Practice English Listening Test for B2 with answer and audioscript – Test #31

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

Audioscript

1

M   I’ve had such a frustrating day!

F   Oh dear. I’m sorry to hear that. What happened?

M   Well, my mother-in-law’s arriving from Canada next week and I’ve been trying to get some theatre tickets for her. I know she’d love to see that new musical that’s had such good reviews and she could go at any time in the month she’ll be here.

F   So what’s the problem then?

M   Well, each time I tried ringing the theatre I was told I was in a queue and would I please hang on, my call would be answered as soon as possible.

F   Mm, I hate that.

M   Then finally after about 45 minutes of waiting I got connected to a real human and my boss chose that moment to walk into the office. I had to hang up and pretend I’d been making a business call. I’ll have to try again from home tonight, I suppose.

2

F   So I’ve arranged for the estate agent to come round and look at the flat tomorrow evening. Can you be in to show him round? I’ve got to work late and might not be back early enough. Remember to point out all the work we’ve had done – the rewiring, the new power shower and all the rest. If we can get a good price we’ll be able to afford something so much better … Yes, that’s right.

3

F   Bruce would say things like that.

F   Who’s Bruce, then?

F   He’s my sister’s new husband. He’s full of the most awful business jargon. I can’t bear it. He says things like ‘can we talk about this off-line’.

F   What on earth does that mean? Do you send emails to each other?

F   Certainly not. I think he thinks it’s a trendy way of saying ‘Let’s discus it privately’.

F   So what does Sally see in him?

F   He’s quite good-looking, I guess.

4

F   I’m sure I’ll fail again.

M   No, you shouldn’t. You can easily pass. Just remember to look in your wing mirrors.

F   It’s just I get a bit nervous when it’s a test situation.

M   Try and forget the examiner’s beside you. Just think of him as Mum or me.

F   I wish I could! But the examiner’s not going to give me words of encouragement like you or Mum do all the time. It’s hopeless, I know it is.

M   You should try to be a bit more positive. It’s really all about confidence.

5

F   I haven’t seen Meriel recently, have you?

F   No, I haven’t actually. I saw her sister in that TV programme about successful businesswomen, though.

F   Oh. I missed that. It was on while we were on holiday. I wish I’d seen it.

F   I only saw a bit of it. It wasn’t that good actually.

F   Anyhow I must ring Meriel. See if she’s had it yet.

F   It was due round about now, wasn’t it?

F   Not for another week or two, I think. But I expect she’ll have stopped work by now.

F   Yes, it’d be nice to get together while she’s free.

F   Yes, let’s ring her now and see if we can fix something up before you go on holiday.

6

F   … was just sitting in my bank account earning very little interest. I thought I’d try it for six months to see if I could earn enough to pay for my son’s and my trip to Australia. … I read this article in The Financial Times and it recommended a web site you can use. … You buy and sell things yourself. It’s really easy. I just put my money into four different companies and sell as soon as I’ve made two hundred profit. Then I try something else. … You lose sometimes, of course. Yes, I’ve easily got enough for our tickets already …

7

M   I think I preferred things as they were.

M   Me too! Those old book-cases were much nicer than these bare white walls.

M   I think so too. I wonder what’s happened to them?

M   They’re being stored in the basement, I believe.

M   That’s a shame. The photographs they used to have of all the old professors were good too.

M   Yes, they were quite fierce-looking but they did give the place a certain atmosphere. They were something to look at if the meeting was dragging.

M   Yes, it’s very clean now but it’s very clinical and cold.

8

M   So how did things go today, babe?

F   Same old thing. Tidied up. Did some washing. Had a cup-a-soup. Ironed. Fetched the kids from school. Made dinner. Waited for you to come home.

M   Are you angry with me for taking you away from your high-powered job, darling?

F   It’s just not quite what I expected when I got my first class degree in philosophy.

9 second floor   10 a washing machine   11 110   12 80

13 bulldog   14 5   15 95%   16 a sheepdog   17 China

18 miscellaneous goods

Audioscript

M   Many of us think of dogs as being intelligent animals but it appears that different breeds vary considerably in the extent of their intelligence. A recent story in the newspaper suggested that the chow chow is probably not one of the brainiest of breeds. This dog jumped out of a second floor window. Why did it do such a foolhardy thing? It was afraid of the noise of a washing machine.

But is the chow chow the most stupid of all dogs? A scientific investigation comparing the brainpower of different types of dog has recently been completed at the University of British Columbia. This researched 110 different breeds of dog and the chow chow came third from last.

It might not seem all that straightforward to assess just how intelligent a dog really is, but it was done by considering how long it took a dog to be trained to do something like, for example, sit when it was told to. On average, it took the chow chow 80 to 100 times of being given an instruction before it grasped what was wanted of it. It then had only a 1 in 4 chance of remembering what it had been taught. However, the chow is not the least intelligent of all breeds – the Afghan Hound and the bulldog did even worse in the test with the latter coming bottom of the class.

At the other end of the scale is the border collie. It only needed to be given an instruction five times before it understood it and it also had a 95% chance of remembering what to do when the instruction was later given again.

The scientists who carried out the investigation pointed out that it is not surprising that the chow chow is not very intelligent as – unlike the border collie which was bred as a sheepdog – it was originally bred for food and who needs intelligent food?

The chow chow originated from China but chow chow is not its name in Chinese. When it first arrived in England, it came in crates labelled Chow chow which apparently means Miscellaneous Goods in Chinese. The English assumed that that was the name of the dog and that name has stuck.

19 C   20 B   21 F   22 E   23 A

Audioscript

F   My best friend at school was a girl called Terry. I really thought she was wonderful but grown-ups weren’t so keen on her. I suppose she was a bit naughty in class. But often she would get the blame even if it wasn’t her fault. We always used to say that it was so unfair that they always picked on her. Looking back, I suppose it was because the staff were perfectly well aware that she was often encouraging the others, even if she tried to avoid being the focus of attention herself.

F   I had lots of best friends at school but I remember one called Polly particularly well. She was my best friend when I was nine or ten. She did far better in class than me and all the other kids but I think it was because her parents really forced her to do lots of extra school work at home. That made things quite stressful for her, I now realise, and it made it quite hard to be around her at school. Sometimes she’d be really friendly and at other times she’d snap your head off. You never knew quite what to expect.

F   Sharon was my best friend all the way through primary school. We lived near each other and spent lots of time at each other’s houses. She would always give me a hand with my homework whenever I needed it. I’m not surprised she went on to become a nurse. She was a very caring person. She really did well at school and could easily have become a doctor but she insisted nurses have more direct contact with patients. The careers teacher at school went to a lot of trouble to try to persuade her to go to medical school.

F   Sally was my best friend at secondary school though I’m afraid my parents thought she was a bad influence on me. Doing well at school was certainly not her main priority and she encouraged me to go out rather than to spend time on my homework. I don’t know how she managed to get by without getting into more trouble than she did. People generally liked her because she had a great sense of humour, so perhaps that helped her to get away with more than she would have done otherwise.

F   Katie and I used to hang around together at school. I was lucky in that I managed to get good marks without making much of an effort but Katie was the exact opposite. What she did well at were the things that you don’t get marks for – things like sport and drama. She was particularly good at acting and had the leading roles in all the school plays that I can remember. She said her happiest moments were when she was alone on the stage being clapped by an audience. Off-stage too, she hated to be ignored and used to dress in a wonderfully eccentric way.

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

Audioscript

M   Now, our speaker today is an expert on cleaning. Many of you will remember Karen Peters from her extremely popular series on television three years ago, She’s now over from the States again, this time as a visiting lecturer at Bar Hill University and she’s here today to deal with some of the questions that listeners have posted on our web site for her. We’re very high tech today. We can take further questions or comments during the programme either on our web site or by texting or faxing us. So, Karen, over to you.

F   Thank you. Well, I’ve had lots of interesting questions on all sorts of things from how to clean a water bed to making your oven spotless, from getting rid of rust to polishing windows. But I wanted to start today actually not with one of your questions but with a problem that’s just come up in the studio. The delightful presenter who has just introduced me with such kind words has just spilt his cup of coffee on his beautiful cream shirt.

He was enjoying a very nice cup of Italian espresso coffee – nice and strong with just no sugar – so it’s a pity he spilt it. But, it’s lucky that he didn’t have any milk in it because that makes the stain much easier to remove. Probably all we’ll need to do is to add some cool water and then blot it up as quickly as possible. Do this again several times adding more cold water if necessary.

If it fails to come out then try again this time adding a little detergent containing a couple of drops of white vinegar. If that fails too then try some hydrogen peroxide as a very last resort. Although you want the garment to dry in between trying these different products, don’t use the tumble dryer for this as it may mean that it’ll then be impossible to remove the mark. Be absolutely certain you’ve got rid of everything first.

So, let’s move on then to an interesting query sent to me by a couple of listeners. They ask me whether it is true that lemon juice is just as good as any commercial cleaning product. It most certainly is. And it’s a lot less expensive too. If you don’t have any in the house, I’d go and buy some now. But be careful if you buy the bottled stuff that it hasn’t got any sugar in it at all. That reduces its efficiency considerably.

So what can you use lemon juice for? Well, traditionally it was used for removing coffee stains but I don’t think it’s the best answer– we’ve already talked about what I recommend there. It can be invaluable for dealing with a wine stain in a hurry. The only thing that I would warn against is using it on metal. It can tarnish metal if it is left in contact for too long.

So now let’s think about some other useful household …