Practice FCE (B2) Listening Test 12 with Answers and Audioscripts

1 C   2 B   3 A   4 C

5 C   6 A   7 B   8 C

Audioscripts

1   You are at a college lecture when you hear this student interrupting the lecturer.

L = Lecturer     S = Student

L:   … which was highly controversial anyway and of course if you consider the implications of this new law … uh … yes?

S:   Excuse me. I’m sorry to interrupt. You said something very important about the core laws and I was just wondering …

L:   Actually, they were the corn laws – you know the agricultural plant.

S:   Oh, sorry … I missed some of what you said, it was very fast. Could you possibly go back over this?

L:   Well, no. You’ll find all of that in my book. Price fifteen ninety-nine at the college book shop. Now, where was I?

2   You hear this politician being interviewed on TV.

No doubt, all of you listening are worried about taxes and so you should be. The Christian Democratic Alliance have said nothing about their plans to alter the tax brackets and these are changes that will go straight to the pockets of hardworking people like yourselves, and we all know where the Social Liberal Democrats stand on this issue. They’ll be taxing everything in sight. However, we in the L.D.P. believe in a fairer approach to administering the national economy.

3   You overhear a hotel receptionist speaking on the telephone with a customer.

Hello, Half-Way Hotel. Can I help you? … Yes, we take bookings … um … er … well, actually, I’m very sorry, but I don’t think we’ll be able to manage that. I suggest you try ringing the Spa Hotel in Tunbridge Wells. They have over twice the number of rooms we have and offer very much the same facilities and standards, although you will end up paying rather more.

4   You overhear this woman talking to her child in a shop.

… and now we’re just dying to see the next episode to see if they really … Kylie! Put that down! It doesn’t belong to you. I said, put it down! How many times have I told you not to touch things that don’t belong to you? Now, where were we?

5   You overhear this woman talking about a problem she had with a CD player.

Anyway, the cd was in the machine. I couldn’t get it out, I couldn’t play it and I was worried because I wasn’t sure if it was still under guaran tee. I was also furious because it was Angie’s favourite album. So, I took the whole machine along to Luntham’s service counter expecting to hear the worst, and they were wonderful. Said they’d been getting quite a lot of the same complaint about that model, and he fixed it right there in front of me, and I didn’t have to pay a penny. Not like some shops I could mention.

6   You are at a pay phone in a hotel when you hear this man ordering a taxi to take him home.

Yes, hello … I’d like a taxi … Yes, just one taxi … The name is Carter … Yes, I’m at the Half-Way Hotel … I’d like to go to Radleigh Road number two-six-nine … How soon can you send a cab? … OK then, that’s fine. I’ll be waiting outside the main entrance. Thank you.

7   You are on a train when you overhear this man talking about the prices of railway tickets.

That station-master was really helpful, wasn’t he? I mean, he didn’t have to tell me about the young person’s travel card. I’ve just saved three pounds off the full price. This ticket would have cost me nine pounds fifty but with the card it’s only six fifty, which is, in fact, a lot less than I paid last year and that was before the fares increased. It was seven fifty then. Mind you, I did also have to pay ten pounds to buy the card, but it’s going to be very useful over the next few months what with travelling to Scotland … FADE

8   You hear this man on the radio introducing a song.

And that, of course, was the latest single from the Vegetables and that is currently at number nine in the charts after six weeks in the top 10. And still at number one for the seventh successive week, the song that everyone loved when they first heard it, but I think we’re all ready for a new number one, aren’t we? Well, if you’re not, here it is again, ‘Husky Lady’ from Rap It Up.

9 brakes   10 Great Salt Lake

11 sick   12 track   13 gravity

14 85 mph   15 scared/fear

16 40 mph   17 virtual reality

18 warm but dry

Audioscripts

A roller-coaster is a self-inflicted, techno, primal jab at frail human courage with fierce names and perilous heights and no brakes on board. Yep you pay your money to get shaken and stirred. And the amusement parks wouldn’t have it any other way. Absolutely, they want bragging rights. In fact there’s been law suits over who has had the tallest coaster in the world and who’s had the fastest and that kind of thing.

So where do you go to meet the twisted minds that come up with all this twisted metal? You go to a place where there isn’t even a roller-coaster in sight. The shores of Utah’s Great Salt Lake.

“What’s the G-Forces right here?” Aerodynamics in Clear Field, Utah. These loop artists can make you sick but they won’t. There are certain things that do that, our experience and knowledge of what forces and geometries do to people that we won’t do that we refuse to do. It’s in the shop at Aero that the need for speed is satisfied. The cars are easy, fibreglass frames over a steel chassis. The real art comes in designing the track.

The roller-coaster uses gravity, energy from having been carried up a lift. The science is making sure that once that potential energy is released, there’s enough to get the car back to the station. The art is spending that energy in new and interesting ways. And that means engineering maximum height, maximum drops and maximum “Gs” or no “Gs” at all.

The Dragonfire at Bush Gardens in Wallensbury Virginia; in that first hill we put a parabolic curve in there and what that does is give you about 4 seconds of zero Gs.

But, above all, coasters are about maximum speed. The current record is 85 m.p.h.

There’s even a psychological element to coaster design. How much to you want your riders to be aware of their predicament? The coaster that doesn’t look an especially very large one, speeds are very high and you’re able to comprehend everything that’s going on and there’s a lot more kind of fear factor, it’s, it’s they’re scarier, they really are.

And if you think these guys don’t know more about throwing your body around than a pro wrestler, listen to the next step in coaster design called a “Pipeline”. Our current coasters when you bank into a corner, you kinda rock back and forth. But the Pipeline puts the point of rotation right in the centre of your chest so that we can just flip you over really quick. And it allows you to do barrel rolls, snap rolls, aeroplane acrobatic type manoeuvres.

So that’s coaster science; make it fast, make it safe and give it a vicious name. After that build it and they will come.

Oh. What’s the next step in roller-coaster? The tallest, the fastest, the biggest, indoors. Well anyway you got the point. Here it is, the biggest indoor coaster in the world. Grand Slam Canyon at Circus, Circus in Las Vegas. A two loop with corkscrew, 24 hundred foot, 40 plus mile an hour screamer. And the next step beyond this?

I think the next generation of coasters is gonna have elements of ride and technology that is employed currently in simulators thinking. I see a combining of those two kind of things. A coaster with digital displays or maybe a coaster with a virtual reality helmet attached to it so you get the G. Forces and you get maybe some different visual sensations, things like that.

The most expensive technology in a roller-coaster is in the wheels. The tyres cost five times what they do on your car, the same goes for the brakes and finally a physics lesson. Any roller-coaster will go faster when the air is warm but dry and when it’s heavier, so if you’re gonna do it right, get a bunch of friends together, pack that car and ride on a warm Autumn day.

19 D   20 F   21 A   22 B   23 C

Audioscripts

Speaker 1

Well, I suppose some of it was quite nice but it really could have been so much better. After all, I went to a lot of effort this year to make it something special, but somehow it didn’t quite work. I mean everybody had masses to eat, there were eight of us sitting down to dinner, and we must have spent a fortune on presents this year, but looking around the room, you couldn’t see it in people’s faces. And then there was all the quarrelling over what we were going to watch on TV, and I don’t seem to remember a single person actually saying thank you and really meaning it.

Speaker 2

I was all set to have another unexciting Christmas in the bedsitter where I’m living now. Of course, I’d sent my kids Christmas presents but I knew I wouldn’t be hearing from them. My ex-wife doesn’t allow it. So I’d bought myself a two pound chicken from Dewhursts and a four-pack of Lion Brand Extra and I got a stack of pound coins for the electric meter so that at least I could be warm and watch some telly. And then, just as I was just putting the chicken into the oven, there was a knock at the door and it was the father of the family just across the road saying they’d noticed that I was going to be alone that day and would I like to join them. And of course, I had a wonderful time.

Speaker 3

It isn’t over yet. I mean, we’ve had the actual festivities on the 25th, but there’s so much more to Christmas than that. Our parish church is putting on a festival of 9 lessons and carols on Sunday evening. And if that’s not your cup of tea then there’s the Charitable Associa-tion Santa Claus pram-race on Monday, although I won’t be taking part in that this year. And this Christmas it’s even been snowing so I’ll be taking my grandchildren up to Connerston Hill for some tobogganing or they can build a snowman if the snow’s good enough. That’s on Tuesday and then … FADE

Speaker 4

It wasn’t as good as it’s been in the past. For a start the telly was pretty disappointing, especially after last year’s. I mean we had ‘Terminator’ last Christmas Eve, but all we got this year was ‘Robocop’ again. And the weather, huh, the weather’s been really bad, so most of the football was cancelled and then to top it all, our video machine broke down on Christmas day so there’s been nothing to watch all Christmas. And then, just to finish off any last chance of a decent holiday, someone suggested we all played Monopoly. Well, I went out to walk the dog in the snow.

Speaker 5

Well, I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it. I spent the three days before the twenty-fifth standing outside Fielding’s pet shop with a placard trying to stop people buying pets as presents. And did they listen? People were going in and out of the pet shop all day and you should have seen the number of baby cats, dogs and rabbits that people were buying as presents. And you know what’s going to happen to them. The same as every year. A week after Christmas they’ll be out on the streets fending for themselves in temperatures well below zero. But what’s most distressing is the tropical birds. These beautiful animals can die in a matter of hours if left outside.

24 C   25 B   26 B   27 A

28 A   29 C   30 A

Audioscripts

JA = Jim Adams     R = Reader    PS = Paul Spenser

JA:   Hi, this is “Say it like it is”, the programme in which your comments about what’s been on Radio One for the last week are read. And for today … Well, we had many listeners writing in about last Tuesday’s science programme which is based on weather this time. John Holmes from Oxford says:

R:   Your “Climate changes” turned out to be quite an interesting programme. Professor Jones’ theory that we’re slowly going towards another Ice Age was quite astounding. I was taught that the earth was moving nearer the sun!

JA:   You could be right. But I don’t think that it will happen in our lifetime. Mrs Kent from Brighton talks about weather problems which could affect us in the near future.

R:   Some experts may tell us what the weather may be like in the next century but I’m more concerned about the present day situation. I think that tax money and scientific studies should try to focus on short-term weather forecasts and try to make them more precise and accurate.

JA:   Many listeners have the same point of view. On the other hand, Tom Sheridan from Manchester has a different opinion.

R:   I hear that experiments are being made to change the weather in Britain. But, who wants it? Nobody would like a set weather pattern. All those conversations about the weather would disappear.

JA:   We’d find something else to talk about. I’m sure. Food, for example. It seems to be a favourite of our readers judging from the letters we receive …

R:   Dear Jim, I’m writing in objection to the Cookery Series on Wednes days.

JA:   Tim Saunders, from Coventry writes;

R:   Most men already know how to do things like making toast so our time shouldn’t be wasted by such programmes.

JA:   Tim would like more challenging cooking tips. We’ve got the producer of our cookery show here today, Mr. Paul Spenser. What about more difficult cookery on your show?

PS:   I can relate to what Mr. Saunders is saying. Up to now we’ve been doing basic things to help beginners but we’ll be moving on to more difficult recipes in the next few weeks. I hope that the programme will be more interesting for Mr. Saunders in the future.

JA:   I hope so! To finish off we have a few letters referring to the rumours that lending libraries won’t be free to the public anymore. Jane from Bournemouth has a few things to say about this.

R:   For students like me, books are too expensive to buy and we depend on libraries for our books! 20p is too much to pay for every book we take out.

JA:   Don’t worry Jane. It’s only a rumour so far. And our last letter comes from one of the elderly in our community.

R:   The elderly have to pay for their needs so why shouldn’t others pay for theirs? They pay in pubs and discos, why not at libraries.

JA:   Well, that’s all for today. More for you to think about. If there’s something you’d like to comment on write to Jim Adams, “Say It Like It Is” Radio One.