Practice English Listening Test for B2 with answer and audioscript – Test #42

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

Audioscript

1

F:   For me, the key thing in keeping yourself fit is doing a range of activities, not just one thing over and over again. I’ve joined this gym, and I hope that’s going to be helpful. There’s quite a lot of different equipment, and it’s all the latest stuff, and the best stuff on the market at that, so I mean to try as much of it as possible. They also run various classes, which seem to be popular. Group activities, and planned timetables aren’t really my thing, although I might have a go if my friend Sarah comes along too. She’s always saying I should do more of the group stuff.

2

F:   The holiday business is a mixed picture this year. Holidays at the seaside have a constant appeal, don’t they, that combination of sun, sea and sand? Having said that, the market seems pretty static and while hotel owners may be frustrated at the lack of growth, I think you’ll find the beaches are still full. Meanwhile, more people are staying inland, and we can see a rise in short breaks to capital cities – perhaps they’re quicker to get to, perhaps the unreliable weather’s having an effect here. On the other hand, the rising costs of activities such as climbing and skiing seems to be driving more and more people off the mountains.

3

F:   Tony, you teach all ages to ride bikes. You must notice some big differences.

M:   I teach mostly children, but some groups of adults. Actually, the kids are often rather serious about the whole thing, but with the grown-ups you get quite a lot of laughing. But they’re just as nervous, probably more so – the learning process is a challenge for them. They worry about looking silly or stupid, and feel bad when they get things wrong. Some of them do give up, and I always feel sorry for them, that I’ve let them down, much more so than with the kids, but there’s not much I can do at that stage.

4

F:   Yes, hello, it’s Caroline. This is the second time I’ve rung, so I hope you get this message. I’m a bit concerned about the situation. As I understand it, the planning meeting that was scheduled for Thursday has been postponed by at least a week, which may mean that it has to be cancelled altogether. Both the Managing Director and I are likely to be away on trips by then, so the whole thing would be further delayed. It’s all a great shame. Can you get back to me when you can and clarify why the meeting might be put off and also if it could be moved by only a couple of days? Thanks, bye.

5

M:   People ask me where I get my ideas from and it’s a good question. I say: ‘Look, ideas come from ideas, right?’ So I might watch movies, any kind of movies all day for a week, until I’m hypnotised, spinning with images, but with the stories waved away, so just pictures, and then maybe I could start to work with those … those ideas … to translate them into paintings. I read poems, too, lots of poetry, but I read it wrongly, backwards, for example, till the images become separated, just ideas for compositions that I then realise on canvas, my ideas.

6

M:   Can I help?

F:   Yes, now as I explained to your colleague on the phone before I came down here, this isn’t the model I was looking for when I bought it. I can’t connect everything I want to it, like the wireless link and also my printer, so it doesn’t work for me. I’m quite prepared to spend a bit extra, but you should take this one back and give me the more up-to-date model. To be honest, I think the sales assistant who sold it to me just wanted to make a sale – she wasn’t listening properly to my requirements.

M:   Let me just get the manager for you.

7

M:   What did you think of the concert then? Saw you up there on the balcony.

F:   It was awesome – at least Sally Rydout was − but an old-fashioned theatre’s a funny place to hold a rock concert. It was like all gold paint and red carpets everywhere.

M:   Oh I thought that was cool – anyway I got my ticket at half price cos my dad knows someone who works there.

F:   Hey – you might’ve said – you could’ve got me one too. Cos I didn’t think the support bands were up to much actually.

M:   No – same old stuff – glad I didn’t pay full price!

8

M:   So you’ve been looking into some more websites for us this week? What type were they this time?

F:   I’ve been looking into sites that are based on people’s hobbies, an area traditionally served by magazines, you know, motorbikes, horse-riding – that kind of stuff. And there’s quite a variety of sites out there, and some of them are full of attractive design – some very clever features – but most of them lack sufficient content. I guess I thought I was going to find something a bit more engaging to be honest – I mean something that the magazine itself doesn’t already offer.

M:   Right.

9 beauty studies   10 purple   11 hairspray

12 chemistry   13 marketing   14 costume (design)

15 lipstick   16 lighting   17 fashion   18 advertising agency

Audioscript

Hi there. My name’s Erica. I’m a final-year student at Woodlands School in Thornbury and, together with my twin brother Steve, I spent a week at the local college doing a course in make-up skills for the entertainment industry. It was a kind of work-experience scheme and I’m here to tell you all about it.

On the course, you can do, like, various diplomas depending on what you’re interested in. I had a choice of hairdressing, which is not quite my thing, manicure, which I didn’t feel quite ready for, or beauty studies, which I went for because it seemed to give the basics.

Now, in case you’re wondering. This wasn’t a week off school. It is schoolwork, we’re just not in the school building – and we’re in with kids from other schools, which is cool. It’s good because we all wear these black tunics rather than our usual school uniforms. Given that mine’s actually purple that’s, like, such a relief.

We practise on dummies with wigs rather than real people – and we learn how to apply different types of make-up or whatever. Like, on day one we kicked off with hairspray – you know keeping it off the face and stuff – and later in the week got to apply eyeliner and use make-up to get people’s skin looking older or younger.

And we had formal lessons too. A history teacher from another school did one about stage make-up through the ages, then our chemistry teacher came and told everyone about what’s really in shampoos and stuff – I mean that was brilliant. Then one afternoon a maths teacher came – I can’t remember the exact subject, but it was something relevant.

Doing the course has helped me to see whether I’d want to do make-up as a career – or maybe something related. I’d like to work for a cosmetics company one day. I mean it could be in the research department, but I’m not that good at sciences, and given that my dad’s in marketing I guess that’s the department I’d rather end up in – but who knows? Whatever happens, I think this hands-on experience is really useful.

And, of course, I was there with my twin brother, Steve, but this isn’t the first course like this he’d done. The college also does courses in drama, set design and other stuff related to entertainment. Steve did one in costume design, but didn’t have the patience for it – but at least he had the chance to find that out.

But I think he does have an interest in make-up. I remember when we were five, we locked ourselves in the bathroom with my mum’s make-up bag. We wanted to do a bit of face painting and Steve used her lipstick. Fortunately it was a cheap one. She had some really expensive face cream and eye make-up in that bag, but luckily he never spotted it! Anyway, we made a real mess and it went down in family history – so they were all reliving the memory when we were doing this course!

Steve thinks the hands-on stuff is great. He found learning how to make fake cuts with blood really cool apparently. But the classes are good too. We both learnt a lot from the one on lighting. It’s surprising how closely that’s linked to make-up in all types of entertainment actually, but especially on stage.

And Steve might be headed for a career in make-up. There’s plenty of opportunities actually. People immediately think of theatre work or the film industry when you talk about make-up, but he’d be more interested in going into fashion. Make-up’s big business there too – both for live shows and photographic work.

And we’ve both already got work-experience placements lined up for when we leave school. We were pretty lucky. We wrote off to all the local theatres of course – not thinking we stood much chance – but also to a local advertising agency. And it’s them that’s taking us both on. They make videos for the local television station and the Internet and stuff. So it should be really interesting.

We’re both really looking forward to it …

19 D   20 B   21 F   22 C   23 A

Audioscript

Speaker one

Yes, it was my uncle who gave me some great advice some years ago, and, looking back, I can safely say he saved me from doing something I know I’d have come to regret later. I was struggling with the decision about where to study medicine – my idea was to stay near my home town rather than go further away. I felt nervous about leaving my family, my friends, the safe little world I knew, but my uncle just sat me down and told me some stories about the things he’d done and seen in his life, and you know what? None of them had happened in our little town, and he made me see it was better to get out and see something of the world.

Speaker two

One bit of great advice I had was from my mum. I’d finished university and I was at a loss as to what to do next. I didn’t really have a clear idea of how my life should progress. I was hanging around the family home, feeling really rather sorry for myself, and wondering if university had been such a clever idea after all. This friend of mine asked me one day to come along and help him make a wedding video, because his assistant was off sick or something. I wasn’t going to agree, but my mum said I should, so I went. And I loved it, and that was effectively the start of my own video business, so, thank you, Mum!

Speaker three

Sometimes it’s your friends rather than your family who give the best advice, isn’t it? In this case, what had happened was that I’d seen an advertisement for a sofa, and it was less than half price. It was also really rather large and really absolutely red. I wanted to change my apartment around, because I’d just been offered a new job – I know that’s not 100 percent logical! Anyway, this large red sofa was delivered – and it was very large. I kept ignoring how big it was but in the end my friend Diana said I should accept that it just looked stupid and made me agree that I’d bought the wrong kind of sofa for my apartment.

Speaker four

When I started college, I was quite shy. At the beginning, I kept wondering if it was all a mistake, if I shouldn’t have come at all. My brother came to see me one day and said he wanted to meet all my new friends and I was like: ‘What friends?’ He thought it was ridiculous, so he told me to make a list of everyone I thought was nice or interesting or something like that and then to ask them all to my room for a party. You know what, every single one accepted and we had a great time and I’m still friends today with at least half of them.

Speaker five

Well, I went on holiday with someone I thought was my best friend. You know, we spent so long planning that trip – the arrangements were more than you needed to get to the moon. But we just didn’t get along. We found out we had different, well, opposite, ideas about everything. If I said let’s go and do this, she’d say let’s go and do that. We argued a lot. The atmosphere was bad. I called my sister and told her what was going on, said I felt terrible, but she said wipe the slate clean, just go and say you’re sorry that it’s like this and how could you make it better again? I did, and it worked … we made up.

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

Audioscript

Int:   My next guest on the travel programme is Steffi Smeeton, who recently returned from a week-long group cycling holiday. Steffi, how did you first hear about the trip?

S:   Actually, I’d been hoping to do something like this for a while, and had just been waiting for the right thing to come up. Then I spotted this one on a website. It sounded just the sort of fun thing I was looking for. So I booked a place. It was only later that I realised quite how far I’d have to cycle, and that’s when suddenly I began to have doubts about my level of fitness. But I still went ahead with it though and it all turned out OK in the end.

Int:   So what expectations did you go into it with?

S:   Well, I’m always up for a challenge, that’s just my character, so naturally I was hoping that it would provide that. I guess most of all I wanted to see just how serious I was about cycling. I’ve always had a bike, and enjoyed it, but I was thinking it might become more important in my life in some way. And, of course, I thought it would be a chance to make contacts amongst like-minded people, although I had no information about who the other group members would be before I left.

Int:   How did your family react to the idea?

S:   Oh they weren’t surprised. In fact, when I was talking about the preparations I needed to make, my elder brother got all excited, and started describing a trip he’d taken. I think it’d been a couple of years previously, not long ago anyway. So he still felt enthusiastic, and even suggested he might join me. We all had to remind him that he’s a father now and needs to stay around to look after his new baby. I don’t think my sister-in-law would’ve been thrilled at the prospect of him going.

Int:   So who else was in the group?

S:   There were about twenty of us. A couple of them had obviously done that sort of thing before – but they showed no signs of impatience with the rest of us who were finding the pace pretty tough. We needed to concentrate on keeping up with those two though. So any chat was left until the evenings, when you needed time to wind down, no matter how exhausted and sleepy you were feeling.

Int:   So did you make real friends?

S:   I hope so. The problem is that we are all in different places and, well, lead busy lives. Several people were taking photos the whole time, and agreed to email those to everyone. There was some talk of getting together at weekends to keep up with our cycling, but definite plans didn’t actually get made. We’ll see – maybe we’ll sign up for the same ride again next year.

Int:   So, looking back, has it changed you?

S:   Oh yes. You know what was really interesting for me though? I’m always trying to be very organised, like with my college work and stuff. I set myself all these targets, prioritise and so on and worry whether I’m pulling my weight in any team I’m meant to be part of. But on the bike trip, these things didn’t seem quite so important. The pace was just the pace we all rode at, and I stopped trying to calculate our speed and things like that. Maybe that’ll carry over into the rest of my life too.

Int:   Interesting. And is it all cycling from now on?

S:   Oh no. I’m hoping to go flying, I mean in a small plane, and I know I will one day – who knows when – but first I have to go on a 10-kilometre running race I’ve put my name down for. I’m really not looking forward to that one. Then sailing looks like the next thing on the agenda once that’s out of the way. But cycling will always be fun too.

Int:   I see. Great talking to you Steffi.