TESTS AUDIOSCRIPT

Unit 6
UNIT TESTS
Track 7: Unit Test six, Dictation, Exercise one
Unit 1 The first scheduled rail journey / trundled between
Liverpool and Manchester / on the fifteenth of
Track 2: Unit Test one, Dictation, Exercise one
September 1830. / This historic train venture was the
The tradition of blood brothers / dates back to Viking first / to chug along solely on steam power / as well as
times. / Being companions since boyhood, / two men would / to transfer mail between cities. / It heralded the arrival
form an unbreakable bond / based on honour and respect / of a new age / in the social and commercial world.
for the other’s strength. / Spilling blood over the point of
a spear, / they swore never to fight each other / and to Unit 7
avenge the other’s death.
Track 8: Unit Test seven, Dictation, Exercise one
Unit 2 Banksy is an anonymous avant-garde artist / responsible
for compelling works of graffiti / which pop up in public
Track 3: Unit Test two, Dictation, Exercise one
spaces around the globe. / Should you wish to purchase
A Bachelor’s degree / is an academic undergraduate one of his works, / be prepared to face certain obstacles, /
award / earned upon completing a college or university as removing street art from walls / is strictly a matter for
course / typically spanning three to seven years. / It is the buyer to contend with.
believed that the term bachelor / may have originally
been used / to denote a twelfth-century knight / who Unit 8
was too young or underprivileged / to obtain his own
subordinates. Track 9: Unit Test eight, Dictation, Exercise one
Smartphone thumb is thumb pain / resulting from
Unit 3 strenuous texting or gaming / on a smartphone or
similar mobile device. / It is recommended, therefore, /
Track 4: Unit Test three, Dictation, Exercise one
to keep text messages short / and to limit game play. /
Vegetarianism is the practice / of the non-consumption of Using
animals / which can be traced back / as far as ancient India the forefinger to type / is another way to minimise / the
and ancient Greece. / This choice of diet in both instances / potential impact of excessive texting taking its toll.
was the direct result / of the policy of non-violence towards
animals. / This concept was highly regarded / by early Unit 9
philosophers and religious doctrines.
Track 10: Unit Test nine, Dictation, Exercise one
Unit 4 Not only are sales of drones flourishing / but the first
inevitable occurrence / of a collision between a drone and a
Track 5: Unit Test four, Dictation, Exercise one
commercial airplane / has been reported close to London. /
To patent a new invention / you must apply to have your Little do people realise / UK laws stipulate / unmanned
brainchild recognised. / The Intellectual Property Office / aircraft can only be controlled / more than fifty metres away
searches for similar patents / to make sure your innovation / from people, vehicles or other physical structures.
is original. / Owning a patent gives you the legitimacy / to
take action against anyone / who attempts to capitalise on
your ingenuity / without first obtaining your permission.

Unit 5

Track 6: Unit Test five, Dictation, Exercise one

Victorian Bakers is a TV show / in which professional
bakers strive to bake bread / under the gruelling conditions
of the nineteenth century. / Slaving away in an
unwelcoming environment, / the curious volunteers soon
acknowledge / that working for a pittance / under such
unfavourable terms / is a far cry / from bakers’ lives of
today.

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rather suffer in silence.

REVIEW TESTS

Review Test 1

Track 11: Review Test one, Exercise one

Man: ‘Friends for life’ is an expression we’re all fully
aware of and we may even have found
ourselves using from time to time. But how
many friends do we actually have and how do
we go about maintaining or discarding these
friendships throughout our lives?

It’s believed that the average person has

about 150 people in their social circle – and
that figure includes members of family. Out of
those, only an average of two are considered
to be ‘close’. You may think this number
sounds depressingly small but if you have at
least that many consider
yourself somewhat lucky – 4.7 million people in the
UK admit to having no best friend at all. And this
is decidedly not a good thing – for by all accounts
lonely people are twice as likely to die of heart
disease as those who are socially active.

Tellingly, there is a big difference between the

sexes when it comes to making and keeping
friends. Men, for example, typically have a larger
circle of friends than women – with an average
of 26 to 12 respectively. Why is this? Research
suggests a number of common theories.

For starters, men are said to be more choosy

when it comes to who they hang out with. Whilst
this may at first seem somewhat contradictory
given the numbers just quoted, it means that those
friends that we do choose have been carefully
handpicked. Men, it would seem, are also more
tolerant to being let down – that is, we don’t take it
too hard or too personally when a gathering is
cancelled, we’re not invited or someone refuses
to help out in times of need. This tolerance also
seems to extend to retaining flatmates. Studies
carried out on American campuses showed that
men are much happier to continue sharing with
someone of the same sex than women – who tend
to flit between female flatmates until they find
someone who is a much better fit.

It has been argued that this greater level of

tolerance in men is due to the fact that we actually
invest less in a relationship. Men are much more
likely to brood, for example when in a bad mood,
preferring not to share our innermost feelings but

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Women, on the other hand, have a much as much as I’d hoped.

larger repertoire of responses. This is just as
well as they typically have a greater number
of confidants than men and are happier to
seek the company of other women in order to
share their intimacies and vent their
frustrations. When complaining about a male
partner, for example.

To sum up then, a man’s more laid-back

approach towards those that he has allowed
into his inner circle, is greatly opposed to a
woman’s higher stake involvement in which
she will demand an amount of conviction
equal to that which she herself commits to a
friendship. It is perhaps
no surprise, therefore, that men have more
people they consider friends and that male-
male relationships tend to last a lot longer
than female- female relationships. And what
about ‘platonic’ male-female and female-
male friendships? Well, that’s a can of worms
that would best be opened another place and
time …

Review Test 2

Track 12: Review Test two, Exercise

one A
Woman 1: I must admit I didn’t know what to expect. And
I’m not a great fan of the TV series either but
my husband was really keen and had wanted
to go for ages. Plus he convinced me that if
nothing else I can bask in the sun and top up
my tan so I thought fair enough – why not.
The weirdest thing of course was the fact that
all the staff were dressed up as aliens. That
took some getting used to let me tell you! A lot
of the passengers came in all shapes, sizes
and colours too but I’m pleased to say looking
like a Martian or Vulcan wasn’t compulsory.

The ship was huge with the usual kinds of

entertainment – pool, squash, shops and
bars and whatnot. In the evening there
were charity events with stars from the TV
show. I didn’t have a clue who they were
and they were mostly B-list
celebrities anyway I was informed. Still, that
didn’t bother me. The one thing that did
slightly was that we only actually spent two
days out of the six at sea. And although we
docked at some wonderful locations I didn’t
get to lie on the deck and soak up the views

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B impress friends with at future events.

Man: My word! What an experience! I’d never seen
such a mix of people in one place before and the
energy and enthusiasm throughout the whole
tour was something to behold. There were bright
colours everywhere you looked and people were
wearing the most bizarre things at times. Still,
there was a great spirit of acceptance and
although it took a day or two I started to feel quite
relaxed and uninhibited.

The on-board entertainment was an array of

spiritual workshops, yoga practice, chanting
and live concerts and we stopped off on a few
occasions to go for festivals in the woods. None
of which I was that keen on to begin with but
there were a number of educational lectures by
highly respected academics – although I’d
never heard of any of them – which I found
engrossing.

Interestingly though there were plenty of shops

which seemed to me a little too commercial and
somewhat contrary to the whole concept I felt.
And the noise! At times with the whole ship
chanting and singing and banging on tablas
you could barely hear yourself think let alone
meditate.

C
Woman 2: I’d always wanted to take dancing classes so
the idea of combining that with a cruise holiday
was a bit like killing two birds with one stone –
get away from it all and do something I’d
wanted to do for ages. My partner was a little
reluctant at first and of course the event was
quite formal at times, which required formal
dress and shoes, but there was a hire place on
board so we didn’t need to take that much with
us. There were classes during the daytime and
competitions in the evenings with some of the
same judges as on the TV panel. Leaving from
Southampton was also quite
convenient for us and we stopped off in Spain and
Portugal for a break and to put on our land-legs
again for a night. The weather wasn’t the best
unfortunately, well not until we left UK waters, but
getting a tan wasn’t the top priority – not for me at
least – so although it put a slight dampener on
things at the off, it certainly wasn’t a deal breaker.
Somewhere more tropical might be a nice idea
but overall I’d recommend it and we both certainly
picked up some new moves which we’ll be able to

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Review Test 3 ten years alone, for example, one half of all
secretarial jobs in the UK have disappeared but it’s
Track 13, Review Test three, Exercise one
not just a concern for the working class.
Presenter: The robots are coming! Since the dystopian
visions of sci-fi's earliest writers to the darkly
prophetic visions of today's big screen, the
rebellion of intelligent machines has long been
one of mankind’s most harboured fears. But is
that brave new world of science-fiction about to
become reality? I’m here in the studio with
sociologist Amanda Davies and futurologist
Matthew Smith
to discuss. Firstly, Amanda – there’s been a
lot of concern recently about future
generations being put out of work due to an
unprecedented rise in robots doing our work.
Is there anything in this or is it just common
scaremongering?

Amanda: I’d say there’s definitely something in it

and in fact it’s happening all around us
now – just on a relatively moderate scale
for now so that it’s not that obvious to
many of us. More and more
supermarkets, for example, are utilising
selfcheckout machines which has already
replaced a lot of staff. Most high street banks
offer online banking services, which has
reduced the need for many people to do the
work they once did. Whilst companies favour
these technologies in order to reduce costs,
and we are choosing these services because
of the convenience and speed, it’s all too easy
to forget about the knock-on effects they are
having on the labour market – and if the trend
continues as it looks like it will, then we could
be heading into a very gloomy world of
excessive unemployment.

Presenter: Isn’t that an exaggeration, though?

Supermarket checkouts and online banking
are hardly the bedrock of a healthy labour
market.
Amanda: Well I fear that it’s just the start. With
Google’s
£400 million acquisition of British artificial
intelligence firm DeepMind, things could well
get a lot worse a lot quicker. As things stand,
some forecast unemployment will be as high
as 50 percent within the next 30 years. And
we’re not just talking menial jobs here with
occupations such as train drivers, taxi drivers
and pilots in the transport sector to
accountants and insurers in the service sector
all expected to become obsolete. Over the last

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Presenter: And your views Matthew?

Matthew: I’ll accept that it could be a concern for the future

but I can’t help believing that it won’t happen on
such a scale as the doom merchants are
predicting. Have you ever seen the self-service
checkouts?
They’re mostly empty as people still have either a
natural distrust of them or simply prefer the smile
and chit-chat with the person operating the till.
And as for Google’s acquisition I think we need to
put things in perspective. They have, for example,
set up an ethics board to monitor the situation and
to keep things in check. They’re not simply
charging ahead and drastically changing society
without an awareness of the bigger picture. And
surely in the long-term this will be a benefit to
everyone. People will no longer have to do menial
tasks and dangerous jobs that I’m sure they’d
rather not do anyway. But the onus will be very
much on the government to provide training for
a whole range of new services and jobs in IT.

Presenter: Fine. But will that in itself be enough to cope with

the greater number of possible redundancies?
Matthew: Certainly there will be a shift in society as a
whole with more and more people out of work.
But once again, governments are aware of this
and some countries are already proposing a
basic guaranteed income in return for people
willing to re-train or for carrying out community
services. Ultimately people will have more leisure
time and some of the luckier ones will find
themselves free to pursue whatever interests
they’ve never previously been able to attend to –
which will of course result in a booming health
and recreation industry …

Amanda: I’m sorry, I need to cut in there. The desire to

work is one of man’s fundamental needs and
for many provides a real meaning in life.
Mass
unemployment and sponsored community work
are not the answer and we need to confront this
question before we find ourselves with too much
time on our hands.

Presenter: It’s certainly a pretty complex issue with huge

bearings on the lives of future generations. We’ll
have to leave it there I’m afraid [fade out] but you
can read more on this topic on our website where
Amanda and Matthew …

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We’re also involved in animation programmes – which for

END-OF-YEAR TEST
most is the main attraction in being a holiday rep – and I’m
Track 14, End-of-Year Test, Listening, Exercise no different. Meeting people, generally having fun in all
manner of manic ways. It’s definitely a job with a short life
one ONE span though – and burnout is not uncommon if you don’t
Like most things in life there was a certain amount of have a proper break. Then it’ll be time to find a ‘proper job’
providence involved: my friend’s sister had just come back – which almost definitely means going back to the UK and
from teaching English in Singapore and she reckoned it starting from scratch on the bottom rung of the ladder again.
was a good way to earn money and see the world. I’d FIVE
always wanted to do the latter, so I did a course and four
You’d think with most organisations only taking on
weeks later I was living and working in Germany. It’s very
volunteers or paying very low salaries there’d be difficulty
hard to progress, but I’m planning to get into teacher
finding people. In fact, the opposite is true – more and more
training. Rather than living in any one place for a year or
NGOs prefer applicants with degrees in social work or
more, I’ll get to venture further afield more often and stay in
some other related field – which, fortunately, I’ve got – so
new places just for a month or two – long enough to
I’m a relatively solid candidate and I get to put the three
acclimatise and say you’ve lived there but not too long to
get tied down. One thing’s for sure, after living overseas for years I spent at college to good use! Striving to make a
so long, going back to the UK isn’t top of the agenda. difference is key for me, impacting people’s lives for the
better – although the opportunity to do that and travel
TWO is the main incentive for many people. Next I’m thinking
When I first got into film, I wanted to direct. There’s a lot of heading out to Nepal for a year – although if I get the
of nepotism in the industry though, so unless you know chance to move up into management I’ll probably stay
someone who knows someone, you can forget it! So I made somewhere longer term.
a conscious decision to pursue other avenues and when
Track 15, End-of-Year Test, Listening, Exercise two
the plans to use one location for filming fell through, and
I just happened to know of a place that I thought would ONE
be equally effective, I took some snaps of it and presented Man: Did you hear about that tennis player, that
them. They were impressed by my vision and sent me out whatshername, being banned from playing? For 10
scouting on other occasions – next thing I know I’ve been years she’d been taking this banned substance
doing it for years! The sights I see are truly inspiring and and won something like, what, 5 or 6 grand slams
for now, being a location manager is just fine – sooner or in that time. Disgraceful …
later I’ll return to my initial Hollywood dream again – and
Woman: Well, yeah, but by all accounts the substance
eventually settle down in LA itself and get my big break!
she was taking was only banned in January
THREE this year. So you can’t take anything away
A lot of people are envious when I tell them what I do. It’s from her achievements. And if anything, it
not all it’s cut out to be though. For a start, I can boast should be her doctors or advisers or whoever
about having been to over thirty different countries in the that should
last five years but I couldn’t actually tell you much about shoulder the blame if you ask me. And wasn’t she
them. As a musician in an orchestra, though, I do count using it for health reasons or something? Irregular
myself lucky – after all, music is my passion – and there’s heartbeat or diabetes or something, wasn’t it? You
no plan to do anything different any time soon! But the can’t condone the use of illegal drugs but I do feel
travelling side of things really isn’t that glamorous and for her. And having to publicly apologise and all …
there’s often little time in any one place before you move that’s just wrong!
on again. I do get long holidays when I’m not touring but Man: No, no, no. I don’t accept that. As a professional
there’s always plenty of rehearsing to do in preparation sportsperson it’s your job to know the laws and
for the next place – Turkey actually – so, no peace for the regulations. After all, they’re there to ensure
wicked as they say. everyone is on a level playing field so to speak.
FOUR Full credit to her for coming out and admitting it
Typically I get up early in the morning and do the rounds. before the press got a hold of the story – which I
This is by far the worst part of the day as you’re basically think she had to do – but even that was probably
dealing with people’s gripes, helping them out with broken just a case of trying to save face.
TVs, no hot water and whatnot. Woman: Well, yes – it did take a certain amount of guts. But

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I beg to differ in many ways.

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TWO Man: Wow. Imagine that. But how will they get access?
Woman: So, I got the chance to visit China last year and I mean, is there an infrastructure in place? Don’t
I had no idea how important food is over there. In you need cables and whatnot? And I’m not being
fact, the usual everyday greeting actually funny but illiteracy in Kenya is sky high and they
translates as ‘Have you eaten?’ – weird, eh? speak something like over sixty different
languages.
Man: Yeah, yeah. So, how was it?
So, even for those that can read, you can’t imagine
Woman: What got me most though was how loud there’ll be anything in their own tongue.
everything is. In the restaurants, for example, it’s
Woman: Yeah, there has to be some money involved
almost deafening. You can hardly hear yourself
somewhere, eh? Not that I’m a complete sceptic or
think. Everybody’s talking animatedly and laughing
anything.
and stuff – very different to the more restrained
type of things we get in restaurants over here.
You won’t be shocked to hear that a good rule
of thumb is: the louder the restaurant, the better
the food.
Man: Ha, ha.

Woman: And you have to eat slowly, and pay a lot of

attention to what you’re doing. You can’t just
gobble up your meal or have a half-hearted
conversation – it’s actually a pretty intense
experience. You feel like you can’t let your
hair down at all so it’s hard to relax.

Man: And what about the food?

Woman: Rice, noodles, tofu are the staples. So being

a veggie is certainly not impossible.

THREE
Man: So I saw a weird photo in the paper today. It
was this Maasai man, from Africa right,
holding a mobile phone but he was all dressed
up in colourful traditional robes and stuff.
Quite a
striking image but I couldn’t get over how bizarre it
all was.

Woman: Yeah, well I guess it’ll become quite a common

sight. And it’s big business so people are bound
to start cashing in. Take that Facebook guy. He
wants to provide free Internet to the whole of
Africa – is that pure altruism or is there
something in it for him, eh? I’d like to think his
motives are genuine but you can’t help but
wonder, can you?

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