Listening 2026-08 Test 4

1. You will hear an Englishman called Steve phoning a friend called Susie about his trip to Arizona in the United States. First you have some time to look at questions 1-4 on page 2. 2. You will see that there is an example that has been done for you. On this occasion only, the conversation relating to this will be played first. 2. Hello. Hi Susie, it's Steve. Steve, hi! How are you doing? I'm fine thanks. Actually, I've got to attend a conference in July in Tucson, Arizona and I was hoping you could give me a few tips. You're from around there, aren't you? I sure am. Tucson's not my hometown though, but it's definitely worth seeing. What's the weather like around then? Is it true? It's about 40 degrees centigrade in the daytime. That's right, and not less than 25 at night. A bit different from England and July. The temperature during the day will be 40 degrees, so 40 has been written in the space. 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 a questions 1-4. Hello. Hi Susie, it's Steve. Steve, hi! How are you doing? I'm fine thanks. Actually, I've got to attend a conference in July in Tucson, Arizona and I was hoping you could give me a few tips. You're from around there, aren't you? I sure am. Tucson's not my hometown though, but it's definitely worth seeing. What's the weather like around then? Is it true? It's about 40 degrees centigrade in the daytime. That's right, and not less than 25 at night. A bit different from England and July. True. I was wondering what to take with me. I won't need warm clothes then, will I? Well, you'll find that everywhere is air-conditioned and it can feel quite cold sometimes, so a jacket would be a good idea. You might need an umbrella as well as we sometimes have thunderstorms during the day, but you can always pick one up when you get there. My conference is only for a couple of days, so I was wondering what I could do in Tucson. Well, it's a beautiful position. I'd hire a car in Tucson and then follow the trails in the desert. Okay, I'm writing all this down. Any other tips, museums and stuff? Well, there are lots of museums, the usual thing like wildlife and history, but I think the most interesting is the space museum, so my advice would be to go there. Hmm, what else? Well, there are plenty of walks you can do. The town itself is great, and there are plenty of places you can eat and drink when you get too hot and tired. Any chance of a game of golf? Oh, absolutely. There are loads of courses around Tucson. Before you hear the rest of the conversation, you have some time to look at questions five to ten on page two. Now listen and answer questions five to ten. If you've got time, why don't you visit my parents? They'd love to see you. Great. Can you give me their address? Sure. They live in the town of Williams at 6073, Fear and Lay Drive. Okay. How do you spell that? F-E-A-R-N-L-E-I-G-H. 6073, Fear and Lay Drive. Okay. Got that. The town's in northern Arizona, and it's named after a hunter in the area in the early 1800s. He used to make a living shooting animals around there for their skins. Hmm, sounds interesting. So is it full of old buildings? Well, the post office is the oldest as it was built in 1881, but there was a big fire in 1901, and most of the town was burnt down. But it didn't take them long to rebuild. Oh, and the famous Route 66 goes through the town. That was built in 1926. So when exactly are you going? The conference is from the first to the second of July. Will your parents be at home after that? Oh, yes. They wouldn't miss the 4th of July Independence Day. Ah, okay. So lots of fireworks. As soon as the sun goes down, people come from miles around to see them. Why don't you give my parents a call? They're on 928-635-2271. I'm sure they'd love to have you. Okay, I'll do that tonight. And really, you shouldn't be in Arizona without taking a trip to the Grand Canyon for a few days. Hold on. I've got a leaflet here. I took a friend there last summer. She had a great time. Okay. It says here that there are a lot of tours you can take when you get there. Someone told me you could take a helicopter. Can I do that? Sure. That tour takes about 1.5 hours and there are seven a day to choose from. The last is 5.30. You get a really good idea of the huge size of the canyon from up there. Sounds good. Any chance I can get down to the river? I'm quite good in a canoe. Yes, you can do that too. Let's see. Yes, there's an all-day trip. They provide you with waterproof clothes, but they recommend you bring sunscreen. You'll really need it down on the river. Well, that should keep me busy for a few days. Thanks, Susie. That's terrific. I'll ring you again just before I go. That is the end of section 1. You now have half a minute to check your answers. --- Part 2. You will hear part of a radio program in which a successful businessman is advising listeners on how to become a self-made millionaire. First you have some time to look at questions 11 to 16. You have a lot of time to talk about your own business. You have a lot of time to talk about your own business. Now listen carefully and answer questions 11 to 16. Everybody dreams of becoming a millionaire one day. So we asked Arthur Knowles who made his millions in the plumbing business to give the budding entrepreneurs among you a few tips on how to make your first million. Arthur, welcome to the program. Thanks Sue. So Arthur, what advice do you have for our listeners? Well one thing I've heard people say is that when you're starting up a business you can't afford to make mistakes. Well I believe in the old saying a person who never made a mistake never made anything. You can't really predict when you'll make mistakes and you have to look at them as a positive experience and one that means you won't make the same mistake again. You need to be able to cope with the world of business but according to recent American business school studies believing in yourself isn't enough by itself to guarantee success. Confidence can be a good thing but a person can have too much confidence and people who try to learn to be confident by buying those how to succeed books are just wasting their time. The advice given in these American studies was that being a successful entrepreneur comes down to having the right attitude. It's no good getting depressed every time something goes wrong. Always keep your goals in mind and never give up and don't listen to all the people around you who say oh this will never work. One thing I've learned in business is that you don't have to be an expert in everything like marketing for example. When I started my business I tried to do it all myself but I soon realized that although I knew everything there was to know about plumbing, I didn't have much idea about how to sell my ideas. So I got someone who knew more about this to take care of the marketing side of things for me. Then as for leadership well you've got to be someone your workers look up to because you've been seen to make the right decisions. You have to be able to control people but listen to them at the same time. Some people are driven to make their companies successful but that too often leads to a ruthless approach. Then there's the question of taking risks even calculated ones. I personally feel it's actually better to tread carefully when it comes to taking short term risks. You need a degree of vision certainly but it's easy to get carried away by your desire to increase profits and if things go wrong you can end up losing more than you gain. Before you hear the rest of the program you have some time to look at question 17 to 20. Now listen and answer question 17 to 20. So if you have a great idea for a business what should you do next? Well the first thing to ask yourself is whether there's a need for your product or service. Can you cater for people's needs better than existing companies? You don't need to worry about whether it's original or not because there isn't always enough of a demand for completely new ideas and the second thing to ask yourself is not what colour should the packet be or how much should it cost but do I care enough about this idea to dedicate the next 10 years of my life to it? Because realistically that's how long it will take. Tell us how you got started Arthur. How do you explain your early success? Well I started my business just as the economy was going into a recession which wasn't the best time and I was lucky to survive especially as the banks weren't being particularly supportive to small businesses at that time. If I'd listened to the business advice I was given back then I'd never have got started. My strengths were that I knew I could provide a better service than my competitors who really hadn't spotted the opportunities that were out there and that my wife had a good job and was able to pay the household bills while I was getting the company on its feet. The first couple of years were very tough but I knew I would make it eventually. Okay now we're going to take some calls from listeners. That is the end of part 2. You now have 30 seconds to check your answers to part 2. Thank you very much. --- Hi, Eva. Is this a good time for us to look at our research project? Our tutor told us to keep the focus narrow. So what about we go for why people choose to go to certain places and attractions and leave the rest out? You're right. Otherwise we'll have far too much information to cope with. Okay, so what about the survey? Well, I've looked through the ideas we had for questions for it, and I think it's not clear how we use the word area. Sometimes it seems to mean a place, other times the field of our research, and even tourist attraction in some cases. Oh, I think that's my fault. I typed out our notes. Oh, it's probably best to use it for place in the sense of province or whatever. Yes, I think so. You know, we decided to concentrate on culture and tourism. I wonder if we're really saying culture in the same way as most people do. Because on our list of places to carry out our surveys, I see you've put the Round Music Festival, which is contemporary music. I thought we were going to be looking at more traditional forms of culture. That would be confirming these old-fashioned ideas that culture has to be something that's at least 100 years old. But that is what most people think. Well, let's not get into an argument about that right now. Let's think about the number of completed questionnaires we need. In total, how many questionnaires do you think we have to get? 100, 200, and over how many different events? Hmm, our tutors said we should have at least 200. Otherwise, the information won't actually mean that much. And I think it's not practical to try to go to more than about five events. We've got to get the first draft in by the end of February. And do you think we should interview everybody or just tourists? Because presumably there'd be local people, domestic tourists, and international tourists, that's some events. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think we should just go for the tourists. But from overseas as well as national. I'm sure we'd be able to provide more interesting results if we did that. Right. There's one thing that worries me though. What's that? We said it's important to get some background on the people who answer our questions. Like, what's their job? What they thought about the event? But the idea of asking people how old they are? Hmm. We can just ask them to take a box with an agent and tell them they don't have to do it if they don't want to. We could write in our own estimate when we finished. Are you sure that would be okay? Yes, it's not the most crucial piece of information they're giving. We're going to have a lot of facts and figures to present. Have you any preference for putting them into a pie chart, a table, or a graph? Tables are easy to do. But I read that most people find pie charts visually stimulating. I hate reading graphs because unless they're quite big, you don't get exact figures. Pie chart sounds good. How are we going to divide up the work? If it's okay with you, I'd like us to meet as often as possible to look at what we've each written up. But we should do the actual writing on our own. Before you hear the rest of the discussion, you have some time to look at questions 27. Okay, would this be a good time to discuss our introduction, an overview of tourism around the world, looking at different tourist attractions in different countries? But there are so many to choose from though, so let's narrow it down. Absolutely. I found out that Mexico celebrates the fact that it produces a huge number of varieties of chilies and people flock to this special event to taste dishes using them. A lot of people think of Mexico as being the best place to see fantastic museums. That's true, but let's take a different tact. What about Greece? One of the world's most famous countries for tourists. Yes, and I think we should go for the ruins in this case. The temples and theaters and so on, rather than the food. And for Britain, instead of focusing on the countryside and parks, I'd like to find out more about why people go to see plays and musicals. Is it because there's such a good choice? Hmm, interesting point. And for India, instead of concentrating on the temples or the game parks, we could mention all the different folk dances. Every region has its own, and they don't just perform them at festivals. They're part of everyday life. Okay, we've got more than enough. Let's draft the introduction. That is the end of part three. You now have half a minute to check your answers. --- Now turn to section 4 on page 7. Section 4 You will hear a university lecturer talking to his students about an architectural studies assignment. First you have some time to look at questions 31 to 40 on pages 7 and 8. You will hear a university lecturer talking to his students about an architectural studies assignment. Section 4 You will hear a university lecturer talking to his students about an architectural studies assignment. Section 4 You will hear a university lecturer talking to his students about an architectural studies assignment. Section 4 You will hear a university lecturer talking to his students about an architectural studies assignment. Section 4 You will hear a university lecturer talking to his students about an architectural studies assignment. Section 4 You will hear a university lecturer talking to his students about an architectural studies assignment. Section 4 You will hear a university lecturer talking to his students about an architectural studies assignment. Section 4 Now listen carefully and answer questions 31 to 40. Section 4 Okay, before this morning's lecture on successful design of public buildings, I want to draw your attention to your next assignment. So your assignment is on public monuments and by that I mean any structure or statue that is built to remind us of important events or of historic figures. The assignment should be divided into three sections. At the beginning of section 1 you should identify the monument you're examining and say why you've chosen it. Include a comment on whether you think the monument works. By that I mean its success. You may think it's wonderful. You may think it's a public eye sore. Something that people hate looking at. Next you should also include in this first section information about where the monument was built. It's geographical site and also a discussion of its social importance. How relevant it was for the people of the time. You should also include information on when it was built. It's historical background and make sure you illustrate the assignment appropriately too. I shall expect that. Insert any plans you can find and make sure any photographs you use have captions and are clearly referred to in the text or they will be meaningless. To end this section you should include something about the record of the person who designed the monument, showing how the monument relates to his or her other work. Right. In section 2 of the assignment you'll need to give a detailed account of the design and construction of the monument. Firstly I'll want to read about any particular influence you think is apparent in the design. More often than not there will be something in it that links it to an established style. Classical Greek for example. Or it may reflect a movement like Bauhaus or Art Nouveau. You decide. Secondly I want information about the choice of materials. Not only those which were used but reasons why they may have been selected from others that were available at the time and in the area where the designer worked. Next I'll want to mention of any particular skills that were necessary in the construction too. The third section is the most important one. Here you'll go into much more critical detail. To add to your own comments you'll need to carry out a survey for this section to be as comprehensive and rounded as possible. Ask yourself and others the following questions. Firstly was the reason for erecting the monument a valid one. For example was it one that ordinary members of the public, the man or woman on the street, can readily relate to and did it justify how much public money it cost? Was it a waste or does it represent a sound cultural investment? Then think about its emotional impact. When someone looks at it how do they feel? Angry, sad, indifferent? And don't forget to consider how well the monument sits in its environment. Does it harmonize with it or does it clash with it? And is that important? Does it add to the effect or take away from it? Right, those guidelines should help. Oh, and remember it is important to weigh up carefully how to make the maximum impact in this kind of critique within the number of words allowable. You don't get extra marks for lots of factual information. You get those for a well constructed analysis. That's what counts and that needs to be based on your personal opinion. That is the end of section 4. You now have half a minute to check your answers. That is the end of the listening test. You now have ten minutes to transfer your answers to the listening answer sheet. You You