Detail
What time…? Which deck…? How many…? One fact said once. Read the question first, then wait for that fact. The distractors are often other facts from the same clip — a different time that was also mentioned.
Nauti Test ProSection guide · Marlins English Language Test for Seafarers
Marlins test listening
comprehension and different sounds, explained
Listening is the largest part of the Marlins test for seafarers: 34 of the 85 questions are a recording. Twenty-five ask what a speaker meant; nine ask which word or number you heard when two sound almost the same. This guide shows what the recordings sound like, how the questions are built, how to use two plays well, and how to train your ear — with three example items written by us.
- 25listening comprehension
- 9different sounds
- 40 %of the questions
- 2 playson the practice test
00How much the listening section is worth
Marlins lists the sections of each written test on its About the tests page. At the time of writing (October 2026) the Seafarers test has 25 Listening comprehension questions and 9 Different sounds and pronunciation questions out of 85. The final score is one percentage over all the questions, so these 34 items move your result more than any other part of the test: lose more than half of them and you cannot reach 80 %, however good your grammar is.
| Test | Listening questions (as listed by Marlins) |
|---|---|
| Seafarers | 25 listening comprehension + 9 different sounds and pronunciation = 34 of 85. |
| Cruise Ship Staff | 14 listening comprehension of 50. There is no different-sounds section. On Marlins' free Cruise practice test we saw items that play one line — a guest's question, a colleague's offer — and ask for the best reply. |
| Offshore Workers | 28 listening comprehension of 85. There is no separate different-sounds section; in our practice, sound discrimination items sit inside Listening (4 of the 28 in our simulation). |
Our timed simulations draw the same numbers: 25 + 9 for Seafarers, 14 for Cruise Ship Staff, 24 + 4 for Offshore Workers. Our Listening unit for seafarers has 410 recorded items; the Cruise unit has 120 and the Offshore unit 160.
01What the recordings are like
A comprehension recording is short — usually ten to thirty seconds — and almost always a situation on board or in port: a call from the bridge to the engine room, an officer giving instructions at a mooring station, a radio message from a port authority, an announcement on the public address system, a talk between two crew members in the mess room. Most clips have one or two voices. The speech is natural: people say we've got, there's, I'll and won't, and they do not stop between words.
The questions about a clip come in a few shapes — these are the ones we write in our bank, to the test's format. Knowing them tells you what to listen for:
Purpose or instruction
What does the officer want the crew to do? Why is she calling? The answer is the speaker's main point, usually in the second half of the clip after a short explanation of the problem.
What happens next
What will the bosun do now? Listen for will, going to, I'll and imperatives. A plan that the other speaker refuses or changes is not what happens next.
Meaning of a phrase
What does "take it off the board" mean here? The right option says the same thing in plain words. It almost never repeats the phrase.
On Marlins' free Cruise Ship Staff practice test we also saw response items: you hear one line, such as "Shall I take these trays down to the galley for you?", and choose the best reply. The trap is a reply that answers a different question — "They're in the galley" answers where, not an offer. An offer wants thanks or a polite no.
02Two plays: a plan for each one
On Marlins' free practice test each recording can be played twice. We have not found the number written on any public Marlins page, so treat it as what you will probably meet and prepare for it. Our practice player follows the same rule: two plays before you answer, then free replay and the transcript once you have answered.
The how-to-pass guide gives the basic method: read the options first, understand the situation on the first play, confirm the detail on the second. Here is how to make it work under time pressure.
- Before play 1, turn the question into one short target. "Why is she calling?" becomes "reason". "What time is the pilot?" becomes "pilot — time". Hold that word in your head, not the four options.
- During play 1, write two or three words, no more. If you are allowed paper, note the times, numbers and names you hear, in the order you hear them. Writing whole sentences makes you miss the next one.
- Between the plays, cross out. Remove every option you know is wrong. Usually you can remove one or two after the first play; the second play then decides between two, not four.
- During play 2, listen for the difference between the last two options. If they are "Tuesday" and "Thursday", you only need that one word.
- Do not use play 2 to "check" an answer you are already sure of if time is short — but never skip it when you are guessing. One saved point is worth more than twenty saved seconds.
03Different sounds and pronunciation: the pairs to train
A different-sounds item plays one sentence and asks which word or number you heard — for example "Which word did you hear after the?" — with options that differ by one sound. The sentence usually makes sense with every option, so the context does not help: only your ear does. These are the contrasts worth practising, grouped by the speakers who find them hardest.
| Contrast | Pairs to practise, and what to listen for |
|---|---|
| -teen / -ty | thirteen / thirty, fourteen / forty, fifteen / fifty, sixteen / sixty, eighteen / eighty. Listen for the stress: thir-TEEN with a long ee; THIR-ty with a short, quick ending. |
| Short i / long ee | ship / sheep, fill / feel, live / leave, slip / sleep, bin / bean. The long vowel is longer and the lips are spread wide. Hard for speakers of Spanish, Portuguese, Tagalog and many Asian languages. |
| l / r | light / right, lock / rock, load / road, glass / grass, fly / fry. Hard for speakers of Japanese, Korean and Chinese. |
| b / v and p / f | boat / vote, berry / very, best / vest; pan / fan, pull / full. b / v is hard for Spanish speakers, p / f for Tagalog speakers; many Indian speakers also mix v and w (vessel / wessel). |
| th / t / s | three / tree, thin / tin, thick / sick, both / boat. In fast British speech "three" is never "tree": the tongue touches the teeth. |
| s / sh | sea / she, sip / ship, sort / short, seat / sheet. |
| Final consonants | tie / tied / tide, line / lined, close / closed. Many languages drop the last consonant; in English it can change the tense or the word. |
| Long vowels | port / pot, cord / cod, walk / work, ward / word. In British English the r is silent, so the length and the shape of the vowel are all you have. |
Train them in pairs, with audio, in context. Find a recording of both words (any dictionary site with British audio will do), play them in random order and say which one you heard; then put each into a ship sentence and say it aloud. Ten minutes a day for two weeks does more than an hour once. Our Listening unit mixes the different-sounds items with the comprehension clips, and the simulation draws nine of them as the Seafarers test does.
04Three example items, written by us
These are original items in the format of the test. There is no audio on this page, so each one shows the script as "You hear". Cover the script with your hand, ask a friend to read it to you twice at normal speed, then answer. The free practice tests have audio.
Example 1 · listening comprehension
You hear: Bosun: "Second mate, the forward winch is making that noise again. Do you want us to keep heaving?" — Second officer: "No, stop heaving for now. Make the line fast on the bitts, and I'll ask the engine room to send the fitter up before we use it again."
What will happen next?
- aThe bosun will repair the winch himself.
- bThe crew will keep heaving slowly.
- cA fitter will look at the winch.
Show the answer
c. The officer will ask the engine room to "send the fitter up" — option c says the same thing with other words. Option a borrows "the bosun" and "the winch", but nobody says the bosun will repair it. Option b is the opposite of "stop heaving".
Example 2 · different sounds (-teen / -ty)
You hear: "Reduce to half ahead — the pilot boat will meet us in about forty minutes."
How many minutes did you hear?
- aforty
- bfourteen
- cfifty
- dfifteen
Show the answer
a. FOR-ty: the stress is on the first syllable and the ending is short. Fourteen would be four-TEEN, with a long ee at the end. Both make sense in the sentence, so only the stress tells you which one was said.
Example 3 · different sounds (short i / long ee)
You hear: "Put your hand on the bulkhead — can you feel the vibration from the shaft?"
Which word did you hear after 'can you'?
- afill
- bfeel
- cfall
Show the answer
b. Feel has a long ee, with the lips spread; fill is short and quick. "Can you fill the vibration" is not English, but in a different-sounds item do not rely on that — often every option fits, and only the vowel decides.
05How to practise listening every day
Listening improves with hours of contact, not with rules. The good news: twenty minutes a day, every day, is enough to see a difference in three or four weeks. A routine that works on board, with a phone and headphones:
- Five minutes of test items. One short set of listening questions with the two-plays rule. Answer before you read anything.
- Five minutes with the transcript. Play each clip you got wrong again while you read the transcript. Mark the words you did not catch. Usually they are small words joined to the next one: "take it off" sounds like one word, "we've got to" becomes "we-gotta".
- Five minutes of shadowing. Play a clip again and speak along with it, half a second behind the speaker. It trains the ear and the mouth together, and you start to hear the stress of each sentence.
- Five minutes of free listening. A shipping podcast, a British news bulletin, a video about mooring or bunkering. First time without subtitles; if you understood less than half, watch it again with English subtitles — never with subtitles in your own language.
Practise with noise sometimes. On the day, the headset may not be the best and the room may not be completely silent. A little background noise in practice makes the test feel easier. And practise with more than one voice: men and women, older and younger speakers, and some accents that are not British.
06Typical mistakes in the listening section
- Translating while listening. By the time you have translated the first sentence, the second has gone. Listen for meaning in English; translation is for later, with the transcript.
- Choosing the option with the most words from the clip. Distractors are built from words the speaker really said. The right answer reports the meaning with other words.
- Answering from experience. "In my company we always call the master first" — but this speaker called the chief engineer. Answer what was said, not what is normal.
- Missing a change of plan. "We'll shift at ten — no, sorry, the tug is late, make it half past eleven." The first time is a trap; the last one counts.
- Missing a negative. can't, won't, don't need to and no longer are short and quiet. One missed "not" turns the answer upside down.
- Listening for the last consonant in -teen / -ty. The n of "fifteen" disappears in noise. Listen for the stress.
- Guessing the different-sounds item from the sentence. Every option fits the sentence. Only the sound decides.
- Spending play 2 when the answer is already clear, then rushing the next clip. Use your time where you are unsure.
07The other sections of the test
One guide per section, with the points each one is worth in the Seafarers test:
- Grammar30 of 85
- Vocabulary15 of 85
- Time and numbers5 of 85
- Reading1 task, several gaps
To see how the sections add up to a score, read the minimum score by rank; for the whole test format and our practice units, see the Marlins test page. Free practice, ten questions each with recordings: test 1, test 2, test 3, test 4, test 5, test 6.
08Questions about the listening section
How many listening questions are in the Marlins test?
In the Seafarers test, 34 of the 85 questions use a recording: 25 listening comprehension and 9 different sounds and pronunciation, as Marlins lists them on its About the tests page at the time of writing (October 2026). The Cruise Ship Staff test lists 14 listening questions out of 50 and the Offshore Workers test 28 out of 85.
How many times can I play each recording?
On Marlins' free practice test each recording can be played twice. We have not found that number on any public Marlins page, so we cannot promise it for your test day, but it is the rule to prepare for. Our practice player uses it: two plays before you answer, then free replay and the transcript.
What are the different sounds and pronunciation questions?
You hear one sentence and choose which word or number was said, from options that differ by one sound: fifteen or fifty, ship or sheep, light or right. The sentence usually makes sense with every option, so you cannot guess from the context. Train them with audio, in pairs, a few minutes every day.
Is there a transcript during the test?
Do not count on one. Prepare to answer from the audio alone. In practice, the transcript is your best teacher: read it after you answer and mark every word you did not catch.
What accent are the recordings?
Marlins is based in the United Kingdom, and our practice recordings use British voices. Expect clear, natural speech at normal speed, not slow classroom English. Train mainly with British English, but listen to other accents too, because ships are international and so are speakers.
How can I improve my listening quickly before the test?
Twenty minutes every day: five minutes of test items with two plays, five minutes reading the transcripts of the ones you missed, five minutes of shadowing (speaking along with the recording) and five minutes of free listening without subtitles in your own language. Daily contact matters more than long sessions.