Complete the sentence: She should try listening _____ some of her favourite records for inspiration.

Complete the sentence: She should try listening _____ some of her favourite records for inspiration.

• A. In
• B. On
• C. At
• D. To

Answer: (D)

The key idea here is the common collocation after the verb listen when you’re talking about what you hear. In English, you listen to something, especially music, sounds natural and complete. So listening to some of her favourite records for inspiration fits smoothly and sounds idiomatic. The other prepositions don’t attach to the object in this way for music: in would suggest being inside something, which isn’t how we describe hearing music; on or at don’t pair with listen in this context to express the act of hearing music.

The key idea here is the common collocation after the verb listen when you’re talking about what you hear. In English, you listen to something, especially music, sounds natural and complete. So listening to some of her favourite records for inspiration fits smoothly and sounds idiomatic.

The other prepositions don’t attach to the object in this way for music: in would suggest being inside something, which isn’t how we describe hearing music; on or at don’t pair with listen in this context to express the act of hearing music.