You should have time to read the question before the listening, so use this strategy to prepare yourself:

- If there are spaces that you need to fill, think about they types of answers that could fit the space. For example, should you be listening for a number, an object, an activity, a name, or...? For these types of questions, you will hear the exact word in the recording, so don't use any synonyms.

- If it's a multiple choice question or multiple matching question, quickly mark the keywords. Pay attention to the full question, not just the options.  If it's multiple matching, then you're listening for words and expressions with the same meaning as the keywords in the question.

I hope this helps!