Audioscripts IELTS Practice 5 Listening Test 02

Part 1

You will hear a man telephoning a university library to find out about external membership.

First, you have some time to look at questions 1 to 5.

(Pause)

Now listen carefully and answer questions 1 to 5.

Librarian: Good morning, South University Library. How can I help you?

Caller: Oh, hello. I was wondering if it's possible to join the library as an external member?

Librarian: Are you a student here?

Caller: No, I'm not, but I live locally and I heard I could still register.

Librarian: That's right, you can. Are you over 16? That's our minimum joining age for the public.

Caller: Yes, I am.

Librarian: That's no problem then.

Caller: Could you tell me what the procedure is?

Librarian: Well, you'll need to visit the library in person to complete the registration. You also need to provide two passport-sized photos. We require two forms of identification as well; a valid passport is perfectly acceptable.

Caller: I've got that. And what else? My birth certificate?

Librarian: No, the second document needs to show your current address.

Caller: Would a utility bill be okay?

Librarian: That would be fine.

Caller: Great. Is there a membership fee?

Librarian: Well, it's free for our own students, but for external members, it's 150 pounds per year, or 30 pounds if you have a valid student card from a different university.

Caller: I graduated from East College last year, but I'm now working at the Miller Engineering Firm. Oh, that's a bit more than I expected. The city library doesn't charge anything.

Librarian: True, but you'll find they don't have the specialized collection of academic journals or the facilities we provide for our researchers. That's why external members have to pay a subscription.

Caller: I see. How many items am I allowed to take out?

Librarian: We allow 15 items for our internal students, which includes journals and audio-visual material. However, for the public, the limit is 10 items.

Caller: Right. And what's the loan period?

Librarian: Well, you can keep both non-fiction and fiction books for 3 weeks, which is usually enough time.

Caller: And what are the penalties for late returns?

Librarian: We have a fine system for all members. The initial fine is 2 pounds, but it can increase for high-demand items, up to 7 pounds per week. We'll provide a leaflet with the full price list when you register.

Before you hear the rest of the telephone call, you have some time to look at questions 6 to 10.

(Pause)

Now listen and answer questions 6 to 10.

Caller: What about the IT facilities? Is there a cost for using the computers?

Librarian: For our own students, it's free, but for external members, the first 30 minutes are free, and then we charge a small fee of 2 pounds per hour after that.

Caller: Do I need to reserve a terminal?

Librarian: Yes, it's highly recommended. Most users book 12 hours in advance, though you might find a free one with only three hours' notice on quiet days. However, the furthest in advance you can book is 72 hours, and the maximum session is two hours. We have several specialized databases, so the terminals are very popular.

Caller: I'm doing some research and I need to look at academic journals. Are those accessible on your system?

Librarian: Yes, they are. We subscribe to all the major digital archives, including JSTOR and ScienceDirect. We also have a wide range of regional reports and trade magazines.

Caller: That's excellent. Do you have a printer or a photocopier I can use?

Librarian: Certainly. It costs 10p a page for A4 black and white and 50p for colour prints. You can buy a top-up card at the reception desk; the machines don't take cash.

Caller: OK. One more thing, do you offer any workshops, like digital photography classes?

Librarian: We do, actually. You'd need to contact Robert Bellingham about those. He's our technical instructor. He coordinates all the photography workshops.

Caller: Robert... could you spell his surname for me?

Librarian: Sure. It's B-E-L-L-I-N-G-H-A-M.

Caller: Are the sessions held here?

Librarian: Yes, he runs them in the media suite on Wednesday afternoons. You can reach him by sending an email to the library office.

Caller: Okay, I've got that. Well, thank you for the information. I'll drop by later this week.

Librarian: You're welcome. Goodbye.

That is the end of Part 1. You now have half a minute to check your answers.

Part 2

You will hear a man called Mark Sullivan talking on a podcast about Pure Flow, a charity that sends water filtration systems to rural communities.

First, you have some time to look at questions 11 to 15.

(Pause)

Now listen carefully and answer questions 11 to 15.

Mark Sullivan: My name is Mark Sullivan and I'd like to share the story of Pure Flow, a modest charity operating primarily from the UK. I'll provide our website and contact details at the end of the talk, should you wish to learn more about how you can contribute.

But first, how the initiative began. I came up with the concept of exporting refurbished water filters while I was working in Vietnam. I moved there in 2005, shortly after finishing my degree. I had a passion for discovery, so I joined a non-governmental organisation and was assigned to Vietnam to conduct some research on the local soil. That specific project finished after five years, and when I returned to the UK in 2010, I began the groundwork for Pure Flow.

The region where I was based in Vietnam was extremely isolated. My neighbour owned the only mechanical pump in the entire district, whereas everyone else had to carry heavy buckets from the river. My neighbour's market garden was remarkably productive, and for a long time I couldn't figure out the reason for his success. Then I realised that having a pump meant he could irrigate his crops without much physical effort. Other local farmers were limited to maintaining plots within 100 metres of the water source, so regardless of their talent, they could never produce as much.

At Pure Flow, we gather used filtration units in the UK and ship them to some of the most disadvantaged areas in the world. When we distribute these units, we don't provide them for free. We'd prefer to, but in the long term that creates a dependency and doesn't support the local retailers. The demand for clean water technology is massive, which makes the equipment very expensive in local markets. Consequently, we sell the units for 10 percent of the standard retail price. But to maintain our logistics, we need a consistent intake of units which we ship out every four months.

Before you hear the rest of the talk, you have some time to look at questions 16 to 20.

(Pause)

Now listen and answer questions 16 to 20.

Mark Sullivan: But Pure Flow still requires your support. You might have seen reports about our recent financial difficulties. In July 2012, we essentially ran out of operational funds. It wasn't that we were unable to find enough filters to send—we actually had three containers ready for dispatch. And thankfully, none of the equipment had been damaged in transit. The desperate situation was simply that we had no money to pay for the shipping bills. We managed to ensure the filters reached their destination on time, but the underlying financial stress lasted for several months.

Thankfully, in November 2013, we were granted a Social Innovation Prize, which assisted us immensely. People often assume a charity would use a 60,000 pound prize to cover the cost of international advertising, or perhaps to hire more staff. However, we actually allocated a large portion of it to pay for a new warehouse to secure our growth.

Pure Flow really makes a difference. When a family receives a filter from us, they typically see a 12 percent increase in their overall productivity. We're currently looking to upgrade our field equipment so our workers can record data more accurately. Laptops are simply too heavy to carry around, and mobile phones have screens that are too small, so we are aiming to purchase tablets instead.

Because of our initiatives, communities in several nations now enjoy a better quality of life. To date, we have reached 32,000 individuals with our equipment. Our ultimate dream is to reach 50,000 people one day, but realistically, our goal is to hit 40,000 by the end of this year.

Now, there are several ways you can assist the mission of Pure Flow. First, if you have a unit to donate, you might wonder about its condition. Well, while many people think the filters must be in good working condition, that isn't true. Even if it's completely broken, we will still take it and strip it down for parts. And just to clarify, these donated units don't go to schools and hospitals—they go directly to individual households.

We hope that by appearing on podcasts like this, we can increase our visibility. If you'd like further details about where to leave a used filter, please get in touch.

That is the end of Part 2. You now have half a minute to check your answers.

Part 3

You will hear a discussion between a university tutor and two students, Elena and Ahmed, about a presentation they gave last week.

First, you have some time to look at questions 21 to 24.

(Pause)

Now listen carefully and answer questions 21 to 24.

Tutor: First of all, I’d just like to say, Elena and Ahmed, that I really enjoyed attending your seminar on urban design last week, and I could tell that the rest of the class found it engaging too. You performed excellently. I’d like to use this meeting as a feedback session where you reflect on the experience of preparing the project. So, Elena, what did you enjoy most about delivering the presentation?

Elena: Well, initially we thought about recording some video footage of the streets, but we didn't have a camera. So instead, I really liked employing the new presentation software. It was the first time I've utilised a program like that.

Tutor: Well, the visuals were very professional. Anything else?

Elena: I also appreciated the chance to interview one of the town planners we contacted. I’d never been inside a municipal building before.

Tutor: OK, Elena, thanks. What about you, Ahmed? What did you find enjoyable?

Ahmed: Well, for me, it was a fantastic opportunity to collaborate with peers from the building design faculty. Everyone in our regular seminar group is studying sociology and we don’t usually have much contact with other departments.

Tutor: Yes, good. Do you think you’ll stay in touch with them?

Ahmed: I hope so. I’ve arranged to meet two of them for a coffee next week in the design school.

Tutor: Great. Elena, what did you find was the most useful part of the project from the perspective of your academic skills?

Elena: I think... When we were being shown how to reference online materials, we had to follow the strict guidelines, and that was very good practice for me. I mean, I did acquire some academic terms that I hadn't used before, but learning how to cite digital sources properly was definitely the main benefit.

Tutor: What about you, Ahmed? What was the most useful for your research skills?

Ahmed: It was listening to the senior lecturers. They don't explain things as simply as most of the tutors in our department. I think they use highly complex vocabulary, so it requires me to pay much closer attention. And they use a lot of technical jargon.

Tutor: So you learned some new terminology?

Ahmed: Yes, it forced me to focus on the dense language.

Before you hear the rest of the discussion, you have some time to look at questions 25 to 30.

(Pause)

Now listen and answer questions 25 to 30.

Tutor: Good. Well, we’ve discussed enjoyment and skills development. Were there any other advantages? Elena, what else did you feel you’d learned from the project?

Elena: Yes. Well, primarily, I learned how to handle electronic information securely when managing our files. And also, I think I really learned a lot about cooperating with peers. I’ve never completed a joint assignment before, and we had to find ways of negotiating and agreeing on priorities. It's not like negotiating with a tutor—you have to convince your own team members when they have a different vision.

Tutor: Yes, working collaboratively is a very valuable skill. What about you, Ahmed?

Ahmed: I think I learnt a lot about how crucial the selection of data is. When you're researching, you think that every statistic is going to be relevant, but in fact we removed around half of our slides in the end, and then the argument was much clearer.

Tutor: Good. Well, one last thing I’d like to ask. What errors do you think you, as a team, made? I mean, to put it another way, if you had to start over, is there anything you’d do differently?

Elena: We didn’t organize our time very well. For example, we didn’t set deadlines for when we’d finish each individual part of the research, and we should have committed to that at the start, because we were always rushing at the last minute.

Tutor: Right. Anything else?

Elena: I think we should have tried to experiment more with the layout. I mean, with the colour schemes and the fonts and that kind of thing.

Tutor: So you should have been more creative with the design. Do you agree, Ahmed?

Ahmed: Not really. In fact, I think we were too ambitious with the content. We were inexperienced and we didn't have much time and we tried to cover too many case studies to make a comprehensive report. Next time I would focus on a single case study and try to make the analysis deeper.

Tutor: Well, that’s very interesting. Next term we will be doing another group project...

That is the end of Part 3. You now have half a minute to check your answers.

Part 4

You will hear part of a lecture about scientific exploration in the deep ocean, specifically focusing on the abyssal zone.

First, you have some time to look at questions 31 to 40.

(Pause)

Now listen carefully and answer questions 31 to 40.

Lecturer: Good afternoon. Today I am going to discuss that mysterious region of our planet, the abyssal zone. Dark, high-pressured, and currently impossible to inhabit on a long-term basis. For the first pioneers, it was a dangerous technical challenge. For scientists like myself, it remains a frontier of immense discovery.

First, let's look at some data. The abyssal zone is a place of extremes—the darkest, most pressurized part of the ocean. Many people mistakenly compare its vast size to the continent of Europe, but in fact, it covers an area over 40 times larger than Australia. This region contains nearly 80 percent of the world’s volcanic activity and a vast majority of its undiscovered species. But with very little organic matter falling from above, you won't find lush underwater forests here. Most of the deep floor, surprisingly, is classified as a biological desert.

Scientific missions have been exploring the depths for more than 60 years. Our deep-sea research initiative has several temporary observation buoys and two permanent underwater bases. The research habitats are essentially sealed environments for about 8 people. There is living and laboratory space, and compact exercise machines to ensure everyone remains healthy. Now, we obviously can't rely on air tanks being delivered daily from above, so the base actually produces its own oxygen. And it communicates with the control ship using an acoustic link.

Our base, Aqua-Quest, had some unique characteristics. It was not positioned on a flat plain, but on the side of a trench. Originally, planners considered using submarines for deliveries, but it was too risky. Instead, equipment was lowered to us on weighted platforms from a vessel ten kilometers away at the surface. Working in the deep has not always been so safe. Structural failures caused massive setbacks for three earlier habitats, which were buckled and finally destroyed by the water pressure. To solve this, modern habitats are constructed as spheres, which can resist the immense weight of the water. And instead of concrete foundations, they are supported by hydraulic legs.

Nutrition is one of the most critical factors for staying healthy in a high-pressure environment. Individuals working there need to consume a lot more energy from their diet, both to regulate body temperature and to perform technical tasks. You might know that an average adult in the city will likely require about 2,000 calories a day. Someone in a deep-sea habitat will require exactly double that amount. However, we don't rely on heavy carbohydrates. This nutritional requirement is obtained from meals which are exceptionally high in protein and vitamins.

Supplies for external missions present a further challenge. They must provide maximum nutrition, but they also need to be practical for storage. You are likely familiar with fruit processed by freeze-drying. This method is perfect for our needs because it maintains the nutritional value of the food while drastically reducing its weight. This was a vast improvement over early deep-sea divers' diets.

I believe that working at the forefront of oceanic science has a particular draw for everyone involved. As a geologist, monitoring shifts in the movement of tectonic plates is essential. While we obviously cannot prevent earthquakes, tracking these movements can help predict a tsunami and improve coastal safety. A second crucial task is tracking the mineral content. We don't just study the magma itself; we constantly analyse the volcanic vents, as this is a key indicator of future eruptions. Thirdly, core samples from the seabed provide a record of history, tracing the earth's climate over the past 100,000 years.

I hope this has inspired some of you to look into this fascinating field of research.

That is the end of Part 4. You now have one minute to check your answers.