Listening can be best defined as

Listening is not the same as hearing. Hearing is the physical reception of sound; listening is the mental work of attending to that sound, interpreting it and building meaning. That is why option B is the best definition.

Why B is correct: Listening is an active, cognitive process of selecting, understanding and retaining what is heard. The idea of making sense of what we hear captures the meaning-making element that communication theorists stress.

• A is wrong: Decoding is only one part of the process, and it is the perceptual side (hearing). Calling it the whole definition leaves out attention and interpretation.
• C is wrong: Forwarding information is transmission or relaying. It is a function of the sender or an intermediary, not of the listener.
• D is wrong: Recall is memory. Listening may be followed by recall, but retention is one stage of the process, not its definition.

Core concept: Active listening is a key communication skill. It matters for the Mains GS IV ethics paper and for public administration, where a civil servant must understand citizens' grievances before acting on them, especially in public hearings and stakeholder consultations.

Trap: Students confuse hearing with listening and pick A because decoding sounds technical and sophisticated.