Listening 2026-09 Test 7

PART 1 Part one. You will hear a man and a woman discussing booking a hot air balloon trip. First, you have some time to look at questions one to five. Now listen carefully and answer questions one to five. Good morning, Smart Travel. Jason speaking. Hi, good morning. I saw your advert in today's paper about hot air balloon trips. It sounds pretty exciting, and I wonder how much it costs. Well, the price may vary depending on the location, number of participants, and add-ons. A single ride may cost you up to two hundred and eighty pounds per person. But if you choose group booking, there is a discount. And the cheapest flight is one hundred and twenty-five pounds each for a group booking of at least ten people. Oh, that's not too bad. What do you mean by add-ons? They are optional items like taking photos for you during the ride, champagne, and sit-down breakfast after the flight. Upon completing the trip, we will provide each participant with a certificate, and that is entirely free of charge. Can I book a ride over the phone? Yes, that's an option. Reservations can be made one year ahead of your trip by telephone. But to pick a specific date, you must book online. A confirmation email will be sent to you right afterwards. How high can the balloons go? A hot air balloon's height is limited by the temperature of the air and how much fuel it can carry. And the highest altitude ever recorded for a ride is one thousand eight hundred meters, but most rides stay below three hundred meters. Oh boy. That's impressive. How long is a single ride? The average hot air balloon ride lasts about an hour. The entire ballooning experience, which includes ground preparation, flight, and post-flight packing up and celebration, may take two to three hours. And what time are the flights? Our flights generally meet about an hour before sunrise on the day. You will be notified of the exact meeting time the evening before your flight. Night flights are avoided due to weather conditions. Fair enough. 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. Which month do you recommend for a hot air balloon trip? Autumn is the best time of year to take the trip. Not only can you see the changing hues of the trees from above, but it is a great way to spend time with the whole family before it gets too cold. I see. But please note that our flight may be canceled, and you will be notified by phone the day before. Why is that? It can be quite dangerous to fly under bad weather conditions like a thunderstorm. So our experienced pilots will not go under such conditions. What should I wear for the ride? We suggest wearing comfortable clothing like a jacket. Multiple layers are always better. Wearing a helmet for safety concerns is also a good idea. Sandals are not permitted. Can children or older people participate? All children must be above the minimum age of nine years old, and they have to be accompanied by at least a parent or guardian. However, an adult has no age limit as long as they meet the health requirements. What exactly are the health requirements? Participants must at least be in fair physical condition. For example, they shall have no significant knee, hip, or back problems and no recent surgeries or broken bones. They must also stand unassisted for an hour during the flight. It is the required position during the whole flight. As the balloon comes to land, all passengers will need to adopt the landing position with knees bent in front of them. Are those rides safe? Hot air balloon companies are required to have a commercial balloon pilot license, and all our pilots go through rigorous training before they are allowed to fly. It is a relatively gentle activity. However, the impact of a balloon landing can vary drastically depending on factors like wind speed. Sometimes it is similar to the momentum of jumping off a small chair. If you cannot jump off a small chair, speaking to your doctor before booking a balloon flight is best. Thank you very much. I think that's all I need to know. Thanks for calling. Goodbye. That is the end of part one. You now have half a minute to check your answers to part one. PART 2 Part two. You will hear a traffic police officer talking to a group of listeners about driving license application and traffic conditions in the UK. First, you have some time to look at questions eleven to fifteen. Now listen carefully and answer questions eleven to fifteen. Hello, I'm Edward, and I'm here to tell you about road conditions in various areas of the UK. I'm also going to tell you about driver's licenses in the UK. If you have never had a driver's license, or you have one from another country and you want to get a UK license, you must be a UK resident. You will need to show a medical report when your UK license needs to be renewed. If you are trying to translate your original foreign driving license to apply for a UK license, which is a must if you want to be able to drive here, you will need to visit an official agency. These are scattered throughout the London area and are well-equipped to assist you with any questions you might have, and any services they offer are included in your license fee. If you already have a translated license but need some personal information updating, you do not need to pay for the update. They'll do it for free. When you are getting a new driving license, you may need to have a new photo taken, as some photos are rejected. It's actually okay if your photo is too small, since we can get it enlarged with our printer. The majority of rejected photos are the ones that were taken with a cream backdrop instead of a monotone gray background. We've now found that photos with the latter allow us to identify the license holder much more easily. If you were wearing glasses on the previous photo, you don't need to worry about it since it is still allowed. If you are not sure whether your previous license is still valid, then the license checking service is for you. The procedures are quite clear, and you just have to follow them. Ideally, I would like to see the process going faster since it can take hours to finish. From my standpoint, it will help if all the applicants bring the necessary identification with them. Then all they have to do is just fill in the forms accordingly, step by step. I'm often asked whether I have a personal recommendation about the fastest or cheapest place to get all this done, but I think it really depends on where you are. They can all get busy at some point, and when it is quiet at one branch, it may be busy in another. So take your pick. All I would say is that there is absolutely no difference in price. It's a standard fee. The only advice I would give is that the quickest way to complete an application is to fill out the form on the Internet and then bring a print copy with you to the agency location of your choice. Before you hear the rest of the talk, you have some time to look at questions sixteen to twenty. Now listen carefully and answer questions sixteen to twenty. Next, people frequently ask me what I think of the road conditions in some of our cities. London is obviously the biggest and busiest, and there are lots of parking restrictions, one-way systems, and so on. But on the whole, I find the traffic signs are very clear. In Edinburgh, most people use digital maps to get to know local traffic and road conditions, which can be estimated through different traffic flow lines. It is a city of lights, traffic lights, but they're extremely efficient as they're timed perfectly to get the traffic flowing smoothly. That's important because pedestrian areas and crossings are always packed with people on foot, which needs strong regulation. The city of Cardiff has tackled traffic flow in a different way. It recently completed a road expansion scheme, and the extra lanes of the dual carriageway are easing congestion. It's a similar story in Manchester. Instead of going through the town center, most vehicles choose ring roads so as to avoid the downtown congestion. It can still happen though, so there's a possibility that the city will introduce checkpoints where the police can intervene to direct traffic at peak periods. And finally, they say all roads lead to Rome, and you could say that about Oxford. I like the many options for getting in and out of the city because drivers can always find alternative routes. The other cities in the UK are... That is the end of part two. You now have thirty seconds to check your answers to part two. PART 3 Section three. You will hear a student called Joel talking to his tutor about his research into farmers' attitudes towards new developments in agriculture. First, you have some time to look at questions twenty-one to twenty-six on page five. Now listen carefully and answer questions twenty-one to twenty-six. Dr. Owen? Come in, Joel. Right. So how's your research going? You're looking at how farmers feel about new technology in agriculture, aren't you? Well, actually, it's more general than that. I'm looking at their attitudes to a variety of new developments in agriculture. Okay. Have you got a title for the project yet? I was thinking of something simple, like Farmers' Attitudes Towards the Adoption of New Farming Practices. Hmm. That's possibly a bit too general. I think the title needs to be a bit more specific. What kind of farming will you be looking at? Well, that'll vary actually. Hmm. But I want to speak to each of the ten farmers in my sample, so I've chosen farms which are all in the same region. Okay. Well, I'd specify where they are then. Right. I'll amend the title to do that. Okay. Is there any particular reason why you've decided to do face-to-face interviews? It'll be quite time-consuming, won't it? Yes, and I did consider doing telephone interviews- Mm-hmm. -for that reason, especially as it's unnecessary for me to actually see the places where they work. It's just that in my experience, a lot of farmers don't like talking on the phone, so they'll be more likely to talk freely if I see them in person. [chuckles] Yes, you're probably right. Good. Then the first thing I want to investigate is how the farmers actually find out about new developments in agriculture that they might want to adopt, what sources they use. Right. So how are you going to do this? Well, I could make a checklist of sources of information for them to look at in advance, so they could tick off the ones they actually use. Things like farming magazines, farm product advertisements, television and the Internet, and so on. It might be more useful to ask them rather than show them a list. A spontaneous response to one or two open questions might give you a more accurate picture. All right. I'll do that then. Now, talk me through some of the other issues you want to cover. Well, there's the way the government communicates with farmers. Right. Well, one thing is farmers complain that the government sends out the same information to all of them, whether they're poultry farmers or dairy farmers or arable farmers. So they get all this information, but half of it doesn't actually apply to them. Exactly. Mm-hmm. So you could look at that. Right. Then I wanted to look at attitudes of British farmers to the cost of making any changes on their farms. According to articles I've read, farmers in Britain aren't in principle against investing money in new machinery and new practices, but they're actually just too busy to work out what the financial implications are. Yes, and a lot of them don't seem to consider getting financial advice from their accountants about it either. Right. There's also been some research in Australia on sheep rearing practices. I can give you the reference if you like. Uh, basically, it appears that the majority of Australian sheep farmers are willing to risk adopting new practices on the basis of just a few pieces of research. They don't usually wait until the evidence in favor of the changes is overwhelming. They're quite happy to act before then, so they can get ahead of the game. Okay. I'll take a look at that. Thanks. Before you hear the rest of the discussion, you have some time to look at questions twenty-seven to thirty on page six. Now listen and answer questions twenty-seven to thirty. We said we'd also look at some of the reading material I've been reviewing. Yes. I had another look at Contemporary Farming Manual, which is clearly bang up to date. It covers a lot of things a farmer might want to know, but It's so dull. Absolutely. I found it really hard going, and I can't imagine any farmer wading through it. There aren't even any decent pictures. Did you have time to look at Running a Small Farm? Yes. Although I only read bits of it because despite being entertaining, it wasn't very academic. I know, and a lot of the information is either misleading or simply wrong. I'm surprised it got published at all. I don't imagine the farming press will rate it very highly. Mm. You recommend Agriculture and Economics. Mm. I expected that it would be really difficult. The title's a bit off-putting, but I thought it was brilliant, so I've bought it. Yes. Some people think it relies too heavily on farming practices in specific parts of the world, but the theories that underpin these are universal, and that's why it's a required textbook for anyone studying agriculture. Right. What else did you come across? I borrowed How to Survive in Farming from the library. I thought it'd be interesting background, and I liked the informal style, but it turned out to have been written years ago. Yes, and like everything else, farming fashions have changed. Mm. So it's badly in need of a new edition. Can I ask you a question about what we- That is the end of section three. You now have half a minute to check your answers. PART 4 Section 4. You will hear a lecturer in development studies talking about transhumance. That is the way groups of people move from place to place with their animals. 1st, you have some time to look at questions 31 to 40. Now listen carefully and answer questions 31 to 40. Good afternoon, everyone. Today, I'm going to talk about what may be a new concept to you, the movement of people with their herds of animals from place to place. This is known as transhumance. These peoples are pastoralists, and their animals include cows, sheep, goats, horses, camels, and reindeer. Now, researchers sometimes make a distinction between 2 types of transhumance, fixed and nomadic, and talk about various factors which differentiate between them. The 1st and most important distinction they make is to do with the climate. Fixed transhumance occurs in countries such as Switzerland, where seasons are predictable in terms of weather and timing. Nomadic transhumance, on the other hand, is generally practiced in areas where climatic conditions are difficult to predict. An example of such a location is Somalia, as the anticipated rains often just don't appear. Secondly, researchers sometimes look at the type of journey that pastoralists make, their movement. For fixed transhumance, the pattern is sometimes known as vertical because it typically consists of a journey from lower ground in the winter season to higher ground in the summer, and vice versa. In the wild, of course, animals frequently follow these kinds of migration patterns themselves. Nomadic transhumance generally takes place over a longer distance, and it's far more complex. The actual pattern varies from year to year, and it's determined primarily by the animals' needs for grass and also for water. Another distinction is sometimes made in terms of homes. In the case of fixed transhumance, the group will typically have permanent homes in the valley and a shelter which is semi-permanent in the mountains, such as a cabin, to offer some protection from the weather. In nomadic transhumance, however, the pastoralists always live in temporary shelters which are transported by their livestock from place to place and are usually light and portable. In northern Kenya, for example, the Gabra pastoralist carries the frame of his home on his camel and then covers it with branches when he stops for the night. A 4th factor often mentioned is the number of people taking part. In the case of fixed transhumance, only the people who actually look after the herds travel. These are normally the young ones because they can withstand adverse physical conditions more easily. By contrast, in nomadic transhumance, the whole group moves with their livestock. The last points of comparison often made by researchers are diet and goods. In fixed transhumance, those who do not move from the valleys often start working as farmers, cultivating the land. They build up contacts with other communities, and in some cases, they may also trade animals for grain. In nomadic transhumance, there are fewer contacts. The group are generally regarded as providers of all their own needs, and they obtain food such as cheese and meat and also their clothing from their herds. Another example is found in Algeria in North Africa to see how far this model applies to transhumance there. Fixed transhumance from valley to mountain pastures is common in the area, but some recent pastoralists also take their herds on longer journeys at the end of spring, from the Sahara in the south to the plains in the north, where there is more abundant rainfall. They have traditionally assisted local farmers with the harvest, which takes place while they are temporarily a resident there. We have to decide whether their move would fall within the category of fixed or nomadic transhumance. It is true they live in tents, and these are movable and temporary right through the year, whether they are in the Sahara or in the north of Algeria. So, in considering their homes, they appear nomadic. On the other hand, in relation to their patterns of movement, they do not. They drive their livestock through the same passes and mountains each year, which suggests fixed transhumance. Here, in fact, we have a case showing some features of both types of transhumance, which we might more precisely refer to as intermediate. This all goes to show that you should treat every theory with great care and not force your case history into a model if it doesn't fit. That is the end of Section 4. You now have half a minute to check your answers.