Practice English Listening Test for B2 with answer and audioscript – Test #28

1 B   2 C   3 C   4 A   5 C   6 B   7 B   8 A

Audioscript

1

M   It’s amazing to see you again.

F   Yes, after all this time. You haven’t changed at all!

M   I don’t think I had grey hair or quite such a big waistline in the sixth form, did I!

F   Well, you look just the same to me. What are you doing these days? You went into banking, didn’t you?

M   Yes, I did – after I’d done a degree in economics in York. How did you know that?

F   Oh, through Claire. Remember? She and I were best friends all through school. We’re still in touch and she’s got a job in the same company as your sister.

2

M   This train is moving so slowly, isn’t it? I can’t wait to get home.

F   Me too. Have you had a hard day at work?

M   Actually I’ve been travelling all day. I’ve been away for a couple of nights. A trip to New York.

F   Lucky you!

M   Well, it was pretty tough actually. I had to finalise arrangements for a new sports shop we’re opening on Fifth Avenue.

F   Did it all go OK?

M   Yeah, in the end though at one point I thought everything was gong to fall through. I’m just exhausted now.

3

F   It wasn’t too bad but it wasn’t quite what I expected. Mind you it was my own fault for not reading the course description carefully enough so I can’t really complain. Everyone else was pretty pleased with it but it was a bit of a waste of time from my point of view.

The teacher was good, I suppose, but I should really have gone for something different.

4

M   I loved the game so I decided to get the second version as soon as it came out. That’s pretty good too. There aren’t any more levels but each one is a bit more complex so they take you a bit longer to complete, which makes it good value. The quality of the visual effects are just amazing. I’ve never seen anything quite so good. You can play it online with a friend too but you need a special adaptor to do that and my dad won’t let me get one.

5

F   I’m fed up of your being at work so much.

M   I know but it’s all for a good cause. If we can save a lot by the end of the year, we’ll be able to put down a deposit on a house.

F   Yes, you doing a lot of overtime certainly helps. It’s just a pity that my shifts never coincide with yours. I only ever see you when you are asleep. Maybe I should volunteer for overtime too? Then we could perhaps get our deposit together even sooner.

6

F   I used to have a pair a bit like this in black. They were leather with little silver buckles and a lowish heel. They were nicer than these, I think, in that they were a bit lighter. I did buy them here. You don’t remember them by any chance, do you? I’d really like another pair like that.

7

F   It was a brilliant holiday, wasn’t it!

M   Yes, I feel so much better for it.

F   Me too. I know I was planning to visit all those museums and churches and things but it was just too hot …

M   Well, we can go back and do that at a cooler time of year perhaps.

F   That would be great. At this time of year it was definitely best just to sunbathe with a good novel. I didn’t even want to go shopping. Not like me at all!

8

M   I wonder if I could have a word with you?

F   Of course. Do come into my office.

M   I wanted to ask whether it would be all right for me to take Friday off?

F   That’s rather short notice, isn’t it? Remember we’ve got an important meeting about the merger with Brown’s on Friday too.

9 Adventures   10 Moscow   11 Star City   12 two hours

13 sightseeing   14 escape system   15 travel sickness

16 certificate   17 oxygen   18 noise

Audioscript

M   I want to tell you today about a travel company with a difference and one that we are certainly bound to be hearing more about in future. It’s called Space Adventures and was founded by Eric Anderson. Eric is only 28 years old but he already has a successful and rapidly growing business to his name. The company offers the person-in-the-street – albeit the wealthy person-in-the-street – the chance to experience what it is like to be an astronaut.

The trips on offer involve a three-day tour. On the first day tourists fly to Moscow where they spend the day sight-seeing, meeting their fellow-travellers and having their first pre-flight briefing. On the following day they transfer to Star City, the centre of the Russian space programme. After further briefings, it is time for the flight. Tourists are given the opportunity to experience weightless flight in space in a Russian Ilyushin-76 aircraft for two hours.

Later that day travellers return to their luxury hotel in Moscow. They spend the next day doing more sightseeing in Russia’s capital before returning home. The company is anxious to reassure potential clients that the Russian aircraft used is much safer than the shuttle because it has an escape system available at all points in the flight, whereas the shuttle only has an escape system after the solid parts have fallen off. All travellers are given pre-flight advice about how to avoid travel sickness and are recommended what medication to take to avoid feeling ill as the aircraft performs a series of manoeuvres in space.

Once they are safely back on the ground at the end of what is an extremely memorable experience, all the space tourists are given a video record of their flight. There is also a special ceremony in which they are awarded a certificate testifying to the fact that they have been up in space. Concerns have been expressed about the fact that fuel is wasted on purely leisure trips like these and that this may increase environmental problems like the hole in the ozone layer and the creation of greenhouse gases. However, Eric Anderson is quick to point out that the best rocket fuel is oxygen combined with hydrogen which, when combusted, makes the familiar and environmentally safe compound called water. He insists that the only environmental problem is noise but the impact of this can be minimised by putting the vehicles in places where there are not many people. If you are interested in finding out more about these tours and would perhaps even like to experience a space flight yourself, go to the company’s web site at www.spaceadventures.com.

19 E   20 D   21 A   22 C   23 F

Audioscript

F   I don’t do much sport as such but I reckon I do the equivalent of several games of squash every day at work. I’m the chambermaid in a hotel and I must make at least 100 beds a day not to mention all the hoovering I have to do. The job doesn’t give me time to eat too much either as we only get half an hour’s break for lunch. The hotel does provide us with a free lunch and that’s usually pretty good – a bowl of pasta with a nice salad would be my typical lunch. The helpings are quite small, though. I’ve lost quite a bit of weight since I started working there.

M   I do loads of sport. I always have. I play squash at least twice a week after work and at the weekends I play for our local rugby team. We train on Saturday mornings and then usually have a match on Sunday afternoons. Apart from that, I usually have a jog for at least half an hour every evening. I drink quite a lot of beer and have a huge appetite too but I never put on weight because of all the physical activity I do.

F   I work really long hours and spend most of my working days sitting in front of a computer. So that’s pretty unhealthy I guess. I don’t even do much exercise at weekends – I just enjoy lying around the flat reading the newspapers and watching TV. I’m hardly ever ill, though. I do try to watch what I eat as I put on weight quite easily. I only eat fruit in the mornings and have a salad at lunchtime. I eat a proper meal in the evenings though I try to avoid eating sweet things. I’m quite good most of the time. The one fattening thing I just can’t resist is cheese!

M   I never used to do much in the way of keeping fit but I had a bit of a health scare a few years ago and I’m much more aware of the need to look after myself a bit better. So I try to eat more healthily – I’m almost a vegetarian now. I also do a lot more exercise. I don’t do any sport as such but I get off the bus a stop earlier on my way to and from work and I use the stairs instead of taking the lift. As my office is on the fifth floor, that gives me quite a bit of exercise each day.

F   I was really keen on sport at school and got into lots of school teams. I won several cups for tennis and did pretty well at swimming and hockey too. But since I left school I haven’t done anything like as much. I go swimming most weeks but that’s about it. I’m a nurse and eat most of my meals in the hospital canteen – that ought to be healthy, oughtn’t it! In fact, it seems to be chips with everything which I’m sure isn’t really that good for me. I eat too much chocolate now too – I never used to.

24 C   25 C   26 B   27 B   28 A   29 C   30 C

Audioscript

F   Life was so different when we were at school, wasn’t it, Celia?

F   You’re right. Our kids have it so easy. They were so strict about uniform when I was at school. Now they can more or less wear what they like.

F   Yes, at my school in Australia we had to wear the most awful straw hats and on special occasions we had to wear white gloves. Was it like that here in Britain, Celia?

F   No, it wasn’t quite as bad as that at my school, Amy. But our skirts had to touch the ground when we knelt down and we’d have been expelled, I think, if we’d come to school with ear-rings or make-up on. Bill, did you have to wear a uniform?

M   Yes, we did. But it didn’t bother me that much – apart from the horrible caps that we had to wear. Now my son isn’t allowed to wear a cap to school and he’d really like to!

F   Yes, people are perverse, aren’t they. The worst thing for me at school was the food, though. There was no choice at all at school dinners and we had to eat everything on our plate or we were in trouble. Was that the same at your school, Amy?

F   Yes, it was, Celia, more or less. We did have a little bit of choice but we had to clean our plates. I remember how we used to put food into a little cupboard in the wall beside one of the tables. It was a cupboard holding the gas meter and we got into terrible trouble the next time the man came to read the meter and found a pile of rotting macaroni cheese and cabbage.

M   I quite enjoyed school dinners at our school but they were terribly unhealthy – all chips and lots of sweet puddings. I think they think much more about nutrition these days.

F   Yes, perhaps, but my daughter still hates school dinners. She complained the other day that there was only a choice of two different flavours of ice cream by the time she got to the head of the queue.

F   Oh, I know, Celia. They just don’t realise how lucky they are, do they! My daughter complained the other day that her new French teacher took off a mark for every spelling mistake in a test. She thought it was incredibly petty of her – and most of the class ended up with zero marks. Including my daughter, of course.

M   Well, at least she only got zero marks. We got a very sharp rap on the knuckles if we got less than 50 per cent in a test. It really hurt. It seems incredible to believe now – it’s not that long ago really and yet things have changed so much.

F   Yeah, for the better in some ways but not in others.