Yes no doubt. It's also because of exam hall pressure that makes you lose concentration at some point and also the speed of recordings are bit fast compared to the sourced material. But as you mentioned, sometimes its a lucky day to have a test like this on your exam day. I hope you get the desired score in the next sitting.

@@knowledgeislandbybilal exactly i firmly believe that listening module sets up the tone for the remaining test especially if you're aiming for clb9 or higher, back when i took the test in 2020 and 2021 listening was much easier as it was straight forward but with aspirants now aiming for higher bands to reap fruitful benefits such as permanent residency status ect they are compelled to raise the difficulty level,i used to get 8-9 in listening without even practicing in 2020s but now 8 seems like a miracle

Surely they have raised the standards.

Yes there are few you can check out: 1. IELTS Ready Premium 2. Guided E-Learning (GEL) IELTS 3. Road to IELTS 4. Cambridge One: IELTS Intelligence

@@knowledgeislandbybilal thanks

No. They always mention the maximum allowed words limit. So you will write your answers accordingly.