Select the correct answer.

There is a question about a fish. The instructions say "TWO WORDS". You clearly heard the recording saying "the red herring" and this is the only fishy thing in the recording. What will likely be considered the answer?

IELTS answer tables, which examiners use to mark the answer sheets, sometimes allow some variations, but failure to follow word count instructions will likely result in the answer considered wrong. When there is an ambiguity, it's often useful to check what words already exist in the text of the question itself. This might indicate that they are not the part of the answer. If there is no other way to resolve the ambiguity, which is rare, articles are the first candidate for exclusion. Usually in such cases the phrase without any article is still correct.