Four chords can be exactly the same four chords and still be two different loops. Three of the eight progressions published on this site share a chord set; what separates them is the order, and the order is heard as a single thing: where the music comes to rest.
Rest is the signal
Every loop has a chord that behaves like an arrival and at least one that behaves like a lean. If you can hear which chord the phrase settles onto, you have already halved the answer space, and often solved it outright — because a rotation of a loop is the same circle entered at a different door, and the door is the landing.
How to practise it
Ignore the chords for one pass. Listen to the loop twice and, instead of naming anything, hum the note you would end on if the music stopped. Then listen again and notice where in the cycle that note is the chord's foundation rather than a colour inside it. Only after that should you try to name the progression. It feels slow, and it is much faster than guessing.
What goes wrong
The commonest failure is naming the loop from its most distinctive-sounding chord. That chord is often the one furthest from the landing, so the answer lands on the rotation — the right circle entered at the wrong door. Each progression page lists exactly which other loops relate to it that way, so once you know your own habitual rotation error you can drill the pair directly.
Counting helps more than it should
Before naming anything, count the moves. Three-chord loops and four-chord loops are different answer spaces, and simply knowing which one you are in removes most of the candidates for free. It sounds too crude to matter and it is the single highest-yield habit in loop recognition, because counting is a thing you can do reliably while the audio is still playing and naming is not.
The second-highest is noticing whether the home chord arrives at the start of the loop or in the middle of it. Loops that begin on the landing feel like statements; loops that reach it late feel like journeys, and that impression survives transposition and tempo far better than any individual chord does.
The prerequisite
None of this works if the individual chords are still uncertain, because you will spend the whole pass identifying parts and never hear the shape. If that is where you are, the quality drill is the better use of the session, and the loop drill will be waiting.