Transcription
Now turn to section one.
Section one. You will hear a telephone conversation between two people about a flat.
Now you have some time to look at questions 1 to six.
Now we shall begin. You should answer the questions as you listen because you will not hear the recording a second time. Listen carefully and answer questions 1 to six.
Hello, this is Simon Marshall. I spoke to you the other day about renting flat 3A.
Oh, yes. Hello, Simon. What can I do for you?
Well, there are a few health and safety things I'd like to run through if that's okay.
Yes, fine.
Right. Well, the first thing bearing in mind it's quite an old house is whether there's any damp. I'm thinking here of the exterior walls and the floor.
Well, I've never known any problems with damp there. It was all right last time I checked. Certainly, though, that was before the recent wet weather. I'd better have another look and get back to you on that.
Okay. Now, the next thing is the gas supply. Do you have a safety certificate? A current one that is.
We do. All the gas appliances have been checked by a registered engineer.
Yes, I was going to ask about that. When did they actually do the inspection?
Let me think. They sent an engineer to check something early last year, but no, that wasn't the inspection. Oh, I remember now. It was in the spring. In fact, I've got the certificate here somewhere. Yes, that's it. March 22nd. So, it's just over 5 months ago.
And the electricity, when was the last time all the wiring was inspected? I know it doesn't have to be checked as often as the gas, but it's still important, especially in older properties.
As it happens, we had an electrician in when we redecorated flat 3A. If he looked at everything then, he would have charged us for it. I'll find the bill and check it if you like.
Fine. And when was that?
Uh, the decorators finished just before Easter, so that would be about 18 months ago.
Mhm. Just one more point on the electrics. Are there enough plug sockets in the flat?
It depends what you mean by enough, really.
Well, I've got quite a lot of electrical things. computer, radio, lamps, kitchen appliances, and so on. And I'm wondering whether I could plug them all in without having cables trailing all over the place.
I think there's one per room. That's fairly normal in all the properties.
I'll take that as a no, then.
All right.
Now, another safety point. Is there a smoke alarm?
Yes, there's one in the kitchen.
And is it in good working order? I'll have to try it out and let you know.
Right. Now, you mentioned the previous tenants. Do they or anyone else who's lived in the flat still have keys to the door?
We're very strict about that. Everyone has to hand back the keys when they leave or we don't return the deposit. And those in 3A have always done so.
Now you have some time to look at questions 7 to 10.
Now listen and answer questions 7 to 10.
Okay. Now there are a few other practical details. Firstly, you mentioned a room where people can leave things like suitcases and bags and things. Where exactly is that? Is it next to 3A, which I take it is on the third floor?
Well, the apartment's on the third, yes, but the store room's a little way away. Just past the second door to the right, under the stairs, in fact.
But it's on the same floor, isn't it?
Yes, it is.
Fine. Now, another thing I wanted to check is that there's hot water in the apartment.
Oh, yes. It runs off the central heating that was installed back in the '70s, I think. So, there's a permanent supply.
M. But is it really hot? Not just warm or lukewarm.
I suppose it depends what you mean by hot, but it's at a constant 60°.
Oh, that sounds fine.
Yes. It used to be set at 55, but last year the tenants asked us to increase it, so we did.
Oh, I'm glad about that. Okay. Now, can you tell me a bit about the yard and the garden? How big are they?
Well, the yard at the side of the house is about 20 square m.
Oh, so there's room for my motorbike then. Actually, it's only a 50cc moped, but I like to keep it off the road at night.
Yes, there's more than enough space there, even with all the wheelie bins.
And the garden?
That's much bigger. About 150 square m.
Mhm. Um, who looks after it, by the way?
Old Mr. Collins. He's almost 90, but he's out there every day.
Ah, and the last point, the TV. What size screen is it?
It's 70 cm wide, I think. No, sorry, that was the old one. This one's 80. You can get 90 odd channels on it, so I'm told.
Really? So, there's a satellite dish on the roof, is there?
No, it's cable TV here. It doesn't cost much between everyone, though. Ah, that's very interesting. Okay, thanks for your help. I'll be in touch again soon.
Thank you. Bye for now.
Bye.
That is the end of section one.
You now have half a minute to check your answers.
Now turn to part two.
Part two. You will hear a man talking about a parliament building. First, you have some time to look at questions 11 to 17.
Listen carefully to the first part of the talk and answer questions 11 to 17.
Good morning everyone. Can you all see and hear me? Good. Now, my name is Dan and I'm your guide this morning for our tour of the New Zealand Parliament. Now, we're standing in the Executive Wing of the Parliament Complex. This is where all the government ministers have their offices and where the prime minister and the cabinet meet. Now, most people here refer to this building as the Beehive. And no prizes for guessing why it's called the Beehive. That's right. It's shaped exactly like a traditional beehive and it's one of the most famous buildings in Wellington. Now, I'll start with some background information about the design and construction of the building. It may come as a surprise for you to learn that the architect wasn't a New Zealander. No, in fact, it was designed by a Scottish architect, Sir Basil Spence. He designed the concept for the building during a visit he made to our city in 1964. His idea was that all the offices and rooms would radiate from a central core. Now, the Beehive was built in stages over 10 years. Construction began on building the underground car park and the basement at the end of the 1960s in 1969. And over the next decade, the remaining floors were constructed. Yes. One decade later, in 1979, the first parliamentary offices moved in. Now, as you can see, the Beehive is pretty high. In fact, it's 72 m tall. It has 10 floors above ground and an additional four floors below. So that's a total of 14 floors altogether. That means there's plenty of space for the many facilities available to the members of parliament and ministers to use. These include a small theater and a television studio. Now, if you'd all just like to follow me, we can make our way inside the building itself.
Now you have some time to look at questions 18 to 20.
Now listen to the rest of the talk and answer questions 18 to 20.
Here we are in the entrance foyer. It's a very airy space, isn't it? And if you look at the floor you're standing on, you'll see it's made of marble. And if you look to your left, you can see some beautiful columns. They are also made from marble. Now look at the wall panels. They are made of stainless steel. They look really stunning, don't they? Now straight ahead of us is the staircase leading to the first floor of the building. As you can see, the railings on the staircase are made of bronze. Now, let's make our way up this beautiful staircase to the banquet hall on the first floor. And we can admire these beautiful bronze railings on the way. So, this is the banquet hall. And as you can see, it's shaped in the form of a semicircle. It's also a pretty big space, isn't it? It's actually a big enough dining room to hold up to 300 guests. Now, look at the large mural to your right. It's three-dimensional and shows the atmosphere and sky of New Zealand. And the floor we're standing on is made of wood. It's a native New Zealand timber called tawa. Okay, now let's make our way to the
That is the end of part two.
You now have half a minute to check your answers.
Now turn to section three.
Section three. You will hear a tutor and two students discussing the best ways to study.
Now look at the questions 21 to 25. Listen carefully and answer questions 21 to 25.
Well, how are you both settling in?
Fine.
Yes, no problems so far. Or anyway.
Good. Remember that as your personal tutor, I'm here to help you if you do have any difficulties. Now, as you know, lectures start on Monday. So, I thought we'd look at a few ways of making the most of them, especially in terms of the notes you take. Let's begin by thinking about what you can do before you even go to the lecture. Any ideas?
Um, make sure you're up to date with all the background reading so you know plenty about the subject already.
Yes, that's essential. The lecturer will assume you have that knowledge. Anything else, Carlos?
Well, uh, check what the topic's going to be of the lecture. That is, I'd go a bit further than that and consider what the content may be. Then you could ask yourself some questions that you want answering and listen out for the relevant information during the lecture.
Okay. Now that brings us to the lecture itself and the actual business of writing notes. But there is a lot to deal with there. So we'll come back to that later. What I'd like to do for the moment is continue with the process of note-taking and move on to the next stage. Any suggestions for what that might be?
When the lecture is over, you mean?
Yes. Once you're able to sit down somewhere quiet with your notes, uh, read them. More than that, you need to make sure they'll still make sense to you weeks, months later.
Edit them.
Yes, that's what's needed. It's well worth spending a few minutes on it. Any missing words, anything difficult to read, things you didn't have time to jot down, now is the time to do so while everything's still fresh in your mind.
Right. And after that, when's the best time to revise them?
When do you think, Carlos?
Um, uh, I'd say just before the next lecture in the same subject.
Precisely. That's a vital time to look at them again for obvious reasons, but it's definitely not the only time. When should you revise them again?
A month later, maybe?
Uh, sooner and much more often than that. I'd recommend you look at them again once a week. That's why it's so important they're complete and easy to follow.
Now you have some time to look at questions 26 to 30.
Now answer questions 26 to 30.
Right. Let's go back to note-taking and begin with the basics before the lecture has even started. What should you do when you walk into the room?
Get a good seat at the front if you can. Uh, where you can hear clearly and avoid distractions.
Yes. Though obviously others will have had the same idea. So it's as well to get there a bit early. So when the lecture is underway and you're busy jotting things down, what should you try to ensure?
That you're getting all the main points.
And what if you don't catch something? Something you know must be important.
Um, I'd leave a space. Then I could check it later, perhaps by asking a question at the end and fill it in afterwards.
That's an excellent way to deal with it. Yes. And there is something else I'd like to mention here. Talking about going through notes afterwards, it's absolutely vital that what you write is legible for one very good reason. It saves time. You'll waste many hours during the course if your revision is held up because you can't read what you've written. Okay. What else can we do to make listening and note-taking more efficient?
Well, I always listen out for signpost words.
Uh, sorry. What are they?
They're the ones lecturers use to say where they're going. A bit like a signpost at a road junction, I suppose. Things like "the first reason is," "however," "to sum up," and so on.
Yes, they can tell you when something important is coming and help you organize your notes too. Is there anything else you can add, Carlos?
Uh, there's something I think's very useful, but it's later after the lecture is finished.
That's fine, Gan. Well, what I do is go through what I've written down, summing up the main points in a few words in the margin on the left-hand side of the page. I try to use words that will jog my memory so that I can remember what everything's about when I look at them again.
Yes, that can work very well. What some people do to review their notes, is cover up their full notes from the lecture, maybe with a piece of paper or a card, and concentrate just on what they've put in the margin, trying to recall the details. Then they move the cover down a little and check whether they were right. Or you could put your main points on another piece of paper and clip them together. Instead of covering and uncovering, you just hold a page in each hand.
Sure, it's down to personal preference. Really, everyone has their own learning style.
That is the end of section three.
You now have half a minute to check your answers.
Now turn to part four.
Part four.
I'd like to introduce you all to Donald McKenzie who has recently returned from a 12-month research project in America. First, you have some time to look at questions 31 to 40.
Now listen carefully and answer questions 31 to 40.
Good afternoon. I'm pleased to see so many of you here today. As I told you all on Monday, the lecture on overpopulation has been postponed until next week as we have a guest speaker today. I'd like to introduce you all to Donald McKenzie who has recently returned from a 12-month research project in America. He is here to share with us some of the results of his studies into the problem of illiteracy.
Hello. Now as sociology students, I have no doubt that you are aware that it is commonly believed that one indicator of a developed country is the level of education of its citizens. Now most of these nations have free compulsory education for all and strict teacher certification requirements. So it would logically follow that people from countries such as America would be highly educated. Yet, this isn't always so. In America alone, 42 million adults cannot read and 50 million can recognize so few printed words, they each have the reading ability of a 10-year-old. Frightening statistics indeed, but not as frightening as the trend suggested by current estimates. The number of illiterate adults is increasing by approximately 2 and a quarter million people each year. And although global statistics have not been compiled, it suggests an extremely disturbing figure. Now, inevitably, this is having an impact on employment. In America, the annual cost in welfare programs and unemployment compensation due to illiteracy stands at $6 billion US and an additional $237 billion a year in unrealized earnings is forfeited by people who lack basic reading skills. There is also the cost of post-school literacy programs which have been put in place in order to counter this increasing figure. A conservative estimate places the cost of these programs at $10 billion each year and growing steadily. Moving on, I'd like to talk about some of the causes of this increasing illiteracy. Children were taught to read by first learning the alphabet, then the sounds of each letter, how they blended into syllables, and how those syllables made up words. They were taught that English spelling is logical and systematic and that to become a fluent reader, it was necessary to master the alphabetic code in which English words are written to the point where the code is used automatically with little conscious thought given to it. And to make myself clear, I mean readers could sound out the letters, spelling them phonetically. Once a child learned this ability, attention could be turned to more advanced content. It seldom, if ever, occurred to teachers to give children word lists to read or to make beginner-level readers memorize whole words before learning the components of those words or to memorize whole stories as today's proponents of the whole language approach recommend. Several recent studies have found that 90% of remedial reading students in developed countries are not able to decode fluently, accurately, and at an automatic level of response. The currently used whole language method was originally conceived and used in the early 1800s to teach the deaf how to read. A method which has long since been discarded by the teachers of the deaf themselves as inadequate and outmoded. English is an alphabetic language that, when written, uses letters to represent speech sounds. When students were taught to read, they consciously identified the speech sounds and learned to recognize the letters used to represent them. They were then trained to apply this information to decode the names of unwritten words, understand their meaning, and comprehend the information presented as a complete thought. The English language contains approximately half a million words. Of these words, about 300 compose about 3/4 of the words that we use regularly. As I said, in schools where the whole language method is taught, children are constantly memorizing sight words during the first three or four grades of school, but are never taught how to unlock the meaning of the other 499,700 or more words. Whole language learning causes frustration, poor spelling, and hostility towards reading. Very bright children who can't memorize long lists of words and retain their meaning are placed in special education when all they need is to be taught the 26 letters of the alphabet, the 44 sounds they make, and the 70 common ways to spell those sounds. Some researchers believe dyslexia and the symptoms of attention deficit disorder are actually caused by this reversal of the normal learning sequence. So why do faulty reading methods continue to be used? Well, in short, it's big business. The sale of instructional reading programs is big business today. Each year, publishing companies compete for the adoption of reading programs and workbooks which have to be replaced annually. Concentrating on phonics would seriously reduce the cost of education.
That is the end of part four.
You now have half a minute to check your answers. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Give me Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. N.