Practice English Listening Test for B2 with answer and audioscript – Test #32

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

Audioscript

1

M   So did you manage to get it done?

F   Yes, I did in the end. I had to show some ID this time before they’d stamp it, though.

M   I wonder why. You’ve used them before, haven’t you?

F   Yes, but they say the laws have changed and they’re liable if they witness something officially and the person turns out to be up to no good.

M   Mm. I suppose lawyers have to do things by the letter of the law. Good thing you’d got your passport with you!

2

F   Please could you come and sort things out as soon as possible. We were very surprised that no one turned up after our conversation on the phone yesterday morning and we’re getting a bit desperate here. There’s still a leak under the sink and it seems to be getting a bit worse. I’m afraid it hasn’t improved at all since you last came. Someone will be in all day so please come some time today. Any time at all.

3

M   Could you please check to see if we could stay till Thursday? We’ve found some extra things we’d like to do in this area and it’d be good to stay on here, not to have to pack up again. I guess we could move rooms, though, if that’s the only way you could do it? Basically we’d like it if we could postpone our check-out till Thursday morning instead of tomorrow morning.

4

M   … what will be contained in tomorrow’s budget speech. I don’t imagine the Chancellor will go for anything too original. He won’t be taxing beards, for example, like tsar Peter the Great in Russia. Or windows as they used to do in Scotland. But I imagine he’ll have something up his sleeve to help him balance his books with having to take the unpopular step of increasing income tax.

5

F   I’m just so glad you told me Charles had been called in. Otherwise I’d never have known that all 15-year olds were supposed to have a check-up.

F   So what did they say about Andrew then?

F   They said they’d marked him on the computer as needing an appointment but hadn’t sent the letter out.

F   A bit careless.

F   Yes, especially when they need booster injections and things.

6

M   Some people get really exasperated about language change, of course. They think that language has rules that are broken by people who are not properly educated. They despair about slang and about split infinitives and all that sort of thing. But languages will always change. If they don’t, it means that they are not really alive. We may not like some of the changes but we cannot stop them. Inevitably, some things are lost but others are gained. Language changes to meet the needs of a changing society.

7

F   When does she want to come?

M   As soon as possible, I think. Now she’s decided to come.

F   I’m glad she’s coming. But I’d rather it weren’t too soon. I’ve got an awful lot of work over the next couple of weeks. And the house needs a thorough tidy before she gets here.

M   Don’t worry. I’ll help. I can take some time off. I’m just afraid that if we don’t get her here soon, she’ll change her mind.

F   I suppose so. It’s going to be really hectic though.

8

M   On the first day with all my classes, I used to take this toy lizard in and tell the students the word for it in all their languages. They assumed that I must know their languages really well if I knew the word for lizard, so that made them very careful about what they said in front of me in their language. If they tried to speak to me in, say, Greek or Korean – which of course I don’t know at all apart from the word for lizard – I’d just say ‘it’s not good for you if I speak to you in your language. You must practise your English!’

9 Phillipines   10 1971   11 government minister   12 caves

13 leaves   14 peaceful   15 National Geographic

16 film star   17 fund   18 an ordinary life

Audioscript

F   In today’s lecture I would like to tell you about some famous scientific hoaxes. There have been a great many of these over the years and some of them have been extraordinarily successful. Let me start by telling you about the Tasaday Tribe. These were discovered on the remote island of Mindanao in the Philippines. They aroused great international interest when they were found there some thirty-odd years ago, in 1971. They were discovered and made known to the public by a government minister.

They were a fascinating tribe which seemed to have made little progress since the Stone Age. Their homes were in caves rather than houses. They didn’t wear clothes apart from a few leaves. Most striking of all perhaps was the way they related very peacefully to each other. They discussed rather than fought and disagreements were very few and quickly settled. Many foreign journalists wanted to visit the island and see the tribe for themselves but only the National Geographic reporter was allowed in. He took many fascinating pictures and his magazine sold a record number of copies.

Many people wanted to go and see the tribe for themselves but entry was carefully controlled. The famous film star, Gina Lollobrigida, visited the island but few others were allowed in.

Soon after her visit, Marcos, the President of the Philippines, decided to make the area where they lived a reserve and no other visitors were permitted. A fund was established by the Philippine government. Its aim was to help the tribe preserve their historic way of life and it received generous contributions from all over the world.

After President Marcos was deposed in 1986, anthropologists decided to have another go at seeing the tribe for themselves. When they got to Mindanao, they discovered that the Tasaday actually lived a totally ordinary life – they wore jeans, had houses and got into fights like everyone else. They had been persuaded by the minister who ‘discovered’ them to pretend to have a Stone Age lifestyle. The minister then fled the country with the money that had been collected to protect the Tasaday tribe and its way of life – an amount reaching millions of dollars.

19 F   20 C   21 D   22 B   23 E

Audioscript

M   I listen to music all the time – when I’m sad, when I’m happy, when I’m stressed, when I’m tired, all the time. It hasn’t always been like this, though. My parents weren’t particularly musical and I only really got interested in anything more than just pop music through a friend at college who was actually studying music. We used to go to lots of concerts together and he really taught me so much, both about classical music and about more-up-to-date stuff. I’m just so grateful to him because music has had an amazingly positive effect on my life.

F   I think people don’t really appreciate just how powerful music can be. I never used to listen to it all that much. Then I was going through a bad patch at work. Too many deadlines and not enough hours in the day. A friend suggested that I listen to Mozart while I was trying to work. She’d read something about how it helped your performance if you listened to it while working. So I tried. You wouldn’t believe the difference it made. I got things done much faster and everyone said the quality of my work was better too.

M   I was always listening to music when I was at school. I had my radio or my record player on whenever I was doing my homework. My parents didn’t really approve and I think it was better for keeping me up-to-date with music trends than with helping me to concentrate on my studies. In fact, if I have to learn anything important now I do it much better if there is no noise going on around me at all. I’m afraid I hardly ever listen to anything these days – just occasionally in the car – but I’m determined to take it up again when life is less frantic.

F   I listen to music much more than I ever used to. I guess because it’s got so easy to carry music around and I spend so much of my time – for both work and family reasons – in cars and planes. My little iPod fits easily into my pocket and yet it can hold a roomful of cassettes or vinyl. It’s great. Music really helps me to relax during a stressful journey and I can choose whatever I want to suit my mood. It’s really made business trips much less of an ordeal than they used to be.

M   You’d think your musical tastes would get more classical as you got older but it doesn’t seem to have worked like that for me. When I was at university I loved listening to classical music and going to the opera but now I’m really into pop music. Even though I’m in my 50s. I think my kids are quite embarrassed by me and my friends try to persuade me to go back to the classical music scene but I’m just far more interested in modern sounds now.

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

Audioscript

M   So how’s things been at work this last week?

F   Pretty horrible actually. Everyone’s been feeling a bit upset about the changes that the new boss is planning to make.

M   So what’s he actually done?

F   Nothing as yet. Apart from holding a few meetings telling us what to expect, and what his old firm used to do.

M   So what exactly has he got in mind?

F   He says we don’t do things efficiently enough.

M   Well, you’ve been saying that for years too.

F   Yes, but he thinks the best way to deal with things is to get rid of some staff and make the rest work longer hours.

M   He can’t do that surely!

F   Oh, I’m afraid he can. The Union’s already had our contract checked out.

M   I don’t suppose he’d give people more money. You’d effectively be getting a pay cut.

F   Well, he does say he’d offer a bit more. But a lot of people value the time more than the money. We work long enough hours as it is.

M   Well, look on the bright side. You might have all the free time you could possibly want if you’re one of the people to be made redundant.

F   I don’t think I will be actually. He said it’d be done strictly on a last in first out basis. And I’ve been there far longer than almost everyone else, amazingly.

M   But you’ve only been there for five years.

F   I know. There was a lot of turnover just after I arrived.

M   Surprise, surprise!

F   Very funny! Anyway, this whole business has been such a shock. I thought I was going to like Kevin when he took over as boss but I couldn’t have been more wrong. He’s far worse than any boss I’ve ever worked for.

M   So what are you going to do about it? Go on strike?

F   People are too scared to do that. They seem to think it’ll make it harder for them to get another job in the future.

M   Yes, now I come to think of it, there was an article about prejudice against strikers in the paper. I’m sure I’d feel the same in their shoes.

F   So what do you think we should do? You had something a bit similar in your place a few years back, didn’t you?

M   Well, it was a bit different. But we took legal advice. It cost a lot but helped us a great deal in the end. No one got the sack and the place works pretty well now, in fact. Everyone’s almost forgotten about things. So I think it’d be worth your spending on that too.

F   Well, there’s another meeting at lunch time tomorrow. I’ll put it to the others then. I hope we can sort something out. Everyone’s in such a state!

M   Good luck!