LISTENING CAE 5

Listening Part 1

You will hear three different extracts. For questions 1-6, choose the answer (A, B or C) which fits best
according to what you hear. There are two questions for each extract.

EXTRACT ONE
You hear part of a radio programme in which a man is being interviewed about an unusual sport

1 According to Chris, cheese-rolling takes place

• at only one venue in the world

• on muddy ground
• once a year

2 Which statement best sums up how Chris feels about cheese-rolling?

• it’s too dangerous

• it’s worth the risks
• it requires training

SCRIPTS

Interviewer: Chris, I must admit, I was a bit bemused when 1 heard about cheese rolling. Tell us about it.

Chris: Well, it's an event that takes place on May Bank Holiday Monday ever year in Gloucestershire.
Basically, a large Double Gloucester cheese is rolled down the hill, and a bunch of idiots like me try to catch
it. Whoever gets to the bottom of the hill first wins.

Interviewer: It sounds easy! But isn't it dangerous?

Chris: Well, the hill is really steep and the surface is rough and uneven. It's not so bad if it's dry, but if it's
been raining and the ground's muddy, it can be tough. You get tangled .up in the grass, and it's difficult not
to fall. People have had to be carted off to hospital with broken limbs or concussion. But it's great fun. and
people come from all over., The last three years, an Australian woman has won the women's race, and
they've set up a similar competition down under.

Interviewer: So what advice would you give to someone wanting to take part for the first time?

Chris: Wear sturdy football boots or walking boots, pad yourself out in hardwearing clothes, and have fun!

Interviewer I think a suit of armour would be more suitable for me! Now

EXTRACT TWO

You hear two students on a business course talking about a book they are studying

3 Sue found the book worth reading because it included

• case studies of successful enterprises

• advice on how to negotiate a contract
 • the legal aspects of setting up a company

4 What criticism of the book do both speakers express?

• Some important information was omitted

• some of it was badly organised
• it used too much jargon

SCRIPTS

Mike: Sue, you know that book Starting in Business? I've just finished it and I thought it was pretty good.

Sue: Yes, bits of it were useful. My father's a businessman and I've learnt quite a lot from him, like what
you have to do to register as a company, all the legal stuff, so I left that section out. Bu that started from
scratch and thrived. The book chose its examples well and it did a good job of analysing them. I could have
done with something about getting good terms from suppliers practical hints.

Mike: Maybe that only comes with experience.] got a lot out of the book, but all the business jargon was a
bit distracting, and the acronyms — a pain to have to look them up. And the index could have done with
being checked —the page references were wrong sometimes. But it was all a good length and relevant.
Sue: Yes, it included most of the information we need to know, and apart from the problem of looking
things up and finding your way around, it was well written.

EXTRACT THREE

You hear two people talking about yawning

5 According to the woman, until recently, yawning was thought to

• be simply a sign that we were tired

• help us breathe more deeply
• promote alertness

6 Research suggests that contagious yawning is a way of

• maintaining alertness in a group

• expressing understanding in a group
• communicating with each other

SCRIPTS

Man: So what you're saying is yawning actually wakes us up?

Woman: In a sense, yes. It's been known for a while that when we yawn, both our heart rate and blood
pressure increase, but for a long time scientists believed its, purpose was purely to increase our intake of
oxygen. Research has proved that this is not true, and psychologists have put forward a theory that
yawning helps make us more alert. That's why we yawn when we're tired or bored. It's our body giving us a
warning, or 'wake-up' call, if you like.

Man: Interesting. So why is it if one person starts yawning, pretty soon all the people around are also at it?

Woman: Well, the same psychologists have a theory for that, too. They suggest that some kind of empathic
mechanism in our brain is triggered when one member of the grou yawns. It may be a way of keeping
everyone in the group awake and on the alert. Monkeys do it as well. It seems that instead of encouraging
us to sleep, yawning o is trying to do the opposite!

Man: OK, I'll buy that. But what about yawning during exercise? I sometimes yawn while I'm running, …

Listening Part 2

You will hear an astrobiologist talking about her work. For questions 7-14, complete the sentences.

What is Astrobiology?

It could be claimed that the science of astrobiology has no 7 [no answer] (correct answer: subject)

However, astrobiologists are also concerned eith how live evolved 8 [no answer] (correct answer: on
earth)
There are some popular misconceptions about what 9 [no answer] (correct answer: extraterrestrial life)
might look like
For much of the Earth’s history, single-celled 10 [no answer] (correct answer: organism) were the only
life forms in existence
Multi-cellular life evolved during the 11 [no answer] (correct answer: geological period or period) known
as the Cambrian era.
Then, about 12 [no answer] (correct answer: five million or 5,000,000) years ago, human-like creatures
evolved.
Life on other planets will probably be 13 [no answer] (correct answer: different from or very different)
life on Earth
Human beings might not have evolved if 14 [no answer] (correct answer: dinosaurs) had not become
extinct

SCRIPTS

Astrobiologist: When I tell people what my particular branch of science is, I often get funny looks. In a way,
I understand because astrobiology is the study of life on other planets. Well, obviously, life has not been
discovered on other planets., which would appear to make astrobiology a science without a subject!
However, everything we know about life on our own planet suggests we have to try to understand if there
are any universal requirements for life to evolve, as well as the processes involved in evolution.
Consequently, astrobiologists are deeply interested in the beginnings of life on Earth. Once we know more
about what happened on home ground, as it were, we will be in a better position to understand any life
forms we may one day find on other planets.

When most people think of extraterrestrial life, they conjure up images of so-called ‘higher’ life forms;
they imagine humanoid creatures or bizarre and probablydangerous animals of some kind. But if we
consider the whole history of life on Eartht a very different picture emerges. For billions of ears the only
forms of life on the planet were organisms consisting of single cells. It was only about 550 million years
ago, during the geological period we call the Cambrian, that the seas suddenly became filled with whole
array of multi-cell life.

So how do humans fit into this time frame? Well human-like creatures first appear in the fossil record
about five or so million years ago: in geological terms, this is just a blink of an eye compared to the long
history of life on Earth. And Homo sapiens, our own species, has only been around for about 130,000
years. The point is if we do find life on other planets, it will almost certainly be relatively simple — of the
sort that populated the Earth for most of its existence so far.
And of course we must be prepared for these life forms to look very different from life on Earth. We must
not forget that many modern life forms came about as a result of chance, their fate shaped by floods,
continental drift and comet or meteor strikes. it is interesting to reflect that a giant asteroid had not hit the
Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs, they might still be ruling the planet and we might never have evolved
...

Listening Part 3

You will hear part of a radio interview with Pete Birtwhistle, a playwright.

For questions 15-20, choose the answer (A, B, C or D), which fits best according to what you hear.

15 What was Pete’s attitude to the theatre before he started writing?

• He felt it had little relevance to his life

• He didn’t feel qualified to judge it
• He thought it would be boring to watch a play
• He preferred comedies to tragedies

16 How did he feel about leaving his previous job

• He felt very relieved

• He was anxious about his heath
• He worried how others would see him
• He was very depressed

17 What was the most difficult aspect of writing his first play?

• discipline himself to write every day

• coming up with a suitable story
• allowing the characters to develop
• finding an appropriate ending

18 What is the biggest impact that writing has had on Pete’s life?

• It has made people respect him more

• It has enabled him to express himself
• It has opened up new professional opportunities
• It has allowed him to appreciate other plays

19 How does Pete choose the theme of a new play?

• He looks around for a challenging theme

• He looks for a subject that is in the news
• He looks for a theme that he understands
• He thinks about issues that affect society

20 How does Pete feel about writing for films?

• enthusiastic
• worried
• cautious
• intimidated
SCRIPTS
Interviewer: This evening on Arts Alive I'm talking to Pete Birtwhistle, whose new play, Time Talking, has
just opened at the Court Theatre in London. Pete, thank you for joining us.

Pete: Glad to be here.

Interviewer: Before we talk about your new play, I'd like to ask you how you started writing for the theatre
in the first place. I think I'm right in saying that your background isn't exactly typical for a playwright?

Pete: I suppose you could put it like that! You see, I was a miner until my mid 30s, but then my health got
bad and I had to leave the pit. But the theatre was the last thing on my mind! I don't think I'd ever been to
a play — apart from taking the kids to pantomimes at Christmas — and I wasn't even curious about it: I
didn't feel it had any bearing on me and my life at all.

Interviewer: So what prompted you to write your first play?

Pete: Doctor's orders. Being out of work was terrible — it really got me down when I realised I had to stop
working down the mine, and in the end I was in such a bad way that my local GP sent me to a psychiatrist.
She suggested il write a story about what had happened to me, how I felt about working in the mine and
then having to leave. All therapy, really. Well, of course, it was pretty hard at first, 1 writing a play from
scratch.

Interviewer: Getting the dialogue and story right, 1 imagine?

Pete: Funny you should say that. I started off thinking I could invent a group of characters and have them
put 'forward different views. But when I sat down to write, I couldn't get them to do what I wanted, no
matter how hard I tried. In the end, I discovered I had to let them do and say what they wanted!

Interviewer: What do you mean, exactly?

Pete: They took on a life of their own. Sol had to sit back and let them go whichever way they wanted. And
once I let myself give them that freedom, the play wrote itself. The, odd thing is I feel all the characters I
create are part of me, so I'm revealing different aspects of myself.

Interviewer: Is that the most profound effect writing has had on you?

Pete: I think so, yes. Practical things have change as well, of course - we've just bought a new house - but
material benefits are fairly peripheral in the end.

Interviewer: Turning to your new play about time travel -isn't that an unusual theme for the theatre?

Pete: Definitely! But it's not deliberate. I mean, I don't go round looking for novel subjects just to be
different. It's more a case of finding an issue that doesn’t have easy answer, a topic that stretches you
when you start thinking about it.

Interviewer: I hear you're going to start work on a screenplay for a film in the next few months. Is that an
exciting prospect?

Pete: Yes, but there are so many stories of films that never get made, writers and directors who throw
themselves into the task of making a film and then get terribly disappointed when it all falls apart. So I
have to watch out that I don't take the whole thing too seriously
Listening Part 4

You will hear five short extracts in which people talk about tracing their ancestors. While you listen you
must complete both tasks

TASK ONE

For questions 21-25, choose from the list A-H the person who is speaking

A One of my ancestors went abroad to find adventure

B A relative ran away from home when he was young

C I’m descended from immigrants

D A family tradition turned out not to be true

E At one time the family was wealthy

F My great-grandmother came from a rich family

G A relative emigrated to Australia

H My great-great-grandfather changed his name

Speaker 1 21 G (correct answer: B)

Speaker 2 22 H (correct answer: C)
Speaker 3 23 D (correct answer: G)
Speaker 4 24 B (correct answer: A)
Speaker 5 25 [no answer] (correct answer: D)

TASK TWO

For questions 26-30, choose from the list A-H what view each speaker is expressing

A I get angry at the thought of their suffering

B Learning the truth caused considerable bitterness

C I have become more curious about the story

D The whole thing made us feel quite embarrassed

E I was delighted to make contact with my relatives

F The story saddened me

G I am very proud of my ancestor

H I was disappointed at first

Speaker 1 26 C (correct answer: E)
Speaker 2 27 A
Speaker 3 28 D (correct answer: F)
Speaker 4 29 G
Speaker 5 30 [no answer] (correct answer: H)

SCRIPTS
Speaker 1: The first bit of new information was quite exciting. it turned out m grandfather's only brother
had slipped out of the house one day when he was about 16 and disappeared! At first, the family thought
he'd gone off to Australia, but it turned out that he'd joined a circus 'and become a clown. Romantic, isn't
it? 1 managed to track I' down his descendants, and 1 found out they were all circus - performers, too. It's
fantastic to know that the two, branches of our family are in touch again.

Speaker 2: 1 wanted to know something about my roots, 'fid with a name like O'Dwyer, I knew I probably
had - 'some Irish ancestors. Eventually, 1 did find out a bit about L them, though this is going back to the
end of the 19th century. it was my great-grandparents who came over to II the States because life was so
hard back home. People were starving in Ireland — literally. And apparently, my great-grandmother's
family were worse off than most. I get furious at the idea of ancestors of mine having to leave their homes
because they were so hungry.

Speaker 3: After a lot of work I established that one branch of the family exists to this day in Australia,
though regrettably the background to the story is a distressing family row. Apparently, my great-
grandmother's brother wanted to marry a girls his family didn't approve of, so he just walk out and never
came back. He ended up in Australia his wife, and his parents never saw their grandchildren. A family
tradition has it that his mother died of a broken heart. Imagine a family being torn apart by something like
that!

Speaker 4: One of my ancestors seems to have been a pretty crazy guy, loving to take risks. He found life
on a small island rather dull, and at the age of 18 said goodbye to his family and sailed to South America.
His first job was on a ranch, herding cattle The workers spent the free time playing polo, a fast and
dangerous sport. My ancestor had an accident where his leg was crushed between two colliding horses. I
admire him enormously for his bravery because with his badly injured leg he went on to work as a surveyor
plotting the boundary between two states in the most inhospitable region you can imagine.

Speaker 5: There was a story passed down in the family that we're distant related to an aristocratic thrill!
from Scotland, complete an estate, manor house and so on. Well, it turns out that my great-great-
grandmother really did live in a posh house but on! because she was a servant to the family who owned it!
It wasn't exactly what I had been expecting, and it took me a while to get over it, but now I can see the
funny side of the whole business.