DAY 29 – LISTENING SCRIPT

0:02:

This is the IELTS listening test. You will hear a number of different recordings and you will have
to answer questions on what you hear. There will be time for you to read the instructions and
questions and you will have a chance to check your work. All the recordings will be played once
only the test is in four parts. At the end of the test, you will be given 10 minutes to transfer your
answers to the answer sheet. Now turn to part one. Part one. You'll hear a woman talking to a
man about joining a drama club. First you have some time to look at questions one to six.

2:01:

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. One to six.

2:18:

Hello, Robert Gladwell speaking. Oh hi, my name's Chloe Martin. I was given your name and
phone number by Ben Winters. I work with him and he said you're a member of Berry Drama
Club. Yes, I am. Well, I've just moved to the area and I'm keen to join a drama club. Great.

2:40:

Yes, I can give you some information. We are one of the oldest drama clubs in the area. As the
club started in 1957, we now have about 60 members. Our youngest member is 10 and our
oldest member is 78. Oh, I think I saw a picture in the newspaper the other day of some of your
members being presented with a prize. Yes.

3:04:

The youth section did very well in a competition and won 100 pounds, which will help with their
next production anyway. Tell me a bit more about yourself. Well, I've done a bit of acting. I was
in a couple of musicals when I was at university and a historical play more recently. Hmm.
3:25:

We mainly do comedy plays. We get good audiences for that kind of thing. We haven't
attempted a musical yet, but we might do one soon. Oh, um, when do you usually meet on
Tuesdays? Uh, presumably I'll need to do an audition.

3:43:

Yes. There were a few auditions last Tuesday and we'll be doing more at our next meeting,
which is in two weeks time. That's on Tuesday the 12th of March. There'll be another
opportunity two weeks after that, which will be on the 26th of March. Oh, well I can come to
your next meeting and if I don't get an acting part in a play, I'd be happy to help with something
else. I've designed publicity before.

4:10:

Great. We're very short of people who can do that, so that would be really good. There are a lot
of people who like making scenery, so we get plenty of help with that, but we haven't got
enough people to do the lights at the moment, so if you think you can do that or you have any
friends who would like to, uh, do bring them along, we can show you what to do if you haven't
got any experience. Mm, I'll have to think about it.

4:38:

So do you meet in the theater? We do our performances in the Manor Theater, but we only hire
that for the nights of the actual performances. We meet to rehearse every Tuesday evening in
the community hall. We rent a room there. Oh, I'm not sure where that is.

4:57:

I'll be coming by car because I don't live in the town center. It's in Ash Burton Road. As you are
coming towards the center down region street, you need to turn left at the crossroads. Oh, I
know there's a big car park down there just before you get to a hotel.
5:15:

It's on the other side of the road from the sports center. That's it. That's the closest place to
leave your car and you don't have to pay in the evening to park there. We meet at seven 30 and
we usually finish by nine 30 or 10.

5:31:

Okay. Before you hear the rest of the conversation, you have some time to look at question
seven to 10. Now listen and answer question seven to 10. I haven't mentioned that.

6:30:

We have to make a charge. Everyone pays a subscription of 180 pounds to be a member for a
year. You can pay for the whole year at once or you can pay 15 pounds every month. It works
out the same. There are reductions for retired people and under eighteens, but I don't think you
come into either category. No, I'm 26.

6:54:

Oh, <laugh>. That fee covers all the costs like photocopying of scripts and producing the posters,
but it excludes the costumes for the performances. We ask people to pay for the higher of those
themselves. It does mean they look after them properly as they know they won't get their
deposit back otherwise. Hmm.

7:16:

Can I come along to the next meeting then? Of course. We'd love to see you and if you want to
know more about how we run the auditions or the next play we're doing, why don't you give
our secretary a ring? She'll be really pleased to help you. Oh, what's her name? It's Sarah Kott.
That's S-A-W-D-I-C-O Double T. Ah, got that and her phone number.
7:50:

I've only got a mobile number for her. Um, just a minute. Uh, let me find it. Ah, yeah, it's um oh
7 9 0 5 2 4 0 0 6 3. Great.

8:10:

Thanks for your help. That is the end of part one. You now have one minute to check your
answers to part one. Part two.

9:34:

You will hear a radio program in which a presenter called Jasmine tells her colleague Fergus
about a charity. First you have some time to look at questions 11 to 15. Now listen carefully and
answer questions. 11 to 15. And now here's Jasmine who's come to tell us about this week's
charity. Hi Fergus. This week I'm going to talk about forward thinking and their plans for the
Coleville Center.

11:14:

Mm-Hmm. So in recent years people have realized how useful the arts can be within healthcare.
The idea behind forward thinking is to use the arts to promote wellbeing. The charity develops
projects for people with special needs and health problems and also delivers training to
healthcare professionals in using the arts as well as applying them with information and advice.
Forward thinking doesn't just run art and craft classes to distract people who are ill or
recovering from illness, but arranges longer term projects and courses as it's been shown that
the arts can bring all sorts of positive changes in patients, including benefits such as shortening
the length of stay in hospital and reducing the amounts of medicine they need. I see forward
thinking has experience of working with a broad range of people from young adults with
learning difficulties to older people in homes or daycare centers and people with physical
disabilities. The organization's been around since 1986 and it gradually expanded during the
1990s.

12:27:
Then in the new millennium it was decided to find a memorable name. So it's been operating as
forward thinking for several years. Uh, in fact since 2005. It's quite a locally based charity,
mainly for people in the southern part of this region, which includes all rural and urban
communities outside the city of Clifton, which has its own organization. There are of course
some similar charities in other parts of the country in London and so on. Hmm.

12:58:

And what's the present fundraising in ado? Yeah, well the charity needs funding in order to buy
the Coalville Center. This is a former village school, which was built in 1868. It was modernized
and refurbished by the present owners last year. So it's ideal for art classes and for small social
events, performances, seminars, and so on.

13:22:

Forward thinking is fundraising to purchase the building so they can use it to continue running
classes and so on for the general public and eventually also for some of the people they help.
Before you hear the rest of the talk, you have some time to look at question 16 to 20. Now listen
and answer question 16 to 20. Right.

14:34:

So can you give us a few ideas about what classes people might do there? Is it all art classes?
Um, well there are some very good art classes, but there are lots of other things going on as
well. So for example, there's learn salsa with Nina Belina's team. They say that salsa is an easy
dance to learn.

14:57:

It's also an excellent form of exercise according to Nina. And that class is for both men and
women. Of course, Uhhuh, it's ideal for beginners and what they call refreshers. That's a
hundred pounds for 10 sessions.

15:12:
Then another class is called Smooth Movers. It's with Kevin Bennett and it's for you if you don't
have the same energy levels as you used to when you were a teenager. <laugh>, it's a gentle
exercise class geared to the needs of whoever is in the group in a particular session. And Kevin is
qualified to teach classes to people getting over injuries and so on and balance training. That's
60 pounds for 10 sessions.

15:41:

Then there's a day called Art of the Forest with Jamie Graham, where you discover upper wood,
a short walk from the Coleville Center and learn how to design in 3D with natural materials. It's
an unusual and exciting way to be creative. Jamie is an artist with a background also as a
country park ranger. Oh.

16:04:

For this day, youngsters must be accompanied by a parent or guardian and the costs are adults,
40 pounds under fourteens, 10 pounds, but its best value at 80 pounds for a family of four. The
next one is the Money Maze, and this is a series of talks by Peter O'Reilly, an independent
financial advisor. He gives advice on family finances, things like everything parents need to know
about managing the costs of bringing up children, sending them to university, and actually also
about care for elderly relatives. It's 10 pounds per torque, which will all go to support forward
thinking. And as a final example of what's on offer, there's make a play that's for eight to
fourteens and this activity is such a hit that it usually sells out within days of being announced.
Basically what you do is write, rehearse, and perform a play in just two days and it doesn't
require any previous experience. I gather.

17:13:

There's lots of fun and silliness along the way. And the best bit perhaps is that there's a
performance for family and friends at the end. Aha. It's just 50 pounds for two days.

17:25:
Pretty good range of activities, I think, and all raising money for a good cause. Yes. And the all
important contact details [email protected] or write to me that is the end of
part two. You now have 30 seconds to check your answers to part two, part three.

18:33:

You'll hear two students talking to their tutor about a geography trip. First you have some time
to look at questions 21 to 26. Now listen carefully and answer questions. 21 to 26.

19:34:

Um, now Stefan and Lauren, you worked together on the assignment for your Urban Geography
course, didn't you? Mm-Hmm. I know you made a plan of what you were going to do before you
went on the field trip. Did you stick to it? <laugh> more or less.

19:49:

Okay. So where did you start? Well, first of all, we selected one area of the city to work in. We
decided on the center. Mm-Hmm. And we looked in detail at how it has been developed by
doing a survey.

20:03:

Yeah. We did that by walking round and dividing the area into different categories such as
residential, commercial and industrial. So we could record land use. We're going to find some
maps from 50 years ago and from a hundred years ago so we can look at what has changed.
Good.

20:25:

So that gives you a foundation. Mm. Then what did you do? Um, I was interested in looking at
how polluted the city was. I thought that was too general a topic and would be difficult to
check, but Stefan persuaded me and actually it was quite interesting because before we started
we assumed that a lot of the pollution problems would be caused by industry. In fact, most of
the industrial development has been on the outskirts. Oh.

20:55:

And most pollution is caused by the traffic which passes through the city center every day.
Right. There are five major road junctions around the edge of the city. So we set up equipment
to check the air quality on each of those three times on one day in the morning and evening,
which is when most journeys are made in and outta the city. And two 30 in the afternoon.
Hmm. On the same day we went to the two busiest junctions in the morning and evening to
calculate the traffic flow into the city.

21:27:

Right. We'll be able to produce some graphs from the figures we collected. Yeah. Presumably
you then looked at where all these cars ended up. I thought we should look at why people were
coming into the city, um, whether it was for employment or education or leisure activities, but
Stefan thought that would be too difficult. <laugh>, because most people were in cars, it would
be hard to ask them. Yeah.

21:55:

<laugh>. So we decided to spend an afternoon examining the parking facilities available instead.
We established the capacity of each car park and we spent an afternoon counting cars in and
out. So we have an idea of how long people spend in the city center. So do you have evidence
that most journeys are made by car within the city center? We checked local government
statistics to see if that was true, but they were inconclusive.

22:25:

Everything is quite close together in the city center and there are wide pavements, so you
would expect people to walk from one place to another. So we chose a number of locations and
we noted how many pedestrians passed a particular spot. Um, how did you choose where to do
that? Oh, we stood at two places in the business district, one in the shopping area, and the
other was in an area where there were more tourists. Right.
22:56:

I thought it was really important to talk to people. So we carried out a survey on how people
usually traveled into the city. We asked them about their usual means of transport. We found
out that it varied according to why people were traveling. If they were employed in the city,
they wanted to get there quickly, but if they were coming in for their leisure time, they didn't
mind using the bus. Mm-Hmm.

23:21:

That's all we had time for while we were there. Before you hear the rest of the conversation,
you have some time to look at questions 27 to 30. Now listen and answer questions 27 to 30.
Okay.

24:28:

So shall we talk about what you are going to do next and how you are going to divide the tasks
up? How are you going to present the data you've got? Well, some of the information can be
presented as graphs or maps. I'm quite good at the software <laugh>.

24:47:

You'd better do that then. Lauren <laugh>, I'll help you check all the statistics before you start.
Okay. Um, it's good to present as much as you can visually. Is there anything else you can use as
visuals? Uh, we've got a lot of photographs, which we can go through. Uhhuh, Mm.

25:05:

We both took them. So some will be duplicated. Oh, it's going to take ages to go through them
all. Maybe one of us should just choose some. Well, it's better if you collaborate that way.

25:18:
You'll end up with the best of what you've got. Mm, that's fine. We'll do that. Mm.

25:25:

And uh, when the graphs and maps are done, you'll need to write a report, an analysis of the
data. Will you do that together? I think that should be my responsibility. If we're going to share
the workout evenly, I can use some of Lauren's notes as well as my own. Okay. And finally, you'll
be presenting your project to the rest of the group in a couple of weeks time.

25:49:

We thought it'd be better for Stefan to do that as he's got more experience at that kind of thing.
Hmm. I would prefer to have input from both of you as I have to do an assessment. Oh, we'll
take turns then we'll divide it into sections and talk about a few things each. Good. You'll find it
easier, Lauren, than doing a presentation on your own. <laugh>. Your Well, if you need to ask
me any more questions while you are working on this, email me.

26:21:

I look forward to seeing what you produce. Thanks. Thanks. That is the end of part three. You
now have 30 seconds to check your answers to part three. Part four.

27:13:

You will hear a lecturer giving the beginning of a talk on the history of British pottery. First you
have some time to look at questions 31 to 40. Now listen carefully and answer questions. 31 to
40.

28:37:

Thank you for coming to this series of talks. Before I talk in detail about the experiments and
innovations of the British ceramicists, I'd like to give you a summary of the social and
manufacturing background in which they lived and worked. So we are talking about England, or
more specifically the region known as the Midlands. And we need to go back mainly to the 18th
century and briefly even earlier, to put it in a global context.

29:12:

Now, at that period, the majority of the population, whatever their station in life, as you might
say, were dependent for their living in one way or another, not on the geographical location of
where they lived, but on the physical characteristics of the actual land they lived on. This is true
whether we are talking about the aristocracy, the owners of greater states who incidentally had
no snobbery about the concept of making money from all the reserves of coal or timber or
stone on their rolling acres, or the farmers making a fat living from the rich soils. And besides
these groups and the less affluent ones, the deposits of iron ore and lead, the limestone and
flint and the brown and yellow clays also sustained the numerous industries in the area. It's
important to recognize that it was already an industrial region and had been so for centuries,
there were many Midland trades, some of them indigenous, some of them not. For example,
there were immigrants from France who came as early as the late 16th century, and they were
producers of glass a century later. There is plenty of evidence that the variety of trades was
enormous.

30:40:

There was brewing in Burton on Trent silk weaving and ribbon making near Coventry framework
knitting around Nottingham. And of course, in Cheshire, men dug the salt as we still do
nowadays, even which in that era was sent downriver to the estuary of the Mersey. Now, among
these well-established trades, one of the oldest of the local crafts was pottery. As you will
probably be aware, ceramics has always been a mix of science, design, and skill. And a good
potter is in a sense, an experimental chemist trying out new mixes and glazes and needing to be
alert to the impact of changes of temperature on different types of clay. For 200 years, up to the
time we are concerned with, potters had been making butter pots and pitchers and patterned
plates using the clay, which was plentiful in the area where they lived in a handful of North
Staffordshire villages dotted along the low hills. Now, I want to explain a little about the
industrial processes, which had preceded the great breakthrough in Germany in 1708.

32:05:

That's when the formula for porcelain was discovered, a secret that had been held in China for a
thousand years. In the Midlands in England as elsewhere, there had basically been two kinds of
pottery. The first was known, is still known as earthenware. Now, this was a bit rough and ready,
but it was deservedly popular for several reasons.

32:31:

To start with, it was relatively cheap, so it could be used by most households. This was because
it could be made from local clay without any complicated processing or added materials. From
the potter's point of view, there was another reason for its cheapness. This was that it could be
fired in simple ovens or kilns and at relatively low temperatures, so he didn't have to spend so
much money on fuel to achieve the necessary heat. On the other hand, after one firing in the
kiln, the problem with earthenware was that it remained porous, so had limited usefulness. So
for most purposes, it had to go back in the kiln for a second firing before it became waterproof.
And another thing was that it was extremely breakable. I mean, before it had even been sold.

33:29:

I suppose the potter wouldn't have minded so much if people just had to keep coming back for
more every time they broke a jug or whatever. But it was very inconvenient because it meant
there was a lot of wastage in the course of the manufacturing process. Anyway, for all these
reasons, if people could afford it, and that would be all but the very poor, they would buy
stoneware a much tougher product. Now for this, the potter used a slightly more expensive raw
material, which was made by combining clay and flint, and this mixture was fired at a far higher
heat with the result that the ingredients vitrified. That is to say, in effect, the whole thing
became glassy. And because of this, it was non-porous. And naturally this was regarded as a
great advance. Well, that's the situation in the 18th century.

34:28:

Are there any questions at this stage? Okay, so now we can go on to look at the age of
innovation. That is the end of part four. You now have one minute to check your answers to part
four. That is the end of the listening test in the I LS test. You would now have 10 minutes to
transfer your answers to the answer sheet.