Hiring a Public Room

ANNOUNCER: Section 1. You will hear a telephone conversatio between an official at a village hall and a woman who wants to hire a public room. First, you have some time to look at questions 1 to 6. You will see that there is an example that has been done for you.

OFFICIAL: Hello?

WOMAN: Hello, I wanted to inquire about hiring a room in the village hall for the evening of September the first.

OFFICIAL: Let me check. Yes, we have two rooms available that evening. There’s the Main Hall, which has seating for 200 people, and the Charlton Room.

ANNOUNCER: The Main Hall seats 200, so 200 has been written in the space.

OFFICIAL: The Charlton Room has seating for up to 100 people.

WOMAN: We’re organizing a charity dinner, and we expect about 150 guests. So I think we’ll need the Main Hall. How much does it cost?

OFFICIAL: For a Saturday evening from 6 pm to midnight, the cost is £115. On weekdays it’s £75.

WOMAN: That’s fine.

OFFICIAL: There’s also a deposit of £250. It’s refundable if there’s no damage, but the deposit must be paid in cash.

WOMAN: That should be OK.

OFFICIAL: The price includes the use of tables and chairs and also parking.

OFFICIAL: However, if you want to use the kitche , there is an additional charge of £25. The kitchen has good cookers and refrigerators.

WOMAN: That’s fine.

OFFICIAL: If you plan to have music during the dinner, you will need to obtain a license.

OFFICIAL: About a week before the event, you should contact the caretaker, Mr Evans, who will arrange access to the hall.

ANNOUNCER: Before you hear the rest of the conversation, you have some time to look at questions 7 to 10. Now listen and answer questions 7 to 10.

OFFICIAL: Please remember that the building is completely non-smoking.

WOMAN: Of course.

OFFICIAL: If you are having a band, they should park their va at the back of the building and use the stage door.

OFFICIAL: Also, no one should interfere with the black box near the fire door. It automatically reduces the sound if the volume becomes too loud.

WOMAN: Understood.

OFFICIAL: If you need microphones for speeches, ask the caretaker and he will provide them.

OFFICIAL: After the event, the hall must be left in good conditio . Cleaning equipment is kept in a locked cupboard.

OFFICIAL: The floors must be washed, not just swept, and all rubbish should be placed in black plastic bags and left outside.

OFFICIAL: Any decorations must be removed afterwards, and the tables and chairs should be stacked neatly at the back of the room.

ANNOUNCER: That is the end of Section 1. You now have half a minute to check your answers.

Fiddy Working Heritage Farm

ANNOUNCER: Section 2. You will hear a guide talking to a group of visitors at a farm. First, you have some time to look at questions 11 to 14. Listen carefully and answer questions 11 to 14.

SPEAKER: Welcome to the Fiddy Working Heritage Farm. This open-air museum lets you experience agriculture and rural life in the English countryside at the end of the 19th century.

SPEAKER: Here you will see a typical farm from that time. All the staff, including me, are dressed in period clothes to recreate the atmosphere of the past.

SPEAKER: Before we start the tour, I need to give you some safety advice. Since this is a working farm, please make sure you do not frighten or harm the animals. Many of them are rare breeds.

SPEAKER: Please also keep a safe distance from the tools. Some of them have sharp edges, which can be dangerous.

SPEAKER: The ground is uneve , so you could slip if you are wearing sandals. I’m pleased to see that you are all wearing suitable shoes.

SPEAKER: Children of all ages are very welcome here. Young visitors especially enjoy seeing the ducks and lambs.

SPEAKER: Dogs are not allowed on the farm, except for guide dogs. If you have brought a dog, it must stay in the car park.

ANNOUNCER: Before you hear the rest of the talk, you have some time to look at questions 15 to 20. Now listen and answer questions 15 to 20.

SPEAKER: Let me explain the layout of the farm. The building where you bought your tickets is called the New Bar . It is located immediately on your right.

SPEAKER: The car park is on your left. In the corner of the car park you can see a scarecrow. Traditionally, scarecrows are used to keep birds away from crops.

SPEAKER: Our scarecrow is actually a permanent sculpture, and it is taller than a perso , so it can easily be seen from far away.

SPEAKER: If you look ahead, you will see a maze. It is located opposite the New Bar , beside the side path on the right. The maze is made from tall hedges.

SPEAKER: Further along the main path you will see a bridge crossing the fish pool. If you want to visit the café, walk towards the bridge and turn right just before it. The café building used to be the village schoolhouse over 100 years ago.

SPEAKER: We also run skills workshops where visitors can learn traditional crafts such as woodwork and basket making. These are held in the Black Bar .

SPEAKER: If you would like to have a picnic, you can eat in the field, but please remember to clean up your rubbish. There is also a covered picnic area near the farmyard, just after you cross the bridge.

SPEAKER: Finally, there is Fiddy House. From here you can cross the bridge and follow the footpath through the field to see it.

SPEAKER: It is a beautiful building and a good place for photographs. However, it is a private home, so visitors cannot go inside.

ANNOUNCER: That is the end of Section 2. You now have half a minute to check your answers.

Study on Gender in Physics

ANNOUNCER: Section 3. You will hear two psychology students, Lisa and Greg, discussing a project they have to do. First, you have some time to look at questions 21 to 27. Now listen carefully and answer questions 21 to 27.

LISA: OK Greg, I finally managed to read the article you mentioned — the one about the study on gender in physics.

GREG: The study of college students carried out by Akira Miyake and his team? Yes, I found it interesting that the researchers were a mix of psychologists and physicists. That’s quite unusual.

LISA: Yes. At first I was confused about the students in the study. They weren’t actually physics majors. They were studying what are called STEM subjects — science, technology, engineering, and...

GREG: ...and mathematics. Yes, but they all had to take physics courses as part of their degree.

LISA: Right. The researchers started with the fact that women are underrepresented in introductory physics classes at college. On average, the women who enroll also perform worse than me .

GREG: And the researchers wanted to discover why this happens and how they could improve the women’s results.

LISA: As I understood it, many female students believed that male students thought women were not good at physics. They assumed the men expected them to get low test scores.

GREG: Yes, and because they believed that, they became nervous and actually performed worse. But in reality, the male students were not making those assumptions.

LISA: The researchers then introduced a simple activity before class — a writing exercise. What was it called again?

GREG: It was called values affirmatio .

LISA: Right. Students wrote an essay about important personal values, like music, family, or people who mattered to them.

GREG: The purpose was to encourage positive thinking. Writing about meaningful things can reduce psychological pressure and help students perform better.

LISA: What surprised the researchers was that this simple activity improved the women’s grades from around a C grade to about a B grade.

GREG: Yes, that’s a huge improvement. It suggests the women were underperforming before.

LISA: However, the article didn’t explain everything. For example, we don’t know whether the students wrote the essays once or several times, or whether they knew why they were writing.

GREG: Exactly. If the students knew the exercise was meant to help them improve, they might have simply tried to meet the researchers’ expectations.

ANNOUNCER: Before you hear the rest of the discussion, you have some time to look at questions 28 to 30. Now listen and answer questions 28 to 30.

GREG: For our project, we could run a similar experiment to see if the writing task was really responsible for the improvement.

LISA: Maybe we could ask some students to write about a general knowledge topic instead.

GREG: Or we could divide them into two groups: one group does a writing task, and the other does an oral task.

LISA: Another option is to have one group do the same writing task as the original study, and the other group write about something factual. Then we could compare the results.

GREG: Good idea. At our meeting with the supervisor on Monday, we should explain our research aims.

LISA: We should also read the original research paper, because the article we saw was only a summary.

LISA: I also read another article by Smolinsky about how men and women perform in mixed teams, single-sex teams, or when working individually.

GREG: Let me guess — women were better at teamwork?

LISA: Actually no. Both men and women achieved similar results, regardless of whether they worked alone or in teams.

GREG: My concern is whether we have enough time to complete everything.

LISA: We should be fine now that we know our plan. The only issue is deciding how to measure improvement in the students.

GREG: Yes, we may need advice on that. We also need to ensure we have the right sample size.

LISA: The next step could be checking the science class timetable, or perhaps making an appointment with a science professor.

GREG: That sounds like the best idea.

ANNOUNCER: That is the end of Section 3. You now have half a minute to check your answers.

Ocean Biodiversity

ANNOUNCER: Section 4. You will hear part of a student presentation about the variety of species that live in the world’s oceans. First, you have some time to look at questions 31 to 40. Now listen carefully and answer questions 31 to 40.

SPEAKER: I’ve been researching ocean biodiversity, which refers to the diversity of species living in the world’s oceans.

SPEAKER: Around 20 years ago, biologists developed the concept of biodiversity hotspots. These are areas with an exceptionally high variety of species. One well-known example on land is Madagascar.

SPEAKER: These hotspots are important because they help scientists identify priority areas for conservatio .

SPEAKER: On land, identifying such hotspots is relatively straightforward. However, until recently, very little was known about species distribution in oceans, and scientists were unsure whether ocean hotspots even existed.

SPEAKER: In 2005, a Canadian biologist named Boris Worm analyzed data from the fishing industry. He identified five hotspots for large ocean predators such as sharks.

SPEAKER: Worm expected these hotspots to have abundant food supplies. Surprisingly, this was true for only four of them.

SPEAKER: However, all five hotspots shared another feature: the surface water temperature was relatively high, even when deeper water remained cool.

SPEAKER: In addition, the water needed to contain sufficient oxyge . These two conditions support the high metabolic rate of large predatory fish.

SPEAKER: Later, in 2007, a researcher named Lisa Balance conducted a similar study, but focused on marine mammals such as seals.

SPEAKER: She discovered three ocean hotspots for these animals. These locations occurred where ocean currents meet.

SPEAKER: These areas contain high concentrations of plankto , which form the base of the marine food chai .

SPEAKER: Another important research project is the Census of Marine Life, an international effort to study ocean species worldwide, including those in the Arctic Ocea .

SPEAKER: Scientists were surprised to discover large numbers of species living beneath thick ice layers, sometimes up to 20 meters thick.

SPEAKER: Some of these species had never been observed before, including certain types of octopus.

SPEAKER: Researchers studying the ocean floor also found many species gathering around underwater volcanoes, attracted by the heat and nutrients there.

SPEAKER: Despite these discoveries, scientists still lack clear data about the extinction risk for many species.

SPEAKER: To address this, an organization called the Global Marine Species Assessment is compiling a list of endangered marine species.

SPEAKER: They evaluate species by examining population size, geographic distributio , and the rate of population decline.

SPEAKER: So far, about 1,500 species have been assessed, but researchers aim to evaluate around 20,000 species in total.

SPEAKER: For each species, they produce a distribution map. These maps will help scientists identify where species are most abundant and where they are most threatened.

SPEAKER: Finally, what can be done to protect ocean biodiversity?

SPEAKER: First, more marine reserves should be established where species are protected from exploitation.

SPEAKER: Second, species such as leatherback turtles, which migrate long distances, require safe migration corridors.

SPEAKER: Third, fishing quotas should be reduced to prevent overfishing.

SPEAKER: Finally, the issue of by-catch must be addressed. This occurs when fishing vessels accidentally capture unwanted species.

SPEAKER: If fishing e