patient Referral’, which is a letter written by a GP sending a patient to a hospital to have some tests done. Then answer the five questions below. You can listen to the passage several times if you need to.

At the end of this page I have included the text of the recorded passage so you can read it if you want to confirm your understanding of it from the listening. Just click on the show passage link.



ESL Doctors Listening Comprehension


Listen to the recording of the passage about doctors above and answer the following five questions.

1) How old is the patient?
        A) 46
        B) 47
        C) 48
        D) 49
2) Which of the following best describes how long the patient has been treated by the doctor?
        A) 19
        B) 16
        C) 25
        D) 17
3) What did the doctor do when the cough seemed to be getting better?
        A) He sent the patient home.
        B) He asked the patient to come and see him in a week.
        C) He sent the patient to hospital.
        D) He gave her a repeat prescription.
4) Since the cough came back and got worse what have the two further types of medicine done?
        A) They have not done anything.
        B) They have make the patient sleepy.
        C) They have made the patient better.
        D) They have cause the patient many problems.
5) What are the tests the doctor asked the hospital to perform?
        A) Blood tests.
        B) A range of tests.
        C) The test are listed on another sheet of paper.
        D) Any that the hospital thinks ill help the patient.

Score =

Correct answers:

Exercise 4 – Dictation

For the following exercise the recording has a short passage about visiting the doctor being read by a native English speaker. The passage is read two times. The first time it is read at a slow speed and in the second there are pauses after every few words. The second reading also includes the punctuation. Listen to the recording as much as you need to, but try to get the dictation done without having to listen too many times.

The text of the passage has been included at the end of the page so you can compare what you wrote with the original. When you are ready to see it just click the show passage link.



Listening Comprehension and Dictation Passages



Show Hidden Answers Listening Comprehension Passage
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Dictation Passage
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