Practice FCE (B2) Listening Test 04 with Answers and Audioscripts

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

Audioscript

1

Carla:   I’d love to learn chess at the new after-school club.

Rick:   Me too. My dad’s a good chess player – I’ve played a bit with him. He’s always telling me about the skills it teaches you, working out solutions and stuff. It would be good to improve my game. I might even beat him!

Carla:   I thought it might be a good alternative to always being on my laptop. I also think if I was successful at it, it would make me feel better about my thinking skills.

Rick:   Really? You’re not lacking in confidence, are you? You’re really good at school. But developing another interest away from video games – that would be a result, I admit …

Carla:   So let’s go then!

2

As you know, we’re having a day in the woods next week, supervised by some forest skills experts. The aim of the day will be to construct a tough survival shelter. So before we go, we need some ideas for designs. I’ve passed around some photos of different shelters to give you inspiration – they range from simple to quite complicated, all made of natural materials. But the design you come up with is your choice ultimately. Don’t forget, the shelter can also be decorated in any way you choose – some can have art work inside them. So free up your imagination and see where it takes you. We’ll come together shortly to compare ideas …

3

Amelia:   I saw your artwork on display at the competition today, Matt. It looked amazing – I’m sure the judges will give you a prize.

Matt:   Do you think so? Thanks, Amelia … it’s tricky to tell with your own work whether what you’ve done is any better than other people’s. I’m just wondering now if they’ll get what I’m trying to say – I could have gone for something much more straightforward.

Amelia:   Well, it’s hard to be objective about your own stuff, so you never know. Anyway, there were some amazing pictures there. You’d never guess they were done by people our age.

Matt:   I know. It was the same last year, so I was prepared for that. Still, we’ll see …

4

As you know, we entered a race on Saturday for boats built by students, and our school team won! We were pleased – and surprised, as some other boats had clearly been built with the help of advanced engineering! We had some advice for the technical side too, though, and that kept us floating after most of the other boats had sunk. However, things might have turned out differently if our main rivals hadn’t also sunk just before the finishing line! People watching all said we should have rowed faster, and we put all our energy into it, but the boat was just slower than we’d expected. It still came first, though!

5

Hi Dad – it’s Maisie! I’m just in town with Tessa, and we’re about to go into the cinema to see the film, so thought I’d just ring and check the arrangements we made for later. We said you’d pick us up in the street outside the cinema at 8 p.m., didn’t we, but it turns out the road’s being fixed, and you won’t be able to stop the car there. So Tessa’s suggested a road around the back of the cinema – much easier to get to, apparently. Could you fetch us from there? Just text me when you have a minute, to let me know you’ve got this. Thanks, Dad!

6

Mike:   How are you getting on with the summer reading challenge, Holly?

Holly:   Hmm, well, I can’t say I’ve tackled as many books as I was intending to by this stage, but from that other people are saying, they’re pretty much in the same position.

Mike:   So what have you read so far?

Holly:   Well, I have to admit, I’ve tried a couple of titles that I’ve just put to one side again, just not my thing at all. Having said that, other friends have suggested quite a few titles they thought I’d take to. I guess those were better than the others, but I still gave up after a few chapters.

Mike:   I know what you mean. I’m not doing very well either!

7

So we’ve got our tour of Grand Film Studios booked for Wednesday, which I know we’re all looking forward to. You’ll come away with a completely new understanding of the work that goes into producing even a few seconds of a film, and what influences how much gets edited out. When you next watch a film after the visit, you’ll read the list of credits at the end and think about all those people you don’t see on screen, from the director right down to the assistants. And you’ll be able to imagine how the classic sci-fi film ‘Spacetrek’ was produced. For those of you who haven’t seen it, I’ll bring it in the next week.

8

Anita:   What’s that you’re reading, Jake? A comic book?

Jake:   No, it’s a graphic novel – a story that’s told with pictures. And it’s brilliant!

Anita:   I always thought those books were just full of superheroes and stuff.

Jake:   I must admit, I kind of thought the same, but this one’s really not at all like that. I mean, the plot’s fairly straightforward, unlike some I’ve read, but it’s a proper historical novel, based on facts, rather than some fictional superhero character, so I’m learning a lot. I always spend ages looking at the pictures in these novels, too, as they’re done by extremely talented artists. Look!

Anita:   Mmm, they’re beautiful.

9 animal conservation   10 secure   11 seeds / plant(s) seeds

12 exhaustion   13 (bat) detector   14 orchestra

15 blankets   16 hedge   17 owls   18 charity

Audioscript

Hi! I’m Katie and I want to tell you about a trip I went on recently along the river in my town, to watch bats! Have you ever seen bats flying around on a summer’s evening? I have – and they’re pretty amazing, so I was excited about this trip! My dad organised it, and he’d also invited a family friend, who trained as a biology teacher but now works in animal conservation. Dad probably thought he’d tell us all about the bats, but it turned out we also had a bat expert on board as our guide!

The boat we went on was quite narrow and flat, and it moved a bit when we got in, so I wasn’t convinced it was secure. But luckily we had a chauffeur, who was like a driver, who took us smoothly along the river. I found the boat was actually very comfortable. And it didn’t disturb the wildlife, as it was almost completely silent.

As we went along, the guide gave us some information about bats. Apparently, they’re essential to nature all over the world, because not only do they eat insects that damage crops, but they also drop seeds over a wide area, which gives plants the chance to grow over larger areas.

The main diet of bats is insects, and scientists believe some need to eat as many 3,000 a night in order to survive. In cool summers when there aren’t many insects, bats can soon become exhausted if they’re flying around hunting but not catching anything. At that point they may need help from a bat rescue group, to feed them and prevent them from also becoming very thirsty.

Now bats make lots of sounds while they’re flying around in the dark. These sounds bounce off objects and tell the bats about their location. But a human ear can’t hear these sounds, so we were each given a device known as a bat detector so we could listen to them! It looked like a radio, but all that came out were the noises of different bats flying around us. It reminded me a bit of, not a choir exactly, but a weird sort of orchestra! And this one definitely hadn’t practised! Anyway, our bat expert was able to distinguish between the different sounds the animals were making, and in all, we identified three different species!

During the day, the weather had been warm, but in the evening, a wind started blowing, and the temperature dropped. We’d expected that, so we’d brought along sweaters to keep us warm, but even so it was great to have some warm blankets that the company had in the boat. I noticed there were some umbrellas, too, which would have been useful if the weather had changed.

As the wind blew across more the open parts of the river, there were fewer bats to spot. We were constantly passing under trees with branches that hung down into the water, and beneath bridges where I thought some bats might be keeping out of the wind. But it wasn’t until we got to a long sheltered stretch of river with a hedge along it that several bats decided to come out again and catch insects.

We were lucky to see other wild creatures too. It was too dark to spot any ducks by then, but Dad’s friend pointed out some owls that appeared over our heads during the trip. They were amazing to watch! Then a couple of swans swam alongside us and made angry noises – we may have been too close to their nest.

It was a wonderful trip, and as a result I’m now planning to train with the bat rescue group, and to raise money to help them. It was also good to know that what we paid for our tickets was contributing to helping the bats. So not only was the trip fun, there were lots of benefits for the charity too. I can really recommend the experience!

19 B   20 F   21 C   22 H   23 E

Audioscript

Speaker 1

When I started high school, I began getting lots more homework, so I had to find ways to tackle it all. I wasn’t sure whether listening to music would help me, even though my friends were doing it – or so they claimed! So I tried studying while listening to pop songs, using headphones so I didn’t disturb anyone. The problem was, I’d just start singing along, trying to remember the lyrics. I was getting really distracted so it definitely wasn’t working. Then I switched to some calmer classical stuff – and quickly became more focused. It has to be stuff I’m familiar with, though. I just listen to pop when I’m not studying now.

Speaker 2

My mum was really against the idea of me listening to music while I was studying. She thought that background noise would really disturb my concentration. In fact, I’ve found ways of using music to boost my learning. For instance, I make associations between new words in another language, say, and a piece of music – classical, pop, whatever, so whenever I hear the music, the words come to my mind. I’m going to try it out on some maths problems next – I find it hard to get those into my head. I reckon it will help, even though I’ll probably find them just as uninteresting as ever!

Speaker 3

I’m really keen on music, and am usually either playing or listening to it when I’m not at school. My parents have never really minded, as long as I also keep up with schoolwork. However, they did object recently when they found me listening to rock music on headphones while I was writing an essay. They said I’d go deaf if I carried on doing it! I thought it was helping my concentration, but after what they said, I was forced to admit they’d probably got a point. So now my room is always completely quiet, and my results have never been better. In fact, I even complain sometimes about the noise from the TV downstairs!

Speaker 4

I guess there aren’t many people my age who don’t like listening to music. I play in an orchestra, so although I listen to lots of rock music, classical is my favourite when I want music for a specific purpose, like going running. Some people in the orchestra reckon they can study better with Mozart playing, especially when they’re trying to memorise historical dates or something. They say it makes dull tasks that bit more interesting. Nevertheless, I’ve always known it’s not my thing, so I’ve never been tempted to even give it a try. But I have found it’s good to relax and unwind with music in between homework sessions.

Speaker 5

All my family are really into music – to the extent that it’s playing all day, every day, or so it seems! But I don’t mind that. I come from a big family, so I don’t expect to have periods of absolute quiet when I have to get on with something at home. I often take myself off to the city library when I really want to concentrate on something. And that’s where my headphones come in. If I’ve got some music playing softly through those, it doesn’t matter what else is going on around me because I just won’t notice!

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

Audioscript

Interviewer:   I’m with Ella Fletcher, who’s currently doing work experience as a lighting technician at a theatre. Ella, welcome. What attracted you to this job?

Ella:   Well, I’ve always been interested in brightly-coloured light shows, like the ones you see at rock concerts. I’ve always been keen on fireworks displays too. But I think a play I went to ages ago was the original inspiration – the memory of the amazing, constantly changing lighting they used at that theatre has stayed with me. I just know I’ll be happy in this area of work.

Interviewer:   So what do theatre lighting technicians do, exactly?

Ella:   Well, our theatre director once said some people think we just turn the lights on and off at the beginning and end of a performance – which really underestimates what we do! Not everyone thinks like that, though! In fact, lighting technicians really help the audience to get what’s happening on the stage during a play. Depending on the action, you can make a scene beautiful one minute and miserable the next – all with lights!

Interviewer:   And to audiences ever comment on theatre lighting?

Ella:   Well, they might do if they think it’s been particularly impressive during the performance, but not really. I just like the idea that you can create different moods with lighting – which the audience will always respond to, even though they won’t always realise how it’s being done. Of course, if the lighting completely failed for some reason, I guess people would comment on that!

Interviewer:   You started getting involved with stage lighting at school, didn’t you?

Ella:   I did. For the first production I helped with, I drew up a really detailed plan for the play lighting – you know, total darkness at one point, one big light at another. We had some sophisticated lighting equipment in the school hall, which I was keen to experiment with. My teacher was impressed – but then politely pointed out the play was actually set during the day, so no darkness was required! Now I make sure I’ve read any play I want to work on very carefully before I share my ideas with anyone!

Interviewer:   And you’ve also started researching the history of theatre lighting.

Ella:   Yes, I was asked to do it for the play we’re producing at the moment, and I got really into it! There was a lot I didn’t know, like the fact that electric lighting wasn’t used in theatres until the late 19th century. So before that, they just used candles, and then gaslights – which would have created a really special atmosphere, I think. It’s awesome to think about all the great performances that went on in the past despite the lack of modern lighting.

Interviewer:   So how do you think technology has changed the job?

Ella:   Well, it’s hard for me to tell, as I’ve grown up with technology, but my boss says it’s changed things enormously. In the theatre I’m in, for example, there’s now a digital desk that can store loads of different lighting combinations. This means technicians on big productions can now create thousands of fantastic changes in lighting during one performance, although they probably have to be programmed in, which is quite complicated. But my boss says that even though we now have all these options, he still believes ‘less is more’ and that we shouldn’t use absolutely everything if the overall effect isn’t as good as simple lighting. That’s been an important lesson for me.

Interviewer:   You’re obviously enjoying your work experience, Ella. But is there anything you might not enjoy about the job as a career?

Ella:   Well, there are long hours, for sure, but I can cope with that! I have realised that unlike actors or theatre directors, my name may never be recognised by the public, though. Still, lighting technicians do win awards, so that’s something I might hope to achieve one day! But I’m right at the beginning of my career at the moment, so I’m not in a hurry.

Interviewer:   Right! Thanks, Ella!