How to get 7 in IELTS Listening

I heard that what Listening tests is candidates' ability to GRAB A WORD. So as long as we can hear the answer and correctly spell it, we can get 7 even without understanding the whole speech.

There are several patterns that signify an answer.
The most obvious one might be accentuation. Sometimes I have the vague feeling that I have no idea what they are talking about, but I can clearly hear one word, and that word turns out to be the answer.

Another scenario, especially for the multiple choice questions, is that the speaker first mentioned some key words that are the same as the words printed on the paper, but then someone negates what he/she previously said. More often than not, the latter one is correct.

Try to read as fast as you can while the CD reading instructions, usually before section 1 example finishes, I can  start to preview section 3. During your reading, it is very helpful to underline or circle some signal words and guess the answer you are going to listen to. For example, based on the grammar, is it a noun, adj., adv.? Or is it about time, location, action?

Sometimes those signal words are before the blank, but sometimes they follow the blank, which means that you would hear the answer before you actually see the signal words. This is hard because when we see the signal word we have to recall what we have heard, and keep focusing on the next signal word. This requires lots of practise to get used to it.

If you have a reasonable level of vocabulary and grammar knowledge(hard to quantify though), then just do the Cambridge IELTS Exam 3-9, and make a summary of the questions that we do wrong. Then I'm afraid it would be hard for you to fall below 7 in IELTS listening and reading.

Listening to radios such as BBC or CNN definitely will be useful, but I'm afraid it would have limited short-term benefit for improving IELTS listening scores.