Practice English Listening Test for B2 with answer and audioscript – Test #61

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

Audioscript

1

Woman:   I’m quite nervous before a performance. Experts say the way to handle that is to imagine you’re singing to an empty room rather than a theatre full of people. I tried that – it’s easier said than done though. But I saw another singer I worked with doing deep breathing exercises before going on stage. She encouraged me to have a go and, although it probably worked better for her than for me, it is quite effective. I didn’t use to chat much with anyone before going on stage ‘cos I was worried it might affect my concentration, but these days I need to discuss last-minute stuff with the band and technical guys.

2

Girl:   We had to go to school dressed as a character from a novel today, for World Book Day. I went dressed as a character from one of my favourite books.

Man:   You worked hard on that costume.

Girl:   Yeah, my sewing skills are hopeless, but everyone said I looked fantastic.

Man:   Good. Were there any special activities organized?

Girl:   Someone called Linda Martin who writes novels for teenagers gave a talk. Apparently she’s famous.

Man:   Really?

Girl:   And then I was interviewed by two girls from another class who wanted to know what I thought about the day in general. They were doing a class magazine. I’m not sure why they chose me, but it was fun anyway.

Man:   Great!

3

Girl:   You know that summer camp we were told about, where you learn how to design video games and apps? Would you fancy going on it?

Boy:   I like the idea of learning how to write computer code. Whether I could manage two whole weeks doing the same stuff is another thing.

Girl:   You’ve got a point. There’d be other stuff to do, though – like sports and trips.

Boy:   Maybe. But once we were there, we’d be stuck and we wouldn’t even have our own rooms. And I’ve never spent that long without my family before.

Girl:   It would take some getting used to. There’d be other people our age, though.

Boy:   There’s no knowing we’d like them.

4

Boy:   I love Prices of the North! I study history at school so I really appreciate the way the writers mention actual kings and queens. The plots are very clever with all the twists and turns. But this does mean that the main people in the story suddenly do unexpected things that don’t seem to be consistent with what they did in earlier episodes, and you’re just trying to figure out why. The current series has been criticised because there’s a feeling that they’ve cut out all the fantasy, which was such a big feature of the first series. There’s still plenty of excitement though if that’s what you’re looking for.

5

Man:   This winter’s been particularly harsh for people living in Boston in the USA. One enterprising resident’s had the idea of building himself an igloo. It’s not unlike an Eskimo igloo in design, so it’s quite unusual to see it standing in the city. The owner’s currently offering short igloo breaks at an affordable ten dollars a night and there’s been a lot of interest. It seems people can’t wait to spend a night in the freezing cold and I’m actually one of them – although I know it’s not for everyone. And although the owner’s hoping it might take off in other areas of the country, this doesn’t seem too likely to me.

6

Woman:   People often dream of discovering ancient objects, but fourteen-year-old Max Simmons has actually done it. Tell us about your discovery, Max.

Boy:   There’s a beach where I go to look for old stuff. Recently I found a stone which looked like an arrowhead. My dad reckoned it wasn’t, but I took it to a museum and they said it is an arrowhead and it’s over fourteen thousand years old.

Woman:   Good thing you didn’t listen to your dad!

Boy:   Yeah. I’m trusting my own judgment from now on.

Woman:   Were your friends impressed?

Boy:   Well, they asked me all about it but they think searching for prehistoric stuff’s weird. I think it’s brilliant to find something someone used so long ago.

7

Girl:   I’ve always thought netball’s a really great sport and I’ve enjoyed playing it, but I just can’t believe how much time some girls at my school spend practising in the gym so that they’re fit enough to get picked for the big matches. I’ve always managed to get into the team without doing that. There’s more than one version of the game and the rules vary depending on which version you play. The best ways to more around the court, and how to throw and catch the ball effectively aren’t things you can pick up just like that in a few training sessions – so learning how to play well is challenging, but it’s fun.

8

Girl:   Did you see those two climbers on the news? They were the first people to climb that 800-metre cliff. It was a vertical rock-face. Terrifying!

Boy:   And they did it without any equipment – apart from safety ropes!

Girl:   Yes – they even had to sleep in tents hanging from the cliff during the climb. I can’t imagine doing that!

Boy:   I’d love to do something like that. It makes me want to join a climbing club – I don’t think I’d be brave enough though. And I wonder how their families felt about them doing it.

Girl:   They must have been really worried, don’t you think?

Boy:   I imagine they’d have been proud more than anything.

9 magazine   10 harbour   11 sunrise   12 magical   13 size

14 30/thirty   15 population(s)   16 baby   17 Zebra   18 India

Audioscript

Ingrid:   Last summer, before starting university, I spent two months volunteering on the island of Fiji in the South Pacific Ocean for a research programme called Project Shark. You may well fancy doing something similar when you finish school. There’s an excellent website telling you about it if you want to find out more – I looked through that after I’d read an article about the programme in a magazine. It also has links to a blog, where I discovered more about the project from previous volunteers.

What initially appealed to me was the chance to go diving. I grew up on the coast and my dad used to dive in a harbour not far from where we lived. When I was about fifteen, I went with him and he showed me the basics. The local swimming pool had diving lessons too, which I’m sure would’ve been good – I didn’t need to spend the money on them, though.

The journey to Fiji took about 35 hours. I was so exhausted when I got there that I don’t remember much about my first day. I took the bus from the airport to the project and must’ve passed through some beautiful scenery to get there, I suppose, but I slept through all that. I did see the sunrise though – that’ll stay with me forever.

The aim of Project Shark is to gather information about sharks and use it to work out how to protect them from environmental threats. Diving in places where sharks live can give you good data. I know it sounds frightening, but you just have to know what you’re doing and volunteers are always accompanied by experts. It’s magical, though, when you’ve got sharks swimming all around you.

One type of shark they’re studying is called the Bull Shark. The upper bodies of these sharks are a strange grey colour, and their noses are broad and flat. What struck me about these sharks was their size, actually. You wouldn’t want to fight with one. And usually, when I think of sharks hunting for food, I think of the speed they go at, but Bull Sharks are relatively slow. Bull Sharks like shallow waters near the coast, so generally we didn’t dive deeper than about 5 metres. Sometimes, though, we went further out to where it was 30 metres down to the seabed – that was satisfying because it was much further down than my previous record of twenty-two metres. When you’re down there, your eyes adjust to the darkness and the three-and-a-half metre Bull Sharks appear around you – amazing!

Divers investigate a range of things. It’s important to study different shark habitats. How big the populations of different shark species are is another thing they get data on, and that’s what I was mostly involved in. They also did a survey of shark behaviour, which I found fascinating.

One thing researchers do is insert a metal tag containing a tiny transmitter under a shark’s skin – they can then follow the shark’s movements. Bull Sharks are tracked like this, but scientists target the baby animals ‘cos they’re easier to handle than the adult Bull Sharks. I learnt a lot doing that.

I got to see other types of sharks, not just Bull Sharks. A Tiger Shark once got really close to me, and the Hammerhead Sharks are relatively easy to spot because they’re quite common. There was no sign of any Zebra Sharks when I went there, which was a pity, ‘cos they’re supposed to look amazing. I also missed out on seeing Great White Sharks – but they’re not the friendliest species so I wasn’t too bothered about that!

Apart from the diving and research, I loved being with the other volunteers who came from all over the world. I shared a room with a nice girl from Japan, and on the dives, I was often paired with a girl from India – we got along really well and we still talk on social media. There was also a guy from Australia who gave me surfing lessons and we emailed for a while when I first got back.

Well, I’ll stop talking now – have you …

19 C   20 D   21 H   22 B   23 F

Audioscript

Speaker 1

Boy:   When we’re doing experiments in class, our science teacher normally explains everything to us in great detail, but I remember one science lesson when she decided to let us work things out for ourselves. Some of my friends weren’t happy, but I thought this was a cool idea. After discussing it in groups, everyone knew what they were doing and had a clear role. It was a pity we were working under time pressure though. I reckon that must’ve affected the quality of the work because the results were all over the place. It would’ve been better to repeat the whole thing at least once more.

Speaker 2

Girl:   I used to struggle with science, so I was often fed up and blamed my teacher for the way I felt. The one day we had to do an experiment and everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. I noticed I wasn’t the only one having problems so that stopped me feeling too bad. But the teacher told us that all the slips and all the miscalculations didn’t matter because you learn from them, and they’re part of doing science. That made me feel more positive and like I can really achieve something in science now.

Speaker 3

Boy:   I did this interesting science experiment in class the other day. We had to do everything in about forty-five minutes – we got a bit worked up at first because we thought there’d be problems, especially as we had to repeat the experiment a few times. In the end, having a strict deadline actually helped us get things done, and repeating things wasn’t a big deal – we just got better at all the techniques. My friend had the job of presenting the results, but he made a complete mess of it. I guess he didn’t have a system. I wasn’t too pleased about that because we’d been working well as a group till then.

Speaker 4

Girl:   I did quite a complicated chemistry experiment the other day – well I found the teacher’s explanation slightly confusing, though it sort of made sense later! We were told to do the experiment several times just to make sure our results were reliable. I made a fairly basic mistake almost immediately, of course, but I managed not to get upset about it, so nobody noticed. But it meant I had to change my plan halfway through and use a different piece of equipment. I thought that was quite impressive really because science subjects aren’t my thing, and I sometimes panic if things go wrong. But I was pleased that my results turned out OK.

Speaker 5

Boy:   In my science class, we had to design our own experiment. The whole idea of this was not to go running to the teacher asking for help every five minutes and to do everything against the clock. I liked the challenge of not having much time, but I could see other people were panicking and weren’t doing things in a sensible order. I sort of thought I wouldn’t get the outcome I hoped for, especially because I couldn’t repeat the experiment, which was a pain. But though things weren’t perfect, the data I ended up with was pretty accurate. I’d been quite worried, to be honest.

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

Audioscript

Interviewer:   With me on Careers Talk is Jake Watson, who’s an air traffic controller – making sure planes take off and land safely at a busy airport. Jake, welcome! We’ve got many questions, emailed by our teenage listeners.

Jake:   OK!

Interviewer:   First, Sarah asks what you find challenging about your job.

Jake:   The job’s extremely interesting but it’s not easy. Obviously it involves keeping radio contact with aircraft and directing their movements. I also have to provide information to pilots about weather conditions, for example. So there’s a lot involved. I get to use advanced radio communication to maintain contact with pilots. I also speak to air authorities to make sure planes pass safety through their airspace. And it’s when I have to deal with all this at once that I’m really stretched.

Interviewer:   Ben asks how you ended up doing such an unusual job!

Jake:   I’ve always loved being around airports! After graduating in aircraft engineering, I got my private pilot’s licence – I’d always wanted to become a commercial pilot. But then I was offered a job in aircraft maintenance. That was pressured at times, so it was good training – and I was lucky enough to be getting a good salary. But after a while it became a bit routine, so I started looking at what else was available and saw the job advertised.

Interviewer:   Samantha wants to know how hard it was to get the job.

Jake:   The selection process was tough. I was given lots of tasks, like problem-solving to test my analytical skills – which I’d been nervous about. To my surprise, I had no problems with them. I’ve always been good at math, which probably helped. Actually, I thought math would be a basic necessity for this work and that doing the job would make me even better at it. In fact, only straightforward calculations are involved. Anyway, I got through!

Interviewer:   Peter asks how you felt when you first took charge of landing a plane without any help.

Jake:   Yes, well, as a trainee, you’re used to having someone listening to you when you’re talking to pilots – but eventually you have to do it alone, of course. My instructors assured me that I’d had all the necessary preparation – I wasn’t convinced. But in fact the whole thing happened almost without me realising it. I’d been so absorbed in what I was doing, it was only afterwards that I remembered no-one had been there checking up to me. So it was fine!

Interviewer:   Bea asks what air controllers do when the weather’s foggy.

Jake:   Well, the airport’s near a river so some days everything’s covered in dense fog. Then the regular buzz of activity dies down, and there’s just screens lighting up with windspeed reports and so on, which we still keep a close eye on. It doesn’t mean we can relax completely – the fog can hang around for hours, or clear within minutes. We make the most of those times when we’re not dealing with 50 planes an hour, though!

Interviewer:   Now, a question from Richard – are you aware of how much people hate flight delays?

Jake:   Well, controllers actually work to speed up flight departures, but I realise why people get frustrated when flights are running late. I know from experience, though, that it doesn’t do any good. I do sometimes feel sorry for passengers, but the delay in departure schedules isn’t something I let myself get concerned about up in the control tower. The departure times are decided according to the routes aircraft take, among other things. But that’s hard to get that over to passengers.

Interviewer:   Finally, I read that air traffic controllers recently helped out with an air display at the airport. How did that go?

Jake:   Really well! We’d spent several months preparing for it. It was amazing how little disruption there was to flights. My job was talking to helicopter pilots filming the display, as well as monitoring other aircraft at the show. I hadn’t expected to see quite such big crowds – it was certainly a satisfying feeling when it was over and nothing had gone wrong!

Interviewer:   Thanks, Jake.