Đề thi thật IELTS Listening — tháng 10/2026 Test 8

Part one. You will hear a telephone conversation between a UK company representative and a woman who wants to hire a motor home. First, you have some time to look at questions one to five. Now listen carefully and answer questions one to five. Hello, Coxhead Motorhomes, Dave Sparrow speaking. Oh, hi. I would like to inquire about renting an RV for a week. I think you call them motor homes in the UK? Yes, we do. Well, we should be able to help you there. So what type were you thinking of? It's just for two of us, uh, me and my husband. Right. The best model for you would be the two birth and kitchen. That's the one with the sitting and sleeping area in the middle and the other facilities at the back. Yes, that sounds good. And what sort of price is that? The cost starts at five hundred and forty-five pounds a week, depending on when you want it for. If it's high season, it goes up to seven hundred and fifty-five pounds. And is that all inclusive? There's what we call a damage deposit. That's fully refundable if the vehicle is returned in good condition. That depends on the driver's age. You do have to be at least twenty-one to drive one of these vehicles. That's okay. I'm twenty-four. Well, in that case, if you're driving the vehicle, the deposit would be four hundred and sixty pounds. It goes down to two hundred and fifty pounds for drivers of twenty-six and above. And do I have to pay more if my husband drives as well? No, extra drivers are free. Great. We have to pay a supplement for that in the States. So you've driven one of these before, have you? Yes, but only in America. Oh, that reminds me, uh, about my driving license. I've got an international one. Is that okay? That's fine. And I just have a few questions about the motor homes, if that's all right. Go ahead. So first of all, can you tell me how old your vehicles are on average? They're all less than thirty months, so you're getting a vehicle in peak condition. Okay. And I'd prefer an automatic gearbox if possible. Can you do that? I'm afraid not. They're all manual. Will that be a problem? Oh, I, I guess I'll be okay. It was just a thought. And also, our customers sometimes ask if they can bring their pets along. So if you wanted to do that, it's fine, as long as you make sure they're properly looked after. Oh, well, that won't apply to us, but it's nice to know. Before you hear the rest of the conversation, you have some time to look at questions six to ten. Now listen and answer questions six to ten. And I suppose there are cooking facilities in the motor home? Yes. There's everything you need for cooking. Like a fridge? Yes, and you've got a built-in microwave too. And you said it sleeps two. So is that two singles or a double? You can arrange the bed either way. And you've got a CD player. And this year, we've installed a television in every motor home as well. Right. Well, that might be useful if we have a rainy day [laughs] . Oh, and what about satnav? I, I don't suppose that's included, is it? Sure. We've had that in all our mobile homes for a few years now. Our customers really appreciate it. Great. Oh, and what about a rack for my bicycle? I'd like to take it along. Yes, we can arrange for that. Now, what happens about electricity? I think we'll probably be staying at campsites most of the time, so presumably there'll be mains hookup there. But we're going to a music festival for a couple of days, and I don't think they have hookup there, so we'll need a generator. It's not included, but we can hire one for you. It'll be fifty pounds for a week. Okay. Uh, now about collection, I know your company's near Salisbury. Uh, we'll be coming from London, so what's the best way for us to get to you? We'll be arriving by train. Well, if you want, we can pick you up from the station. The nearest station to us is Grately. I'm sorry? Grately. That's spelled G-R-A-T-E-L-E-Y. There's no charge for that. Just let us know when you'll be arriving. So would you like to go ahead and book a vehicle now? Yes. So my name is Christie, and my... That is the end of part one. You now have one minute to check your answers to part one. --- Part two. You will hear a man introducing a charity to a group of listeners. First, you have some time to read questions eleven to sixteen. Now listen carefully and answer questions eleven to sixteen. Hello, everyone. Thanks for attending tonight's event. Let me start with the early history of our charity, Eye Saver. Eye Saver was founded by a retired optometrist, Timothy Gaines. I have spent much of my working life at Eye Saver. I am sixty years old now, and I started working for this organization fifteen years ago when I left a corporate position to help people with eye problems. Now our charity has been helping people for three decades. You may know that we are now doing various other things to help people with eye problems. That includes medications for children with eye diseases and operational help to those in the public who have eye problems. But when Mr. Gaines just founded Eye Saver, he wanted the program to be able to offer common eye equipment to those who needed it. We receive occasional donations from corporations and charity groups. Now we have over one thousand five hundred volunteers who work on the streets with the little red donation boxes, which many of you are familiar with, and this is the main source of funding for us. Besides, we are planning to work to secure donations from wealthy benefactors. Many people are passionate about charity cause and have been inquiring how to donate money to us. I really appreciate that. But our main need is to collect glasses for our patients. Many of you have multiple pairs of old glasses in your possession, and we encourage you to gather these pairs which you no longer need and donate them to our cause. In doing this, you'll be able to make sure that someone else can see better. Most of us cannot imagine a life in which we are unable to see well. This is why your eyeglass donations are so critical to our mission. And as a side note, we offer full-time positions. Let me know if you are interested. Our goal is to make people aware that even the smallest of donations can help change a person's life. So your donation can be a turning point for them. The other day, when I was talking to some people on the street, they were surprised to find out how easily some eye problems can be cured. And I am proud to say that our next program will aim at educating people about common eye diseases. We are able to prevent many fatal eye problems. In order to publicize our charity program, we surely need to do some advertising. When we first started our program, we used computers to create awareness for our cause. For instance, promoting seminars in which we informed people as to how they could help us to solve eye problems. But in recent years, the main means of advertising our program is through audio recordings. We have found it cost-efficient and effective. It's good to know that many of our staff are recommending our program to their friends and colleagues. But I am afraid that our training cannot show people the whole picture of our program. Before you hear the rest of the talk, you have some time to look at questions seventeen to twenty. Now listen and answer questions seventeen to twenty. Finally, I would like to tell you about some organizations which have played important roles in the development and success of Eye Saver. Our affiliation with the National Vision Funding Group has allowed us to gain fame and to become even more significant. So many people around the country are coming for our services. Our association with the Eye for the Future organization has allowed us to run cooperative ads by which we seek producers of equipment to work with us. Meanwhile, some of our staff has been sent to this organization for some special training. Their skills should be improved very soon. Also, we have had a long time cooperation with Sam's Eye Care Institution. Our relationship with it has given us the opportunity to link with many different academic institutions, including colleges and universities with good reputation. And we have a similar friendship with a group called Youth Health. Our connection with that group allows us to link directly with young kids since this is a crucial stage in their growth. We plan to contact with some colleges and hope that with their help, more college students could get to know our program. So as you can see, we have all bases covered in linking with students as we have affiliations directly with both administrators and the students themselves. Thank you so much for your attention today. As we try to stamp out eye problems, we will appreciate your donations, no matter how large or how small. We believe with our efforts, the world will be a brighter and more beautiful... That's the end of section two. You now have half a minute to check your answers. --- Section three. You will hear a discussion between two students called Mark and Fran about their presentation on some dolphins which are unique to New Zealand. First, you have some time to look at questions twenty-one to twenty-four on page five. Now listen carefully and answer questions twenty-one to twenty-four. Hi, Mark. Thanks for coming around. Hi, Fran. No problem. We need to try and get this presentation finished. Mark, let's start with the way dolphins make sounds. Well, we all know that dolphins make clicking noises to communicate. Yes. They have tongues and larynxes as humans do, but what's really strange about the dolphin is that the sounds are focused through an extraordinary organ called the melon, which most other sea mammals don't have. So shall I take over from there and speak about the different dolphin types? I want to share what we found out about those rare dolphins that are special just to New Zealand in particular. Yeah, great. Put the emphasis on them. The rarest of all is the Hector's dolphin, isn't it? They are endangered, aren't they? I think that's mainly because so many of them get tangled up in fishing gear, especially gill nets, and die. I know that some conservationists are worried about the impact of the tourism industry on dolphin numbers, but I don't think that's a problem yet here. Also, remember that this species has a very long reproductive cycle, so their numbers don't get replenished quickly. Yeah, that's really sad. But at least the New Zealand government established a sanctuary for them, didn't it? The fishing industry was against it, but I remember reading that the general public were very supportive of the decision. It was a consequence of a study done by some marine biologists. Having a protected breeding area has made a big difference to the dolphin population already. Yeah, I think their numbers have swelled to over seven thousand in total, with a tiny group of just eighty-nine living down off Southland, nearly two thousand living near Christchurch on the East Coast, and the biggest group surviving off the West Coast. It's pretty wild country over there, so I guess there aren't as many tourists and fishermen to disturb them. Before you hear the rest of the discussion, you have some time to look at questions twenty-five to thirty on page six. Now listen and answer questions twenty-five to thirty. Okay, so how do you suggest I structure my part of the talk? Well, you could start with the common dolphin, which inhabits the whole of the sea around New Zealand. And once you've covered everything to do with them, feeding and so on, you could go on to the more unusual types. The dusky dolphin is especially interesting because you know how all the dolphins travel in small social groups called pods? Well, the dusky dolphins travel in pods as big as eight hundred members. And I think the duskies like to travel along beside fishing and tourist boats, don't they? Whereas the Hector's dolphins are different in that they prefer to go in the wake of boats. That is, coming along in the rear. Yeah, they do. But they also dive down deep to avoid fast boats. Oh, let's not forget the Māui because they are endangered too, aren't they? There are only a hundred and fifty of them left, and they inhabit only the western coastal waters off the North Island of New Zealand. Yeah, it's a pity. They also face problems because of their tiny size. Hmm. Now, the orca is actually a dolphin too, right? Yes, surprisingly. So I'll include that in my talk. People call them killer whales, but in fact they're not whales. They're a huge and very fierce type of dolphin. In New Zealand, Kaikoura in the South Island is the best place to spot orcas swimming by. So people mistakenly think that's where they live. But actually, orcas cover vast distances. Let's not forget to mention the bottlenose. It's bigger than nearly all the other dolphins, even the common dolphin. Oh, but still not as big as the orca, right? That's right. Well, I think that's our presentation done now. That is the end of section three. You now have half a minute to check your answers. --- Part four. You will hear a presentation about prehistoric cave paintings and the symbols found within or near them. First, you have some time to look at questions thirty-one to forty. Now listen carefully and answer questions thirty-one to forty. Hello, everyone. My presentation today is about the cave paintings produced by prehistoric artists about thirty thousand years ago, and in particular, the symbols that appear in or near these paintings. These symbols are found deep in caves in many countries around the world, but the ones I'm going to talk about today are mainly European. Firstly, a little about the most common symbols. The symbols that have been discovered are of different shapes and sizes. Some are easily recognizable as they're quite simple. The most basic are just a series of dots, but they may also include forms such as the triangle. However, other symbols are more complex. A case in point is the wavy line. This is sometimes used on its own, but the same wavy line is also used as part of a larger picture of a horse. So we think this is what the wavy line represents. One very important symbol is what's called the hand symbol. This frequently appears on the walls of caves. I'll talk about it in a bit more detail. Firstly, how it was made. The paint itself was made up from a variety of things that cave artists would have had access to. They had fire, so charcoal was one ingredient. Another was the fat from the animals they would have hunted, and lastly, the saliva from their own mouths. Then there's the question of how they actually applied the runny paint onto the walls of the cave. It certainly wouldn't have been easy. They would have had to use something hollow. In fact, it's likely to have looked like a straw, you know, like the kind we use for drinking nowadays. They'd have sucked the paint up into it, then blown it out. Researchers have recently recreated both the paint and the processes used to make the hand symbols. The artist would have first put his hand flat against the wall, then blown the paint onto the wall, creating an outline of the hand. The researchers who've tried to recreate the process have said that not only is it a difficult technique to master, but also that a strange noise is produced. It also led them to feel light-headed, so we can only imagine that these cave artists felt the same. I'm sure you'll agree that these symbols are really interesting, but they're also of vital importance. Researchers have now identified a total of twenty-six symbols commonly used in France and Spain. We only have this knowledge thanks to a database that's been created and which is being added to all the time. It clearly demonstrates that many symbols are often used in particular combinations, even if they're in different places. This is significant as it looks like different tribes of cave people who lived and traveled through the area at that time would have seen these markings as well as adding to them. Although researchers don't believe that these symbols are a language as such, they are happy to call them a type of code. There is evidence to support this idea. One sequence of five symbols is particularly common in caves in Spain. Exactly the same sequence of five symbols has been found carved into a necklace made from the teeth of a red deer. So it appears that this combination of symbols may have had a special meaning. Of course, many of these explanations are theory as opposed to hard facts, which is why there is disagreement among researchers about the significance of what we are seeing. One theory is called The Great Leap Forward. The idea is that around thirty-five thousand years ago, there was a sudden increase in creativity which led to the invention of the boat, among other things. However, not everyone agrees. In fact, many scientists believe that what has been found in Africa seems to indicate that this increase in creativity happened much earlier, around seventy to ninety thousand years ago, and more gradually. One example of an artifact that is offered to support the idea is the discovery of different sorts of arrows, which would have been used for hunting. These scientists suggest that the reason more symbols haven't been found from this earlier time is because they would have been painted on things that did not survive, such as wood. In fact, we are very lucky that caves have protected these specimens as well as they have, or we might never have known what these artists were capable of. That is the end of part four. You now have one minute to check your answers to part four.