IELTS Trainer 1 Listening Test 6

Part 1 — Enquiring at a tourist office about hostels

Man: Good morning. Can I help you? Woman: I hope so! I have a friend in Spain and her two daughters are coming to the city to study for a month. So I thought the Tourist Information Centre was the best place to ask about hostels. Can you recommend any? Man: Of course. Ah, I usually suggest one of the Hostelling International places. HI West End is a big hostel in a residential area, but it's only ten minutes from downtown (Example) if you take a bus. It's really popular. Woman: OK. Sounds good! I need to know how much it costs. The girls want a double room to themselves. They don't want to share with other people. Man: That makes it more expensive. The price is under $30 for a bed in a dormitory but they'll be paying $50 a night. But if they become members of Hostelling International, the price comes down to $41 a night. Membership costs $35. Woman: Right. Man: And membership offers them benefits too on all kinds of activities. Woman: Ah, what kind of things? Man: Oh, er, skydiving and white-water rafting. Things like that. Woman: Mm, I don't think they're interested in that kind of thing. If they become members, will they get cheaper entrance tickets to museums? Man: Oh, yes and also discounts on bicycle and car hire. Woman: OK. It's probably worth it. Is the hostel very noisy? They're coming here to do some studying. Man: Ah, I think it is quite noisy as it's a really big hostel. And if they want to use the Internet this hostel still makes a charge unfortunately. It's $1 for 15 minutes and $3 for an hour. Woman: Mm ... it might not be ideal for them. What else can you recommend? Is there anything in a quiet area? Man: There's Elliscoat Hostel. Woman: Mm, how do you spell that? Man: E-L-L-I-S-C-O-A-T. Woman: I've never heard that name before. And where is that? Man: It's on the beach looking over the bay. Here, look on the map. It's quiet but not far from Dragon Island - there's plenty going on there in the evening. Woman: Oh, that's a nice area. And if they want to go to Dragon Island it only takes a couple of minutes to walk down to the ferry. So how much is a room there? Man: It's in such a nice spot that the rooms are a bit more expensive. They're $62. Woman: Does that include any meals? Man: Unfortunately not. It is possible to buy meals in the hostel at a reasonable price but because it isn't very busy in the winter, they only cook in summer. Woman: Oh, I think I know the place you mean. It's an old building, isn't it? Man: Yes, it's well known as it's one of the oldest in the city. There's been a hotel there since 1887 when it was first built. It was turned into a hostel in 1985 and they've invested a lot of money restoring it inside. Woman: Mm, they'd like that but I'm just looking on the map at where their college is - it's right in the centre. It is a bit far for them from there. Man: The hostel actually has scooters for hire at a very good price. So they could do that. Er, it would be quicker than cycling or walking to the centre. Woman: Mm, it is a bit expensive ... But it sounds like the best one so far unless there's something a bit cheaper? Man: OK. Er, well, what about the Backpackers Hostel? That's not so expensive. It's in a side street in the entertainment district. They wouldn't need to go far to find everything they want - they could walk everywhere. And it's very reasonable. Only $45 and another $5 if they want to have breakfast. Woman: Mm, but what about other meals? Man: There's no cafe but on each floor in this hostel there's a kitchen for residents to cook in. I'm not sure how well equipped they are but it should be fine for basic meals. Woman: Well, that's really very helpful. I'll pass all this information on now. Man: Do ask your friends to ring me if they need to know anything else. Woman: I will. Thank you.

Part 2 — An audio guide to a public library

Welcome to the Selmore Public Library which has just been reopened after major refurbishment. This tour will introduce you to the building and its services. At any time you can stop the tour. We enter by the cafe and our tour begins at the issue desk. If you stand between the information desk and the issue desk and look at the opposite wall, you will see shelves of books in the left-hand corner. This is where you will find a large number of novels and short stories. They are arranged alphabetically. If you're looking for something in particular and it's not on the shelf you can reserve it. The next area, directly opposite the issue desk, is a section where people can study. The library provides computers for users free of charge on the next floor beside the reference books but this area is for people to use their own laptops. You should ask for the internet passcode at the information desk. In the right-hand corner of this floor there is a cafe. A selection of daily newspapers is always available there but you can also take magazines into the cafe to read while you have a drink. You will find these on the racks to the left of the cafe and there is a large selection. They are for reference only and cannot be borrowed but you are welcome to photocopy any articles of interest. We ask you to return them when you have finished. You are not allowed to take fiction or any other books from the shelves into the cafe. Next to the cafe is the exit door leading to the stairs and escalator to the other floors. The largest collection of books in the library is fiction and the next largest is non-fiction which is in the corner of this floor opposite the cafe. These can all be borrowed as opposed to the reference books on the next floor, most of which cannot be taken out of the library - but they can be photocopied. There are several photocopiers available for this purpose downstairs in the basement. To one side of the issue desk is a door leading onto a gallery. This was added to the library as a public space where talks are given once a week on a Saturday by visiting authors of both fiction and non-fiction. It also houses the biography section. There are notices advertising the talks in the study area. Any books that you want to borrow should be taken to the issue desk. Before we leave this floor I will give you some information about using the library. There are also helpful notices by the information desk. To join the library and take books out, you need a membership card. Take your passport or identity card, as well as proof of your home address, to the information desk and you will be issued with a card. After a period of two years, all readers are required to go to the desk with a document that has their name and current address on it so the library can keep up-to-date records of where people are living. There's no need to show a passport again and there is no charge for this but any lost cards are charged at 5. If you can't find the book you want on the shelves, you can reserve it. If it's in another library in the city, we can usually get it for you within a week. If someone else has borrowed it, it can take a few weeks. Either way, we notify you by phone or email when the item is available to be picked up. We will hold it for you for five days. Books can be borrowed for fourteen days and can be renewed for a further two weeks. Children's books also have a two-week borrowing period. The same system exists for CD-ROMs and CDs but DVDs, both children's and adults', can only be borrowed for up to seven days. It isn't possible to renew them. Some reference books can be borrowed but normally only for one day, so 24 hours. The library opening hours have been changed slightly. Instead of opening late on Wednesday evenings till 8pm, we will be closing at 6, as on other weekdays, but we will close at 7 instead of 5.30 on Saturdays and - a new development - we are going to open on Sunday mornings from next month - 9 to 1. We are closed on public holidays and notices are posted in the library about these. Before you go upstairs, please note that if you are going to the exhibition area on the third floor, large bags are not allowed. There are lockers beside the reference area on the second floor where you can deposit them. If you need change, you can get that from the information desk on the first floor. Now press 'pause' and proceed to the second floor. When you reach the top of the stairs press 'play'.

Part 3 — Tutor feedback on a presentation about apples

Tutor: Well, Anita and Lee. That was an interesting presentation you made about John Chapman. There are a few points I'd like to run through before you write it up. One thing which you didn't explain was why you decided to do a presentation on this man who spread apple varieties across the US? Anita: Well, ages ago, we were chatting about stuff we'd read as children, and I told Lee the Johnny Appleseed story - I had these American story books when I was small. Then when we were looking into the area of domesticated species of plants for our presentation, we realised that the introduction of the apple with the settlers in the US would be a good case study ... Lee: And I remembered Chapman, so we looked up the real guy behind the legend. Tutor: Right. I think that would have made a good intro. Anita: I thought it was too personal. Tutor: Just a couple of minutes would have drawn your listeners in. Anyway. Now a more serious point. You didn't mention the sources of some of your information. Lee: We used some books and journal articles and did an internet search and found some good sites. Anita: We've put them on the back of the handout we gave everyone at the end. Tutor: Ah, let me see. Oh, here it is. Johnny Appleseed: Man and Myth, 1967. Well, the thing is, you really have to make this explicit when you talk. And anything you show, data you project from your laptop, etc., you must have the source on it. Anita: Right, OK. Tutor: At least you have got it all documented. I was a bit concerned about that. Anita: Sorry. Tutor: Anyway. Now, the content of your talk. What your listeners wanted to understand was whether there were apples in the US before the Europeans started to live there. You told us the early settlers had brought young apple trees but that few of them had thrived because the climate was harsh, but what about native species? I don't think you were very clear about species already there. Lee: Um, according to what I've read, there were some crab apples, but that was all. Everything that people now think of as traditional American apples, were species that the Europeans either introduced or bred by chance. Anita: Because they tended to sow seeds rather than use grafting. Tutor: Yes, quite. But what to me was fascinating - and I saw most members of your audience start to take notes - was when you discussed how the apple genes spread via the Silk Route into Europe from the wild apple woods of Kazakhstan. Lee: Yes, well, I'd like to have said more about the development of grafting in ancient China, as a way of producing predictable varieties. It was so early in history! Tutor: But it's the natural development of the original wild apple into new species that people wanted more about. Which says a lot for your presentation. You enthused your audience! So, now we need to discuss the form your follow-up work will take. Are you going to produce a paper? Or are you thinking of putting it all up on the department website? Anita: Um, I felt we could do both. And we could do a poster of some of the data. But Lee wasn't sure. Lee: No, I think it would be enough to use the website. We can offer a link to our email for queries. That would save time and trees! Tutor: I think Lee's right. A poster would be nice, but it'd take too much time. Anita: OK. Tutor: Now I just want to give you a few pointers about the techniques of your presentation. Mostly it was good, but there are a few things you need to bear in mind next time you do one. You both managed the hardware, I mean the projector and things, very well indeed, which is always a great help. Anita: Good. Lee: Thanks. Tutor: You'd obviously checked it out carefully. Lee: Yes. But unfortunately we hadn't finished our maps when we did the practice on my computer at home, that's why there were some the wrong way up. Anita: We didn't realise the software on the laptop was a bit different from the one I have. Tutor: But you sorted out the problem very quickly and didn't let it fluster you, so it wasn't a big problem. We could all read the map when we needed to. Anita: So it was OK, but we could have done better, we realise. Tutor: Mm. There was a bit at the end where I felt something didn't go as you'd planned - am I right? Lee: We had a few maps which we ended up leaving out, because we needed to get on to our conclusions. Anita: Yes, it took longer to explain the technical aspects of grafting than we'd expected. Lee: So sticking to the time limit for each part of our presentation is something we didn't manage at all. Which means we've definitely got to improve before we do another one. Anita: Yes. Tutor: Apart from that, well, the handout was perfectly adequate for a seminar like this, it gave all the key information, and of course, now I realise the sources are listed at the back. But you need to do those references in the correct format, as footnotes in future. Anita: OK. Lee: Yes, sorry, we will. Tutor: And finally, other students will be presenting projects later in the course. I shall be reminding them how well you both spoke and that no one had any problem hearing or understanding either of you. In that respect your talk was a model that the others can follow. Lee: Oh, thank you. Anita: Yes, thanks very much. This feedback has been very helpful. Tutor: Well done, both of you. See you in a fortnight. Anita and Lee: Bye. Thanks.

Part 4 — A lecture on experiments into the sense of taste

Lecturer: This morning I'm going to describe for you a few of the kinds of experiments that have been used to investigate the sense of taste, which is now recognised as being a far more complex and important area of neurological science than was previously believed by most people. The results of some of these experiments can be quite fun and I shall suggest that you may want to choose one or two to try out in groups before having a go at designing a new experimental procedure of your own and trying to pinpoint the cause of your findings. The first one concerns a marketing exercise by a soft drinks company. The green colour of some cans was altered by the addition of yellow, so they were a brighter green. Then test subjects were asked what they thought about the flavour of the drink in the new-style cans, and they stated that there was more lime in the drink if it was in the ones with the new colour. This was because the brain picks up cues from the way the product is presented, as well as the product itself, which trigger taste sensations. Before food was packaged, humans used colour to gauge the ripeness of fruit, for example. Next there's the old problem with chewing gum. Everyone knows that after a few minutes' chewing it loses its minty flavour. However, if you ask people to chew up to the point where it becomes tasteless, and then ask them to eat a little sugar and continue chewing, to most people's surprise, what happens is that the original mintiness actually returns because it is the sweetness which is needed to make the mintiness perceptible. So combinations of flavours can be significant, as the brain needs one of them in order to recognise the other. Another experiment demonstrates something we've all done. Drink half a fizzy drink straight from the fridge and then leave it at room temperature for a while. Take a sip and you may well decide you don't like it. The warm drink is too sweet to be refreshing. So put the rest back in the fridge until it's chilled again. Now try it. Much better. Of course the sweetness doesn't change, it is our perception, because how sweet it tastes depends on the temperature. The extent to which the drink is sweetened is less evident if the drink has been cooled. Another interesting result has been derived from experiments with sound. One of these involved eating crisps. Subjects were put into soundproof rooms and given batches of crisps to eat. As they ate, the sound of crunching which they made as they ate the crisps was played back to them. This was adjusted so that they sometimes heard the crunching as louder, or, at other times, more high-frequency sounds were audible in the sound feedback that accompanied their eating. Fascinatingly, if the sound level was louder or higher frequency they reported that the crisps were actually fresher. Of course, the crisps were in fact the same every time! So, it was clear that the level and quality of what they were hearing was influencing their taste perceptions. So, we've looked briefly at colour, at complementary flavours, at temperature and sound. It seems that all the senses are working together here, but what about the sense of touch? A number of experiments have been done in this area. If you take, for instance, cheese sauce and prepare different versions, some thicker and some thinner, but without any alteration in the strength of flavour, what do you think the subjects perceive? Yup, if the sauce is thicker, they'll say the cheesy flavour is less strong. It was clear that the thing that was influencing the subjects' judgement about the flavour of the sauces was the texture of each one. Now, this result is important for dietitians as well as marketing executives. Lastly, another variation on the two flavours theme. This concerns the capacity of the brain for bridging a sensory gap. The subjects in this experiment stuck out their tongues so that the testers could drip two liquids onto them simultaneously, one strawberry flavoured and one sugar flavoured. The testers then took away each flavour in turn. When the sweetness was taken away, the subjects reported they could hardly taste anything, but they continued to think they could taste strawberry even after it was taken away! So that taste gap was filled. Well, that's just a quick look at some of the examples in the current literature. The references will be in the handout you'll get at the end of the session. Now let's see about trying a few of them for ourselves.