最近，在我的博客上有考生留言问我关于雅思听力中的大小写问题，到底什么时候要大写，什么时候不用大写，会不会因为没有大写而扣分？其实，国内很多烤鸭都有同样的疑惑，为了求证，我这两天专门给雅思官方（ESOL）发邮件，希望得到他们关于这个问题的解释。以下是我发的邮件内容：

Dear Esol,

I am an IELTS teacher in China. Here I have a question regarding IELTS Listening. Many students are confused about the capital letter in Listening Test. When is it necessary to capitalize the first letter?
What is the safest way to deal with this "capital letter" problem? Say if we put the answer all in block letters, is it acceptable? Will the student be punished simply because he does not capitalize the initial letter?
I have checked the Past Sample Papers like Cambridge IELTS 4,5 & 6 and I found some answers which are in capital letters hard to explain. So please help clarify this question and I believe it is a very common question to Chinese students.

Thanks and best regards.

You Wenfeng

雅思官方很快作出了回复，以下是原文内容：

Thank you for contacting Cambridge ESOL. Please find below an update to your call:

Original Call Description:
IELTS Listening - use of capital letters

Logged on: 18/05/2009 at 16:20:19

Update:
Dear You Wenfeng,

Thank you for your enquiry. In IELTS listening candidates are allowed to write their answers in upper or lower case.

I hope that this is of assistance.

Kind Regards

Elizabeth Jones
ESOL Helpdesk
Cambridge ESOL Customer Services

所谓的 In IELTS listening candidates are allowed to write their answers in upper or lower case意思就是说不会因为大小写而扣分。其实，可以看得出来，雅思官方改卷时还是很机动灵活的，不像一些老师所说的那么死板。当然，我建议烤鸭们该首字母大写的尽量还是应该大写，不过没必要因为大小写问题给自己太大的压力