Test 2 Key Reading and Use of English (1 hour 30 minutes) Part 1 SDB Be 4G seat iG C147-Ae BB Part 2 9 whentwhere 10 Ac 11 being 12 which 13 in(te) 14 one 15 far 16 something Part 3 17 innovative 18 outstanding 19 civilisations/civilizations 20 significant 21 undergone 22 enables 23 accessible 24 congratulations Part 4 25 makes | no / little DIFFERENCE to OR does not / doesn’t make | any / a / much DIFFERENCE to 26 they had (got)! in MIND 27 was HELD | in such (high) regard / esteem 28 always] COME easily / naturally to 29 to have been | MISINFORMED about Jover / regarding {concerning /on 30 unlikely EVENT of | her party winning OR unlikely EVENT (that) | her party wins Part 5 31B 32A 33C 34D 35B 36A Part 6 37C 38D 39A 40A Part 7 ME 42A 43C 44D 45F 4638 Part 8 47C 48 A 49D SOC STB 52D S3A S4C SSB SEC Writing (1 hour 30 minutes) Candidate responses are marked using the assessment scale on pages 108-109. 129Test2 Key Listening (approximately 40 minutes) Part 1 1C 2€C 3B 4C S5C 6A Part 2 7 media studies 8 (a) research station 9 marketing 10 (a) travel company 11 Awesome Animals 12 shark(s) 13 back(-)stage 14 slogans / a slogan Part 3 18C 16D 17B 18B 19C 20D Part 4 21D 22A 23G 24F 25H 26F 27C 2H 29A 30E Transcript This is the Cambridge English: Advanced, Test Two. I’m going to give you the instructions for this test. I'll introduce each part of the test and give you time to look at the questions. ‘At the start of each piece you'll hear this sound: tone You'll hear each piece twice. Remember, while you're listening, write your answers on the question paper. You'll have five minutes at the end of the test to copy your answers onto the separate answer sheet. There'll now be a pause. Please ask any questions now, because you must not speak during the test. [pause] PART 1 Now open your question paper and look at Part One. [pause] You'll 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 a man telling a friend about his holiday. Now look at questions one and two. {pause} tone Woman: How was your holiday, Tom? Man: Absolutely fine. Woman: | suppose you went on one of those archaeological digs of yours? What's wrong with a walking holiday, if you don’t want to lie on the beach?Man: Woman: Man: Woman: Extract Two Woman: Man: Woman: Man: Woman: Man: Woman: Man: Woman: Man: Woman: Test2 Key Nothing really ~ except, I'd say it doesn’t give you much to think about - and that's what | really need. Lying on the beach isn't for me ~| don’t necessarily want to climb a mountain or do white water rafting, but a bit of exercise is good. It's nice to travel too, though to be honest, once you get down to work it doesn’t matter much where you are - unless it rains all the time perhaps! So what's the attraction of grubbing about in the ground? Finding a hoard of gold would be good, but most of us are realistic enough to know that won't ever happen. Actually | think it's good for me as a person. What we dig needs interpreting, but you'll never know for sure whether you've got it right. Others will disagree with you - and you have to respect their opinions, ‘Some people might like to claim they're saying something really relevant that re-write history, but that’s rather an exaggerated claim in my view. I'm still not convinced | could do it! [pause] tone [The recording is repeated.] [pause] You hear two colleagues talking about time management, Now look at questions three and four. [pause] tone love watching people’s expressions when they turn up late for my time management seminars. Why's that? They sidle in looking exactly like a child who just got caught with a hand in the cookie jar, maybe mumbling something sheepishly about traffic, while their friends tease them about being late for a class on time management. But we've all done it, right? Not me. It's causing more and more problems socially - at work, it even. seriously hampers promotion chances - and I've known it sour relationships too. But what's the answer? I'm pretty hopeless myself. I've tried setting my alarm ten, even fifteen minutes fast, but... That never works ~ psychologically you know it’s fast ~ so you enjoy the lie-in! You got that right. So are you telling me you're never late? Hard to believe ... But true ... So how do you do it? What's the secret? You have to undergo a complete change of mindset - don’t just aim to be on time for appointments ~ become an early person, period. 131Test2 Key Man: Woman: Man: Extract Three Man: ‘Woman: Man: ‘Woman: Man: Woman: Man: Woman: PART 2 132 Hmm ... sounds tough But well worth it — just think: no more rushing for the train, no more missed flights, or embarrassing searches for excuses at meetings ... or on dates! Right! So how do | go about it? [pause] tone [The recording is repeated.] [pause] You bear two friends talking about a historical novel they have read. Now look at questions five and six. {pause} tone What did you think of Lorna Dean's new book? | was disappointed in the characters. That's probably because you'd got so used to the ones that appear in all her other novels about the period, the old familiar friends, | thought these ones were a pretty convincing bunch - especially that rather mixed-up boy. There wasn't much she could do with the plot though ~ the events of the period are ‘so well documented. There was a lot of local colour, | thought. | suppose so - but it tended to be a bit over explained — the description didn't come in naturally. Oh | don’t agree with you there — | felt I got a real feel for time and place. This did give us a window on a very different society. The writer's view of it, of course. Hardly fair ~ she'd done her research. She didn’t just put her own spin on things. And didn’t you think some of the politics and intrigue had a familiar ring? An interesting parallel with what goes on today? Oh no, | took reading it as an opportunity to forget the here and now! [pause] tone [The recording is repeated] {pause| That's the end of Part One. Now turn to Part Tivo. pause] You'll hear a photographer and TV cameraman called Mike Darby talking about his life and work., For questions 7-14, complete the sentences with a word or short phrase. You now have 45 seconds to look at Part Two.Mike: Test 2 Key [pause] tone Hello. My name's Mike Darby and I'm here to talk about my work as a wildlife photographer and cameraman. So what does it take to make it in this profession? It helps to be a graduate, and photography degree courses are now common, although that wasn't always the case. Older photographers | work with often got into photography as a career via a different study route, ‘One did a degree in fine art, others did media studies ... quite a few actually, whereas | graduated in Marine Biology. I started out as a commercial diver ~ also ran a diving school for a while, before going on to dive in the Antarctic for a research station. It was there that | really started taking photographs underwater. At that point something clicked, I'd found my vocation, so | set up my own business as a photographer. ‘And | soon discovered that just being able to take a good picture isn’t enough ~ a strong business sense is also essential, especially a flair for marketing, and sound administrative skills come in useful, as does the ability to handle your own accounts. If you end up working freelance like me, though, it’s good to keep lots of Gifferent things on the go. I've just done a shoot for a travel company. | got that tied up in four days and they kept all the pictures. A large wildlife book, however, start to finish, could take up to two years. For something like that, I'd expect to take hundreds of photos, only a few of which would end up being accepted by the publisher. But the rest don't go to waste - a magazine bought some unused ones recently. On the whole though, | sell them via a website, which sells them on to other people. ‘As for the books, I've actually done a number over the years. A South African Paradise has sold the best - it's now in its fifth reprint. But the one that gives me most personal satisfaction is Awesome Animals, which | did jointly with my wife. That's the real deal. And then there’s Underwater with Mike ... | never liked the title, but it does give you a good idea of my work over the past four years. Obviously, for me, one thrills been broadening out into TV, doing work as a cameraman. Like, at the end of last year, | filmed stingrays in the Caribbean for a series that'll be on later this year. Before that I'd been filming all sorts of dolphins in Florida. And ('ve actually just finished filming various species of shark, That took me to the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. The TV work is a bit different from the other stuff | do. t's rather more backstage because you're just a name on the credits at the end of the programme, whereas with the books you've got a whole title to your name. But within the industry it’s still considered high-profile work. Now, one thing | haven't done, but which many aspiring young photographers try, is taking film or still pictures, and then thinking up slogans, and then trying to sell both together. This can be a good way into the profession, as it gets your name known. Now before { go onto [pause] Now you'll bear Part Tivo again. tone [The recording is repeated. C ig is reps 1 133Test2. Key PART 3. 134 Interviewer: Anton: Interviewer: Kirsten: Interviewer: Anton: Kirsten: {pause} That's the end of Part Two. Now turn to Part Three. [pause] You will hear part of an interview in which two experts, called Kirsten Neet and Anton Best, are discussing the idea of what's called ‘information overload’. For ‘questions 15-20, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which fits best according to what you hear You now have 70 seconds to look at Part Three. [pause] tone Hello, my guests today are Anton Best and Kirsten Neet and we're going to be talking about what's called ‘information overload’ - in other words, the imbalance between the information people feel they should absorb, and what they can actually absorb in practice. And though it's tempting to think of it as a moder phenomenon, | believe that may not really be the case, right Anton? Well, the Roman philosopher Seneca actually articulated the problem almost two millennia ago, when he complained about people buying tonnes of books and then never reading them. He felt they'd be better off mastering a few good books, and not letting themselves get sidetracked by faddish new things. His concern over a loss of quality of intellectual life was clearly expressed, and this is precisely what worries me today. | mean, even in Seneca’s time there were people who were full of enthusiasm for the multitude of books — and we have exactly that kind of attitude today to overload because we have focussed on accumulating and storing and wanting more. But surely there's a difference today in terms of the sheer volume of material we can churn out at the press of a button? Absolutely, the scaie of information management and accumulation we have is absolutely mind-boggling, and yet | suppose from the individual human perspective, the overload was already present with much less stuff. Of course, luckily, technology gives us the means to deal with it all with all kinds, of automated methods of sifting through, so we can easily find what we're looking for. Is it possible to just do without much of this information ~ | mean, so much of it is worthless or irrelevant. We can't just shut it down and decide, okay, we're going to put our heads in the sand and ignore all this stuff. We have this material accumulated because of the labour of generations before us who often had it much harder than we did, And I'm inclined to feel that we have no option but to manage it and to teach ourselves how to use it well. | think we need to make sure we use our minds, and not lose sight of the importance of human judgement in managing information, rather than relying on the power of computers. So would you say we're getti on top of the problem of information overload?Anton: Kirsten: Interviewer: Kirsten: Interviewer: Kirsten: Interviewer: PART 4 Test2 Key Well, we find that we have a whole ot of facts and statistics being thrown at us, and we find that the convenience of the Internet means that it is much, much easier to throw half a thought in an email and send it off to somebody else and sort out any queries and issues that way. But too often all that happens is a chain of incomplete messages being produced, which solves, little, if anything. | think everybody, including organisations - well, they see multitasking as the general way to handle the huge increase in information, but, quite frankly, while it makes us feel efficient, evidence suggests people are making more errors and, in overall terms, taking more time. And this research is really quite at odds with the fact that people do feel as if they're being more efficient by multitasking, What are the major workplace positives for you, Kirsten? Well, quite clearly with a greater volume of information, you can do more, and if you have more readily available information, then you can respond more quickly ~ the fact that a business will know very quickly, thanks to social networking sites, if a customer is unhappy is a remarkable thing. But above and beyond that, | think there's an increasing involvement of the whole workforce in new lines of goods. Changing the subject completely, there must be a lot of information overload in something like the food industry. There is, yes, on dieting, for example .., and there's just so much of it that if you take it al in and take it at face value, it ends up being contradictory ... don't combine food types, don't eat breakfast, don't eat protein, do eat protein. So | think the message has to be to figure out what works for you and stick with it ... and ditch the rest, even if that’s only a minuscule part of the whole available. Maybe that attitude should be adopted towards information overioad in general. Believe me, I've been through all this, and that was certainly the conclusion | came to. Let's turn now to the question of information overload in ... pause) Now you'll hear Part Three again. tone [The recording is repeated.) [pause] That's the end of Part Three. Now turn to Part Foun, [pause] Part Four consists of two tasks. You'll hear five short extracts in which people are talking about a course they did in business administration. Look at Task One. For questions 21-25, choose from the list (A-Hl) each speaker's main reason for doing the course. Now look at Task Two. For questions 26-30, choose from the list (A~H) what each speaker gained as a result of doing the course. While you listen you must complete both tasks. 135Test2 Key Speaker One: Speaker Two: ‘Speaker Three: Speaker Four: 136 You now have 45 seconds to look at Part Four. pause] tone Bosses at the marketing company I was working for require all graduate trainees to do an MBA when they reach a certain level. | set out intending to return to work with more well-rounded business skills, but it actually proved a real opportunity to stop and think. | met my future business partner on the course and we had the same idea - giving businesswomen a more fashionable alternative to wearing suits. The course was a real springboard ~ we acquired essential skills, worked on our business plan and, crucially, built up a valuable network of contacts. We've been running our business full-time for six months now, and it's the best thing that could’ve happened. [pause] 'm an international account manager and | wanted to move up the ranks in the company, so | signed up for a part-time business management course to gain a further qualification. | quickly found | could apply the things | learned to my job, and talk to my fellow students about challenges | was facing at work. ~and they'd help me find solutions. | soon got a job offer with an IT company as a result of my networking, and now travel the world with my job. I've more than doubled my previous salary, partly due to the skills I've learned and partly because of the people I've encountered — their advice and introductions have been a key factor in my success. [pause] | was already working for a healthcare business when | did my MBA. On the course, | bumped into a surgeon who told me he needed a tool to help with brain-scanning. | explored the feasibility of producing it, created it and then put together a plan. A year down the line, I've graduated, the technology's just been approved by neurologists and it's all going well. So I'm really glad I did it. The fact is, I'd been thinking for some time about setting up my own ‘company and the course seemed an ideal way to find out more about how to do this, how to work with companies, to identify markets and opportunities, for example. Ipause] | was involved with securing financial assistance for disabled people for many years, and | felt needed a break and an opportunity to step back from it. So | decided to do the course with a view te helping people to help themselves rather than having to rely on people like me. On the course, | learned the hard skills, ike finance ~ but also cultivated soft skills, including how to interact, with people from different backgrounds — massively boosting my confidence. Getting a qualification has given me the push to work on an idea I'd cherished since my teenage years - setting up an online help forum ~ it's not my job but it does take up a lot of my time. [pause]Speaker Five: Test2 Key | was languishing as an out-of-work graduate when | decided to give the course a go, hoping it might open a few doors for me. | had my degree in English, but I'd never taken any business courses before. My only regret is, | wish business school had taught me more about office politics. One thing | had to learn in the real world is that you can’t logically explain your way into a promotion ~ you have to befriend your way to success. The qualification | gained was indispensable, however, as it gave me my first real opportunity of a position in what turned out to be a great organisation ~ where I'm still employed today. [pause] Now you'll hear Part Four agains. tone [The recording is repeated.] [pause] That's the end of Part Four. There'll now be a pause of five minutes for you to copy your answers onto the separate answer sheet. Be sure to follow the numbering of all the questions. I'l remind you when there’s one minute left, co that you're sure to finish in time. [Teacher, pause the recording here for five minutes. Remind students that they have one minute left.] That's the end of the test. Please stop now. Your supervisor will now collect all the question papers and answer sheets. 137