Cambridge IELTS 4 Listening Test 2

Part 1 — Planning a day's sightseeing

SALLY: Oh, Peter, there you are. You've been ages. What kept you so long? PETER: I'm sorry I'm so late, Sally. Have you been waiting long? SALLY: Oh, half an hour. But it doesn't matter. I've had a coffee and I've been reading this guidebook for tourists. Sit down. You look very hot and tired. What would you like to drink? PETER: I'd love a really chilled mineral water or something. Will you have another coffee? SALLY: Yes, I will. The waitress will be back in a moment. Why were you so late? Did something happen? PETER: Yes. You know I went to the bank to cash some travellers cheques? Well, the exchange rate was looking healthy, but when I went to the teller, they told me the computer system was temporarily down, so they couldn't do any transactions. They said the problem would be fixed in a few minutes, so I waited. And then I started talking to another guy in the bank, and I forgot the time. SALLY: Oh, really? Someone you met in the bank? Does he work there? PETER: No, he was a tourist, from New York. His name's Henry, and he's been here for a week, but he's moving on to Germany tomorrow. He's an architect, and he's spending four weeks travelling around Europe. SALLY: Just like us! PETER: Yeah, just like us. He told me the names of some places where we should eat. Great food, and not too expensive, he said. Oh, and he also gave me this map of the bus system. He said he didn't need it any more. SALLY: That's useful. Pity he's moving on tomorrow. Ah, here's the waitress. Let's order. Do you want anything to eat, or shall we just have a drink? PETER: Well, I'm hungry, and we've got a lot of sightseeing to do, so let's just have a snack and a drink. SALLY: Sounds good to me! PETER: Well, let's decide what we'll see today. I guess the best place to start is the Cathedral, and then the Castle. What are the opening times for those two? SALLY: Well, according to this guidebook, the Cathedral is only open from nine-thirty in the morning until midday. No, hang on. That's the Cathedral Museum. The Cathedral itself is open morning and afternoon. The Castle is just open from one to five, so we can't go there until after lunch. I really want to spend some time in the Art Gallery, because they've got this wonderful painting by Rembrandt that I've always wanted to see. PETER: What else should we see? SALLY: Well, the guidebook says the Botanical Gardens are worth spending some time in, and they're open all day, from eight to six, so we can go there any time. I'd like to go to the Markets near the river too, but ... oh ... no, wait, that's only in the mornings, too. PETER: As well as today and tomorrow, we can see some other places on Monday, you know. But I don't think the Markets will be open then; they only open on Thursdays, so we've missed them for this week. Maybe we should go to the Cathedral today because it's Sunday tomorrow, and even though it's open every day it might be more difficult to get in tomorrow because of the church services. SALLY: That's true, but the Art Gallery isn't open on Sundays at all, so we'll have to go there today. The Castle's open every day except Mondays, so we're OK there, and the Gardens of course only close at night. PETER: Are all these places free or do we have to pay to go in? What does the guidebook say? SALLY: I think there's a charge for all of them except the Botanical Gardens. Oh, and the Markets, of course you don't pay to go in. PETER: OK, well, it looks like our plan is this: we'll go to see the painting you like first, the Rembrandt, then have lunch and go on to the Castle after that, and then the Cathedral. SALLY: OK. It says here that the roof of the Cathedral is really beautiful. PETER: Is that right? What I really want to do at the Cathedral is climb the tower. The view is supposed to be spectacular. SALLY: OK, well, that'll be more than enough for today. Then, tomorrow, let's go to the Botanical Gardens and have a picnic. I want to sit by the river and watch the swans. This city's famous for them.

Part 2 — The university Counselling Service

So the counselling services we offer deal with any problems arising from your studies, or in your life outside the university. Let's take academic counselling. If you're confused about subjects or how to combine them in your degree, then we can advise you and discuss the career you are aiming for, so that you can see it all in context. We can also chase up your tutor if you're not getting proper feedback on how you are getting on in your subject. Besides help with academic problems, you may also need personal counselling: if you think you're already under stress, well, just wait till classes begin next week. You'll have to start adjusting to teaching and learning methods that may be unfamiliar to you, as well as the mounting pressure as the deadline for that first assignment creeps up on you. And of course, you have to cope with all this without your usual social network - you know, the social contacts, family and friends you could normally rely on for help. All of this causes anxiety. Studying overseas can trigger a personal crisis - you may have left a lot of what you might call 'unfinished business' back in your own country, or you may have interrupted personal relationships or even sometimes have broken them off to come overseas, and so the student often feels lonely, unhappy, unmotivated and unable to concentrate on studying. Or there may be other things bothering you. Our resident chaplain can offer you spiritual guidance if that's what you want, or we can put you in touch with community groups that can provide you with social contacts and friendship. What about exam stress? It affects nearly everyone to some extent, but especially overseas students like yourselves. There may be a huge amount of family pressure on you to succeed, and if you fail a subject or drop out of a course because it's too difficult then your self-esteem can suffer. But it's not the end of the world if you don't pass an exam - I had to resist First Year Anthropology, so I can certainly offer you a sympathetic ear! Anyway, exam failure can lead to worrying changes in the way you normally behave. You may also be off your food, or you may have dietary problems because the local food is not to your liking and upsets you, and this can affect your health and studies. Glenda Roberts is our dietician in the Health Service and we can put you on to her. And we all have money problems, don't we? But remember, full-time students can get a low-interest loan of up to six hundred dollars to buy books and for similar study-related expenses. That's right, and you can get double that amount if you can't afford an item of equipment you need for your course - a musical instrument, for example. And it doesn't stop there. When you move into a flat, starting-up expenses, including furniture for it, can be covered by a loan through the Welfare Service - see Jill Freeman for details. Can we help you? Well, last academic year, in spite of staff cuts, we counselled two hundred and forty international students for a total of twenty-six hundred hours counselling, and, finally we won all but just one of the twelve appeals that we launched on behalf of students. Not too bad for an understaffed service, don't you think? That's all from me. Thank you.

Part 3 — Planning a research assignment

ROSA: Oh, there you are, good. Sorry I'm a bit late - there was a long queue. So, have you worked out how to deal with this assignment then? MICK: Not yet, we've only been here a couple of minutes ourselves. ROSA: Can you just remind me what the task is exactly? PETE: Well, there are two, no, three, parts to it: first, we've got to write an essay about ways of collecting data. Then ... ROSA: What's the title of the essay exactly? MICK: I've got it here: 'Assess the two main methods of collecting data in social science research'. ROSA: And how much do we need to write? MICK: Fifteen hundred words. That's for the essay. Then, for the second part of the assignment, we have to choose one method of data collection, and 'carry out a small-scale study, making appropriate use of the method chosen to gather data from at least five subjects'. ROSA: And then we have to write a report on the study? PETE: That's right, of three to four thousand words. ROSA: Did you get as far as discussing which form of data collection we should go for - questionnaire or interview, isn't it? MICK: Yeah, I think we should use a questionnaire. It'll be so much less time-consuming than organising interviews, I reckon. Once we've agreed on the wording of it, we only have to send it out and wait for the responses. ROSA: Yes, I think it probably would be quicker. But what did that article he gave us last week say about the quality of data from questionnaires? MICK: I'm pretty sure it recommended questionnaires as a source of 'highly reliable data'. As long as you design the questionnaire properly in the first place, the data will be fine. ROSA: No, I'm sure it talked about drawbacks as well, didn't it? Something about the response rate and the problems you get if it's too low. MICK: Yeah, but we only need data from five subjects anyway. ROSA: I suppose so. Another drawback I remember it mentioned was that questionnaire data tends not to reveal anything unexpected, because it is limited to the questions fixed in advance by the researcher. MICK: Come on, Rosa. This is only a practice. It's not meant to be real research, is it? ROSA: Well, I'm not sure about that. ROSA: Maybe I'd better go through the article again, just to be sure. Can you remember what it was called? MICK: 'Sample Surveys in Social Science Research', I think. By Mehta. ROSA: M-E-H-T-A? MICK: Yeah. And he also recommended a more recent book, called 'Survey Research', by Bell, I think. It's in that series published by London University. PETE: And if we tried to use interviews instead, I saw a book in the departmental library that'll be helpful: it's called 'Interviews That Work', by Wilson, published in Oxford in nineteen eighty-eight. ROSA: Right. I've got a tutorial now. Can we meet up again later this week? What about Friday morning? PETE: Suits me. Eleven o'clock? ROSA: Fine. MICK: Before Friday, I think we should all look through the reading list.

Part 4 — Corporate crime

So far, in these lectures, we've been looking at crimes like robbery and murder - both from a historical viewpoint and also in contemporary society - and we've seen that the preoccupation in Western society with crime and with lawlessness is part of a long and continuous tradition, rather than something which is new and unique to modern society. But over the past seventy years or so, there has been a massive increase in one type of crime, which is what's known as 'corporate crime'. Corporate crime is crime which, as the name suggests, is connected with companies, with business organisations. It includes illegal acts of either individuals or a group within the company, but what is important is that these acts are normally in accordance with the goals of the company - they're for the good of the company rather than the individual. It's been defined as, quote, 'crime which is committed for the corporate organisation' - the company - 'not against it', unquote. So crimes like theft by employees - things like embezzlement or fraud against one's actual employer are excluded according to this definition. The employees may be involved but they're acting in the first place for the company - they may not even realise they're committing a crime or they may realise but they feel it's excusable because it's policy, or because otherwise they may lose their jobs. So here, really, we're talking about the links between power and crime. Now, why has corporate crime been ignored for so long? Well, it has been relatively ignored by the mass media - for example, it tends to be under-reported in comparison with conventional crime in news broadcasts, and in crime serials and films and so on - they very rarely deal with corporate crime. And it also tends to be ignored in academic circles - there's been far more research on conventional crime and far more data is available. And the reasons for this? Well, first of all, it's often very complex, whereas with conventional crime it's usually possible to follow what's going on without specialist knowledge. The third reason, and possibly the most significant one, is that very often the victims are unaware - they think their misfortune is an accident or that it's the fault of no-one in particular. But what are the effects of corporate crime? Well, it can have massive economic costs. Take a classic example: a company secretly makes a small change to the design of a product, in order to cut costs. The change means that the product doesn't last as long as it should. The company saves money, and the customers have to buy a new product sooner than they should. Now small amounts like this may seem insignificant for individual customers - too small to worry about - but for the company this deception might result in massive illegal profit. And if you add up all the different customers, over a period of time, the amounts of money involved can be enormous, far greater than the sums of money taken in conventional crimes like robbery. And that's in addition to the social costs, which are also very great - the loss of trust in the business world, for example. And the effects are worst for the people who are least able to cope - the poorest in society. Now, I'll give you an example to illustrate the point. A few years ago, there was a massive oil spill off the coast of northern Europe. The tanker carrying the oil had run aground, causing huge damage to the coastline and killing large numbers of birds and fish and other wildlife. The company which owned the tanker was never actually prosecuted for a crime, but the case raises some interesting questions about corporate crime. The main crime here was indifference to the human results rather than actual intention to harm anyone, but that didn't make the results any less tragic. The company directors, it was claimed, had not maintained the tanker properly, because they wanted to save money. They had ignored the potential consequences. So it was a case of negligence rather than deliberate harm, but the effects were just as devastating.