Listening 2026-03 Test 6

==================== IELTS Listening Transcript ==================== PART 1 Speaker 0: 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 ten minutes to transfer your answers to the answer sheet. Now turn to part one. Part one. You will hear a student calling a landlord to rent a house. First, you have some time to look at questions one to six. Now listen carefully and answer questions one to six. Speaker 0: Hello. Oh, hello. I wanted to inquire about the house you're going to let out. Is it still available? Speaker 1: Yes. May I ask where you heard about it? Was it in an advert? Speaker 0: Right. It was. Speaker 1: Okay. What do you want to know? Speaker 0: Well, I'm going to share the house with two friends. We've been staying on campus, but we're going to graduate, so we need to find a house as soon as possible. Speaker 1: Anyway, could you tell me the exact date when you can move in? Well, the contract with my current tenant is due next week on May 3, and I need a day to clean and check the things in the house. So I think the house will be ready on May 5. Is that okay? Speaker 0: Yes. That will be fine. And what we're most concerned about is the rent. We'd like something around $500 a month for each of us, but we could go up to $600 if we have to, but we can't go beyond that. Speaker 1: You are lucky. The rent will be $1,700 in total, which is within your budget. You'll need to pay monthly to me by cash or credit card. I don't mind. And you'll have to pay me $1,500 as a deposit before you move in. The deposit is as insurance in case you break something. Speaker 0: Okay. That's reasonable. Oh, I nearly forgot. One important thing is that you'll be required to provide a credit check to guarantee your ability to pay the rent every month. This will charge you $15. Speaker 1: No problem. How about the facilities? Speaker 0: First, there are three bedrooms combined with two bathrooms. Then there is a shared kitchen which was refurbished several months ago. By the way, do you cook yourselves? Speaker 1: Yeah. We like cooking. Do we have to buy our own cookers? Speaker 0: Basic facilities for cooking are available. But if you want a dishwasher, I'm sorry it needs to be added later. Speaker 1: I think the basic facilities are enough for us. Is there any place we can park as one of my friends has a private car? Speaker 0: Yes. There is a garage which not only provides space for your car, but also has a special section where you can do some of your work. It's very quiet for you to concentrate. Speaker 1: It sounds so special. Speaker 0: Before you hear the rest of the conversation, you have some time to look at questions seven to 10. Now listen and answer questions seven to 10. Speaker 0: There are some other utilities I have to tell you. There is a garden in front of the house in which you will find some interesting plants and beautiful flowers. Speaker 1: Do we have to take care of these plants and flowers? Speaker 0: Well, you don't have to worry about that. There will be a professional gardener to do the landscaping in the garden regularly. But you do need to help water the grass once a week. Is it a problem for you? Speaker 1: Of course not. We'd like to do that. Speaker 0: Another thing is in this district, every household is arranged with a cleaner responsible for cleaning up the rubbish and recycling, but this service will cost you $15 every month. Speaker 1: What other bills do we have to pay? Speaker 0: Bills for electricity, water and gas will also be covered by yourselves. Speaker 1: Okay. One more question. Is air conditioning available in the house? Speaker 0: If you mean central air conditioning, I'm afraid there isn't at the moment. But each room has a conditioning unit which is installed on the window. Speaker 1: That will be fine. Anyway, I think it's a good place to live in. Can we go and see the house, please? Speaker 0: Yes. Of course. May I have your name and phone number? Speaker 1: Yes. I'm Sam Drezler. Speaker 0: That's S-A-M D-R-E-S-S-L-E-R. Speaker 1: Okay. Sam Dresler. I've got that down. And my phone number is 67534571. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. I'll contact you after discussing it with my two friends. Speaker 1: No problem. Bye. Speaker 0: Bye. Speaker 0: That is the end of part one. You now have one minute to check your answers to part one. PART 2 Speaker 2: Part two. You will hear an electronic toy company manager talking to a small group of new temporary staff who are starting work at the company. First, you have some time to look at questions 11 to 15. Now listen carefully and answer questions 11 to 15. Speaker 3: Good morning, everyone. My name's Janet Parker, and I'm the human resources manager of this company. Thank you for joining us and coming to this training session, which I hope will help you quickly learn about our company and know what you will do in your position. First, I'll briefly introduce the history of our company. We're quite an old company specializing in electric toys for more than thirty years. The founder, Ronald Stephenson, got the idea of establishing his own company when he finished his apprenticeship. With the support of his grandfather, he got enough start-up capital, and the company was set up and succeeded in a short period. To satisfy the demands of customers, we've expanded the premises considerably over the past years, and the number of staff members has grown on a regular basis. Recently, we found the sales of our products creeping up very slowly, and we've decided to introduce new electronic toys to give that a boost. So we have to look for more workers to help us, and that's the reason why you are here. The first week may be pretty challenging as there will be a lot of new information, but don't worry too much about trying to remember everything. The important thing is to check with someone if you're unsure what to do. According to the contract, you'll be expected to work here for six months. Some of you asked me if there is a possibility for you to be employed as our full-time member. I can't give you a definite answer now. It'll depend on your job performance during the employment and whether we have job vacancies then. About 200 full-time staff members in our company, 70% of whom are responsible for sending out goods, while the minority of jobs are in the manufacturing line. You will work in different departments according to our needs, which I'll explain to you in detail later. Working in our company, you'll be impressed by our modern machinery and production methods, advanced skills, and friendly working atmosphere. However, I must tell you one thing which is not so pleasant. Because the manager of the payroll department is on sick leave these days, I'm afraid that you won't get paid on time this month. But don't worry too much. It'll be solved very soon. Speaker 2: Before you hear the rest of the talk, you have some time to look at questions 16 to 20. Now listen and answer questions 16 to 20. Speaker 3: In the second part of this training session, I'll explain what you will be responsible for in the following working days. There are five positions, and you'll be working in different departments. As I've mentioned before, we're in urgent need of someone who can deal with the salary problem so our staff can get paid as soon as possible, and that's the primary job for the first person. Then the second of you will be working in the manufacturing line to help develop new products, and I'm sure you will be pretty busy in the following days. The third person will work on the 6th Floor, and your main job is to look after the mechanical side. It includes checking equipment daily to ensure they are working correctly and doing some repair work if necessary. Without your help, many processes like manufacturing or packaging won't work well. Then the fourth person will work in the technology department to deal with problems related to software and hardware. We're getting new laptops next week, and you must install new programs. And the last of you will work in the after-sales service department. You are expected to keep a long-term relationship with customers, including collecting feedback regularly, dealing with customer complaints, enhancing customer satisfaction, etcetera. Okay. Now that's all I want to share with you today. Are there any questions? Speaker 2: That is the end of part two. You now have half a minute to check your answers to part two. PART 3 Speaker 4: Now listen carefully and answer questions 21 to 24. Speaker 5: Hi, Annie. How's the research going? Speaker 6: Okay, I guess, but I'm concerned about our presentation topic. We're mainly going to be talking about how products are marketed differently for boys and girls, and we know that's true in some countries, but is it the case everywhere? Speaker 5: I've been reading about the situation in the UK. Some of the major retailers have been labeling their products to say which gender a product is meant for. Speaker 6: Really? Speaker 5: Yes. Apparently, toys connected to science subjects are labeled for boys, and stuff like kitchen equipment says for girls. Speaker 6: Does that happen in other countries too? Speaker 5: Hopefully, our survey can tell us that, whether it's a global phenomenon or not. But it's interesting because in the UK, so many parents have complained about this kind of labeling that the major retailers are having to abandon it. Because of social media, consumers can put a lot more pressure on retailers to drop unpopular policies. Speaker 6: When it comes to how stores display toys, what most parents would find useful is for stores to indicate how old the child should be, so the toy isn't overly complicated. I'm sure parents don't need gender-specific labeling. You can see for yourself what the general idea is, whether it's for chemistry or building. Speaker 5: That book by that neuroscientist, Lise Elliott, what was it called? Speaker 6: Pink Brain, Blue Brain. Speaker 5: That's it. There was a lot of material on the way advertising can affect children. Her arguments really make sense. Speaker 6: Yes. Some claims are very convincing. Even though she's mainly talking about the USA, I'm sure they can be applied elsewhere. Speaker 5: One thing I highlighted was how marketing products according to gender can cause problems for children in the future. For example, if you signal to girls that science and engineering stuff isn't for them, then surely they grow up believing that that's what boys do, even if they study science and physics at school. They might not regard those subjects as something they'll eventually make a living from. So those are jobs they won't consider. Speaker 6: And if you never encourage boys to play with toys that develop socialization skills, that's not fair either. Speaker 5: Maybe, but the consequences aren't as problematic. Speaker 6: Not sure about that. Actually, I think that's something we should address during the presentation. Speaker 4: Before you hear the rest of the discussion, you have some time to look at questions 25 to 30. Now listen and answer questions 25 to 30. Speaker 6: Let's talk through the section about clothes for children. The way we've ended up with specific colors for each gender. One thing I found surprising is that children in nineteenth-century America used to be dressed in white. Speaker 5: Yes. Until age six. Speaker 6: It was because the outfits were a lot easier to clean. Speaker 5: Yes. They just bleached them to get the dirt out. Nothing to do with fashion or cost. Speaker 6: There was no other effective way to clean them. Then in the early nineteen hundreds, I read that boys were dressed in pink and girls in blue. Speaker 5: Apparently, pink was described as dominant, whereas blue was seen as delicate. Speaker 6: Yes. And ordinary people, shoppers, I mean. They could read articles about the sons and daughters of the famous and how they were dressed, and they wanted their own children to be dressed the same. But by the nineteen forties, the colors had changed, and it was more about customer demand. Speaker 5: Retailers analyzed the shopping habits of parents and looked at the results, and they interpreted them to mean that pink was now the favorite color for girls and blue for boys. So shops started to advertise the products accordingly. Speaker 6: Yes. And in the USA, it was a time when boys dressed like dad and girls like mom. It wasn't until the nineteen sixties that teenage girls rejected that. And older teenage girls started wearing clothes that could have been worn by either boys or girls. By doing that, they felt the job opportunities usually only open to men would now be available to them. Speaker 5: But then in the nineteen eighties, for the first time, TV commercials targeted children specifically, promoting different types of clothes for boys and girls. And as a result, children started insisting their parents buy them the right kind of clothes. That kind of consumer behaviour will be hard to change. Speaker 6: And one researcher, Paoletti, she maintains that women who never got to wear pretty, typically feminine clothes when they were little, well, they're now dressing their girls in that style to make up for it. They want their girls to have what they didn't. PART 4 Speaker 4: Part four. You will hear part of a lecture to business management students about what managers should do when their organization faces a crisis. First, you have some time to look at questions 31 to 40. Now listen carefully and answer questions 31 to 40. Speaker 7: Today, I want to talk about how organizations can respond to a crisis, which happens when a serious problem occurs suddenly and must be dealt with quickly. I will talk about a theory that tells crisis managers how to communicate in different kinds of crises. Some people ask why we need theory in crisis communication. Isn't logic the answer? Yes. It is sometimes. But organizations often handle crisis communication badly. What we find is that in reality, much of the advice that organizations receive on how to respond to a crisis is just a guess. Theory and research allow us to take those suggestions and test them. Then managers can be given advice based on actual evidence of what works and what doesn't. The crisis theory has categorized three general types of crises. One type is a crisis where the organization is a victim and has very little responsibility. For example, this kind of crisis could be caused by a rumor. The second kind is accidental. There isn't much responsibility because there are other outside factors that contributed to it. And the third one, and the most difficult to actually manage, is a preventable crisis. In this kind of crisis, those affected believe strongly that a mistake was made within the organization. The type of crisis is important because the more people think the organization is responsible for the crisis, the angrier they become at the organization. The theory begins by suggesting a two-part basic response that can be used in all kinds of crisis. The first part is to provide information to those affected so that they can protect themselves from further harm. Many crises pose a risk to people. For example, if there is a chemical release, people might have to evacuate an area. Or if there's a product which could be harmful, people need to be told about it so they don't buy it, or so if they have bought it, they can return it. The second part of the basic response is to communicate the action the organization is planning in order to prevent another crisis. This is important because those affected by a crisis are often concerned that it is going to happen again. Beyond this, crisis managers also have other tools to shape how people think about the crisis. Crisis managers can use several strategies to do this. One strategy is to diminish the crisis. If crisis managers have proof, which is convincing, they can argue that a crisis is not as bad as people think. If they can argue this successfully, the harmful effects are reduced. Another way to shape thinking is to give excuses which emphasize a lack of intent. Therefore, people will see the crisis as an accident. This is important because an accidental crisis is much easier to manage than an intentional crisis. Crisis managers can also protect the organization's reputation when there is a major crisis. Their first goal is to reduce the negative opinions generated by the crisis. This can be done by presenting new positive facts and figures about the organization or by reminding people of past good works done by the organization. Rebuild strategies are useful for preventable crises or when there has been a series of accidental crises, as these crises present a severe threat to the perceived reliability of the organization. For example, a crisis where the organization is clearly at fault or broke a law can be very damaging and can result in loss of business. Rebuild strategies can also be used to reduce the impact of the crisis. To do this, crisis managers say and do things to benefit those affected by the crisis. The reputation of the organization can also be protected in practical ways. The problem can sometimes be addressed by offering an apology to those affected by the crisis. This may be sufficient action when the problem is relatively minor. However, if the crisis is very severe, the most common strategy is to offer compensation to those affected. So to summarize, crisis communication theory is interesting to managers as it gives positive guidance on how to respond. It can help them figure out which... Speaker 4: That is the end of part four. You now have one minute to check your answers to part four.