What should I look at first on an IELTS Listening map question?

The starting point, before the option list: find the entrance, the gate or the point the speaker calls here we are, and decide which way the walker is facing. From there a left is the walker's left, and every phrase has somewhere to land. Only then read the letters.

Two marks on the plan are worth more than any vocabulary list: a dot on the entrance and an arrow showing which way the walker faces. If the plan is printed sideways, turn the paper rather than your mental map, because the printed room names still read left to right in your hands. And when two letters seem to fit the same gap, choose the one whose anchor phrase you actually heard, not the one whose room name you recognise from the picture.

IELTS Listening Map and Plan Labelling: Getting Your Bearings First →