LISTENING 11 – UNIT 5 - 8

Unit 5 – Listening – 2.18

Man: Have you seen this story in the newspaper?
Woman: Which one?
M: The one about Sabine Moreau, a woman from Belgium. It’s quite funny. Listen to this: ‘When 67-year-
old Sabine Moreau got in her car and set off from her home in Belgium, she was planning to pick up a
friend from a station about 60 km away. She used her satnav to guide her and did not notice when the
satnav started taking her in the wrong direction. She ended up about 1500 km away in Croatia, having
travelled through six different countries!’ The journey took two and a half days, it says here.
W: That’s amazing. What did she do when she got to Croatia?
M: She had to drive all the way home again!
W: I reckon she just wanted to spend a couple of days on her own. I mean, I don’t think you can drive
across six countries by mistake! Did anyone notice that she was missing?
M: Er … yes, they did. It says here: ‘During that time, Ms Moreau’s son contacted the police and told them
that his mother had disappeared. When reporters asked Ms Moreau about her mistake, she told them that
she had had a few things to think about and hadn’t really noticed what was happening.’
W: That’s what she says now. But in my view, she invented the whole story about the satnav.
M: I’m not sure. I expect hundreds of people end up in completely the wrong place because of their satnav.
When you’re following a satnav, you stop thinking for yourself.
W: I know … but you don’t drive for two and half days. That’s ridiculous!

Listening – 2.19
1 Customer: Hi. I wonder if you can help me?
Assistant: Sure. What’s the problem?
C: My smartphone is locked. If I put the passcode in, nothing happens.
A: Right. Can I see?
C: Yes. Look: 5-2-6-1. Nothing.
A: Hmm. This phone automatically locks if an incorrect passcode is entered three times. Are you sure
you’ve got the right passcode?
C: Yes, I’m sure. But my three-year-old son was playing with it this morning …
A: Ah, well that could be the problem. I expect he’s pressed some keys and locked your phone.
Anyway, I’m afraid I can’t help you. We can’t unlock phones here. You need to contact your phone
network. They’re the only people who can unlock it.
C: How long does it take?
A: It’s hard to say. I reckon you should allow at least three or four days.
C: Oh dear! That’s quite a long time. Are you sure you can’t do anything to help me?
A: I’m afraid not.
2 Man: Can I help you?
Woman: Oh, yes. Do you live around here?
M: You could say that. That’s my house!
W: I’m trying to find the Victoria Hotel. My satnav says it’s up this road …
M: But this isn’t a road. You can see that! And you’re ruining my grass!
W: Are you sure this isn’t the Victoria Hotel?
M: Of course I’m sure! I live here!!
W: Oh, how annoying. All right, I’ll turn around.
M: Don’t turn around, you’ll ruin the plants. Just go backwards.
W: All right. Look, it isn’t my fault. I’m just following the satnav. Do you know where the hotel is?
M: I think there’s a hotel around the next corner. But it isn’t called the Victoria Hotel. It’s the Empire
Hotel.
W: The Empire Hotel. That’s the one!
M: You said the Victoria.
W: I know, but I’m pretty sure it’s called the Empire. Thank you. Bye!
M: Don’t drive over my … roses.
3 Girl: Have you been using my MP3 player?
Boy: Er … no.
G: Yes, you have!
B: Well, maybe once or twice. How do you know?
 G: Because all the songs are different!
B: I added a few songs, you’re right. Do you like them?
G: Not really. Why did you erase all my songs?
B: I didn’t erase anything. I just copied about ten new songs onto it.
G: You did erase them. Look – there are only ten songs on here now, and they’re yours. Mine aren’t here.
B: Oh, I’m sorry. Never mind – you’ve got a back-up of your songs on your computer, haven’t you?
G: No, I haven’t! I loaded them onto the MP3 player from a friend’s tablet.
B: That’s stealing.
G: It isn’t stealing. He said it was OK.
B: I don’t mean stealing from your friend. I mean stealing from the people who made the songs. It’s
called copyright theft and it’s damaging …
G: Look, that isn’t the point! Don’t use my MP3 player without asking!
4 Dad: You were great. I didn’t know you could dance so well!
Girl: Thanks, Dad. Did you video any of it?
D: Yes, I did. I used my new camcorder.
G: Ooh. Let me see.
D: There should be four or five clips.
G: These are all clips of a football match!
D: Oh. I recorded those yesterday. I wonder what happened.
G: Basically, you didn’t record anything at all tonight.
D: I tried to! Actually, it did keep giving me a message - something about ‘memory full’. I wasn’t sure
what it meant.
G: It means the memory is full.
D: So, what do I do about that?
G: Never mind. Actually, all the members of the cast are getting together a bit later to celebrate the end of
the show. I’ll talk to people there. May be somebody else videoed it.
D: I hope so. I think the man next to me had a camcorder too.
G: OK. Anyway … Thanks for coming. Glad you enjoyed it

Review - 2.27
Tim: You’ve got a new smartphone, Sal! Can I have a look at it?
Sal: Yes, of course, Tim. I got it for a good price, and it’s great for social networking. My parents didn’t
want me to buy it, though. They keep telling me I spend too much time on my phone already, and this
one has even more things to keep me busy!
T: You know, I sort of understand their point. I wish my sister would put her phone down once in a while.
She even uses it at the dinner table, and it drives us all crazy! She never hears what we’re saying, or talks
to us.
S: Yeah, some of my friends are like that. It is frustrating. Anyway, my parents don’t let anyone bring their
phone to the dinner table.
T: Really?
S: Yeah, it’s good because we really do talk about a lot of important things while we’re eating. If our phones
were on, we probably wouldn’t communicate at all.
T: Well, my mum thinks the MP3 player on my phone is bad for me, so she only lets me use it for an hour a
day. She says it’s going to damage my hearing.
S: You do have the volume up very high. I’ve heard it from across the room. Maybe you could make a deal
with your mum. Say you’ll agree to play music much more quietly if you can use the MP3 player more
often.
T: That’s a good idea. Thanks! Hey, can you show me what games you have on your phone?

Unit 6 – Listening – 2.30

At the age of sixteen, Nellie Bly read an article in her local newspaper which argued that women were
not able to do the same jobs as men. Furious, she wrote an anonymous article in reply and sent it to the
paper. The paper’s editor was so impressed that he offered her a job: Nellie was now a journalist! At that
time, female journalists mostly wrote about fashion and gardening, but Nellie had other ideas. She was
determined to be an investigative journalist who wrote about serious issues, like women’s rights and the
problems of factory workers. But when Nellie accused companies of treating workers badly, they refused to
buy advertisements in the paper, so the editor stopped Nellie’s investigations. In 1887, Nellie moved to the
New York World newspaper, where the owner, Joseph Pulitzer, helped her to do undercover work. For
example, Nellie pretended to be insane so that she could become a patient at a psychiatric hospital in New
York and find out about the conditions there. As a result of Nellie’s shocking discoveries, the authorities
changed the way they cared for mentally ill patients. This was probably her greatest success as an
investigative journalist.
Listening – 2.32
Presenter: So, how did Nellie first get the idea of travelling around the world?
Guest: She read a novel by Jules Verne called Around the World in Eighty Days. Nellie decided to copy the
adventure and try to go around the world in fewer than eighty days.
P: Eighty days seems like quite a long time.
G: Well, the year was 1888 – and of course, in those days, there were no aeroplanes or helicopters. As a
result, it took a long time to travel long distances.
P: So how did Nellie pay for this adventure?
G: The owner of the newspaper, Joseph Pulitzer, agreed to pay for it. It was good publicity. Indeed, another
New York newspaper called Cosmopolitan thought it was such a good idea that they sent their own
reporter, Elizabeth Bisland, to go around the world too.
P: Did the two women travel together?
G: No. They both left New York on 14th November 1889. But Nellie went east, across the Atlantic to
London. Elizabeth travelled in the opposite direction, west across the United States.

Listening – 2.33
P: So it was a race?
G: Exactly! Who could go around the world first?
P: And how did Nellie get on?
G: Most of her trip went well. From London, she went to France and met the author Jules Verne in a town
called Amiens. She then went by train to Brindisi, in Italy. From there, a ship took her to Port Said in
Egypt, then Singapore and Hong Kong. There, she boarded another ship to take her back to the USA.
However, while she was crossing the Pacific Ocean, there was a storm. She arrived late in San Francisco
and missed her train to New York.
P: Oh dear. So what happened?
G: Joseph Pulitzer didn’t want Nellie to lose the race. For that reason, he paid for a private train to bring her
home. She managed to win the race and go around the world in 72 days, six hours, eleven minutes and
fourteen seconds.
Review - 2.38
Interviewer: This is Todd Canter, host of Talk True on City Radio. Today in the studio we have well-known
psychologist and business expert, Lisa Williams. She’s going to tell us why so many young
people are creating their own businesses. Welcome to the show, Lisa.
Lisa : Thanks, Todd.
I: Lately, we’ve been hearing about younger and younger people creating their own businesses. And these
are not just little, part-time businesses. They’re very successful companies which sometimes become
global
brands. That’s what I really don’t understand. How can a very young person, with little understanding of
how business works and not much knowledge of money, come up with a good idea for a business?
L: Well first of all, the question isn’t how it’s possible, but why it doesn’t happen more often. You see,
young people are ideal candidates to come up with business ideas that no one else has thought of.
They’re also the perfect people to turn these ideas into reality.
I: Really? But they haven’t got any business experience.
L: OK, you’re falling into the trap that most people fall into. You assume that it takes a lot of experience and
a business education to create a new business. But in my experience of working with young
entrepreneurs, exactly the opposite is true. Young people don’t have a lot of business knowledge, but this
can sometimes be an advantage. In fact, too much business education and experience often makes it
harder to think creatively. This is because you’ve been told again and again what the so-called ‘right’
answers are, so you’re not able to look at all the other options.
I: So you’re talking about creative thinking … thinking ‘outside the box’?
L: That’s a saying that we all hear too often … but yes, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. If you don’t
already have a set of ‘right’ answers to various problems, you are free to think of options that no one else
would think of.
 Unit 7 – Listening – 3.05
Speaker 1 I went to the gym last week. It was the first time in years! I tried lifting some weights and
could only manage about 120 kilos. I know that would be a lot for most people, but for me … well, I was
really surprised how little I can lift now.
Speaker 2 I went to see Robbie Williams in concert last weekend … again! It was in Manchester. He
played some of his old songs and some of the songs from his new album. It was OK … but even I had to
admit that he wasn’t brilliant. Maybe he wasn’t feeling good.
Speaker 3 I went out for a meal with some friends last weekend. We had Thai food because they wanted
to try something different – and for once, I agreed! And you know, it wasn’t too bad. A bit hot and spicy for
me, but very tasty. I actually enjoyed it. I might try Indian some time … perhaps.
Speaker 4 My sister called round and gave me my birthday present. It was a jumper, which was … a
surprise. She doesn’t usually buy me clothes. It’s quite a colourful jumper – red, blue and orange. Unusual.
Well, anyway … it was very kind of her to buy it for me.

Listening – 3.06
Speaker 1 If you take the time to listen carefully to the words of the best rappers – people like Eminem
and Jay Z, and some of the female rappers too, like Lil’ Kim and Missy Elliott – then you’ll realise how
good they are. It isn’t just poetry, it’s fantastic poetry. In fact, I’d say that some of them are the best poems
being written today. Seriously, that’s my opinion. Now a lot of people say that young people are no longer
interested in great poetry. But that’s wrong, isn’t it? A lot of teenagers listen to rap music and rap can be
great poetry – even though some people don’t look at it like that. So I’d say that in some ways, poetry is
more popular than ever among young people.
Speaker 2 You know the poems I hate most? They’re the ones you get in greetings cards – birthday
cards, Mother’s Day cards, that kind of thing. I mean, a poem has to be original, doesn’t it? To be a good
poem, it has to come from the writer’s heart and contain some real emotion. It has to be about why the poet
loves a particular man or woman – or why the poet is feeling particularly sad. These poems in greetings
cards are all the same. ‘I hope your birthday is full of fun … er … You really are a wonderful son.’ That
kind of rubbish. I suppose people actually have to spend time writing them. Imagine doing that job! It would
be so depressing, wouldn’t it? Writing rubbish every day.
Speaker 3 We’ve been looking at some modern poetry at school, in our English classes. Some of it is
OK but to be honest, I’m not keen on most of it. I just don’t get it. I mean, half of it doesn’t even mean
anything! Or at least, I can’t work out what it means. It just seems like random words. Poetry didn’t use to
be like that. In the past, it was always clear what the meaning of the lines was. And usually, it rhymed too.
For me, that’s what poetry should be like. That’s the skill of the poet, isn’t it? If you don’t worry about
meaning or rhyme, then you can just write anything and call it a poem! ‘A leaf on a tree … the sun shines …
water flows … life goes on.’ There, that’s a poem. Huh!
Speaker 4 ‘Hope is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul, / And sings the tune without the
words, / And never stops at all.’ er … ‘And something something something heard, and something is the
storm’. Hang on … I can’t remember the rest. But it’s one of my favourites. It’s by Emily Dickinson. I love
her poems. In fact, most of the poems I like best are by women. I think women make better poets than men –
but that’s just my personal opinion, of course! I don’t find it very easy to memorize poems. It takes me ages!
But I enjoy doing it and I really like having a few poems that I know from memory.

REVIEW - 3.11
Good morning. First of all, let me introduce myself. My name’s Gillian Richardson, and I’m a dance
instructor from Gold Performance, which is a Performing Arts Academy based in central London. Today,
I’ve come to talk to you about our academy, and hopefully some of you might find what we do interesting
and join our academy from next September!
Well, although I myself am a dance instructor, dance is not the only performing art we teach at our
academy. We try to help students to develop their talents and go after their dreams in all of the performing
arts, including drama and music. We can offer you specialist classes in dance, singing, drama and fitness.
We encourage our students to build on their strengths and we also give our students the opportunity to take
part in activities which help them get the confidence to work as part of a group or as solo artists. The lessons
are held by qualified teachers and professionals from the performing arts industry, and many of our teachers
have worked as choreographers with famous stars, such as Robbie Williams, Justin Bieber or Beyoncé, as
well as appearing on TV shows and in theatre performances in the West End. All of our students work on
performance techniques in the autumn term, such as dance styles in dance lessons, or mime or voice in the
drama lessons. We also teach students how to communicate through their body, focusing on body language
and expressing their emotions.
During the summer term our students work on their performance, as all of them perform in the end-of-
year show. The show takes place at the Auburn Theatre, where all students are awarded a certificate for
completing their course in our Annual Awards Ceremony. In addition to the theatre performance, we also
put on another two performances each term, which take place in the hall at our academy.
Anyway, I know this a lot of information for you now, so if you’d like to find out more, please visit our
website. If you would like to arrange to come and see one of the classes before you apply, please do send us
an email.
Unit 8 – Listening – 3.15
1 I remember my first cruise as if it were yesterday. We travelled down to Southampton on the train and
boarded the Princess Ariadne in the early evening. Lights were coming on all around the port and the
atmosphere was really magical.
2 Just as we stepped out of the hotel, it started to rain – and suddenly, it was raining really hard. I tried to
hail a tuk tuk, but they weren’t stopping! All the tuk tuks were full.
3 I’d like to welcome passengers on board the 13:34 Great Eastern train from London. We are scheduled to
reach Ely at 15:07, where the train will terminate. May I remind passengers that a range of light snacks
and beverages may be purchased in the buffet car.
4 We booked our holiday with Martins & Cole last year. They’re expensive, but they take care of
everything for you – flights, transfers, accommodation. So it’s worth it, in my opinion.
5 This is a passenger announcement. Will Damian Fairchild, Damian Fairchild, please proceed immediately
to the information desk adjacent to gate 15, where his wife is waiting to board British Airways flight 1782
to Dallas.
6 It was our first trip to Las Vegas, so we booked a room at the Bellagio. It was amazing – there was a
beautiful fireplace, and fantastic views from the windows. And our bathroom was enormous!

Listening – 3.16
1 I regret to inform you that there will be a short delay of twenty to thirty minutes due to a minor technical
problem. The problem concerns the air conditioning system and has no implications for safety. I would
request that passengers remain seated during this period. I hope to give you an update in due course.
Meanwhile, the cabin crew will pass through the cabin with complimentary refreshments. The captain and
crew would like to thank you for your patience and assure you that they are doing all they can to resolve
the issue.
2 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. As you will see if you look out of the window, we are approaching
our destination and we should be there approximately ten minutes ahead of schedule. Unfortunately, it
appears that there is a problem with the baggage handling at our destination. Passengers will not be able
to retrieve their bags for at least an hour. We suggest that you wait in the arrivals hall for further
information. We appreciate that this is inconvenient after a long journey, but wish you a pleasant holiday
all the same. Should you need any advice regarding the transfer to your hotel, please contact a member of
staff in the terminal building

REVIEW - 3.21
A hovercraft is a unique kind of vehicle which has got the ability to travel over any kind of terrain land,
water, mud, or ice. It has got special engines that blow air below the vehicle. The pressure of this air is
higher than the pressure in the atmosphere and the difference in the pressure lifts the hovercraft above the
surface so that it can travel over small obstacles quite easy making it one of the most environmentally
friendly vehicles in the world. The hovercraft was first designed in Britain in the 1950s. Today, these
vehicles are used all over the world. They are particularly used during disasters, because they can get to
places that a boat or a helicopter can't reach. The manufacturers have created hovercraft in various sizes. The
smaller models are easy to drive and their designers always have safety in mind.