Audio script

Skills Test 1
[Track 1]

Speaker A: Well, my passion is sport, especially football. I watch two or three matches a week on the TV. But
they don’t always tell you all of the results on the programme so I check those in the sports pages
of The Metro newspaper. It’s free at most stations so I get one almost every day.
Speaker B: Most of my friends listen to the news on the radio, but I don’t have one any more. I’m usually very
busy when the news is on anyway. I always find out what’s happening in the world on the internet. I
can listen when I want and if I miss a bit, I can always play it again.
Speaker C: I work outside a lot so I check the weather forecast every day. It helps me to decide what to wear.
The one on the radio is not very useful because it’s about the whole country so I don’t listen to it. I
always use the internet. It tells me what to expect where I live and work.
Speaker D: I'm mad about film, especially science fiction. I don’t read the reviews about them in the
newspaper. They write a lot about their opinion and not much about the film. But there’s a really
good TV programme that shows lots of film clips. It’s really good, so I often watch that.
Speaker E: I never listen to pop or hip hop or anything like that – I don’t really know what the difference is
between all these types of music and I don’t like them. My favourite is classical and there’s a
superb classical music radio station which I listen to all day. They play great music and I love the
presenters too.

Skills Test 2
[Track 2]

Danielle: ... my name is Danielle Miller and my guest today is web site and video games reviewer Ben Barton.
Ben, what’s your favourite website?

Ben: Well, Danielle, I know it’s quite old now, but I still love eBay.

Danielle: I’m sure our listeners know this already but in case there are any who don’t, what kind of website is it?

Ben: It’s a website for people to buy and sell things. They can be the public in general or online shops.
People offer money for things on the site and the person who offers the most money wins and gets the
item. It started small but now it’s very big, with millions of sales every year.

Danielle: How old is it? When did eBay begin?

Ben: For a web site it’s actually quite old. An early form of eBay started in September 1995 and by January
1997 it was already selling more than a million items a month.

Danielle: How did it begin?

Ben: An American man, Pierre Omidyar, started it. Pierre’s family are from Iran but he was born in France
and then moved to America when he was a child. He wanted to sell some of his things and created the
web site to do this. The first thing he sold was a broken computer gadget called a laser pointer that
made him about $15. At first, though, it was just a part-time job running eBay – he had a full-time job
as a computer programmer.

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Danielle: How popular is eBay now?

Ben: Very popular indeed! Pierre Omidyar is now a billionaire! The company has about 36 thousand people
working for it in 30 different countries.

Danielle: Really? That’s amazing for a company that started with one person!

Ben: Yes, and nowadays you can buy more or less anything on eBay, from low-price books to luxury sports
cars costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Danielle: Wow! Is there anything you can’t buy?

Ben: Of course! You’re not allowed to buy or sell knives or most living animals, for example.

Danielle: That’s amazing! So thanks so much for the information, Ben, and if you’re new to eBay, check it out.
Even if you don’t want to buy anything, it’s good to have…

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Skills Test 3
[Track 3]

Fiona: Are you good with money? That’s the question we’re discussing today. Our next caller is Boris
Hatton from London.

Boris: Hi, Fiona, I’m fifteen and my parents give me £5 a week, but I also have a Saturday job at a local
café, where I make £4 an hour. I don’t do much around the house to earn the pocket money, but at
the café I wash the dishes and serve customers all day. It’s hard work and that’s why I usually
spend all my money in the shops as soon as I get it – I want to enjoy my money. My piggy bank’s
been empty for years! I love spending a day at the shopping centre with my friends, and my wallet’s
always empty when I get home. I like getting clothes or music mainly. I buy things I like, not just the
things I need – my mum and dad get those. I never worry too much about the price – if I’ve got
enough, I buy it. I don’t waste time going to other shops to see if I can get it cheaper. I never wait
for the sales because the shops are much too busy then. Some of my friends have more money
than me. If I need to, I borrow some off them too, so I can get the things I want. I don’t mind
borrowing money – I just hate paying it back. I’ve lost a few friends because of it but not very many.
That’s what I think, anyway.

Fiona: That’s great. Thanks, Boris, but what are you going to do when you really need some money? You
won’t have any saved up.

Boris: Oh, I’m not sure. I can ask my mum and dad, I suppose.

Fiona: OK, thanks, Boris. Well, my guest today is the writer of the book Teenagers and Money, Jonathan
Barclay. Jonathan, what do you think of what Boris was saying?

Jonathan: Well, clearly Boris thinks about the present rather than the future. It seems impossible for him to
save money, and he’s not alone – many people, adults and teenagers, think the same way.

Fiona: So what’s your advice?

Jonathan: You should learn to think about money in a different way. The sooner you start managing your
money and saving a little, the richer you become. If you save just 50p a day, after a year, you have
nearly £200! Also, remember that it’s not just money that you’re wasting, it’s time too. If you buy a
game for £30 and in the supermarket they have the same game for £15, you lose £15, which
means you have to work an extra 4 hours to make that money back.

Fiona: That’s a good point.

Jonathan: Also, if you get into the habit of borrowing money, it’s difficult to change that when you grow up.
When you borrow money from banks you don’t lose friends, but you do lose a lot of money
because if you borrow £100, you have to pay them back a lot more.

Fiona: Jonathan, thank you so much and...

End-of-year Test
[Track 4]

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Interviewer: So, Alicia, you’re a professional dancer. What kind of dance do you do?

Alicia: All sorts! I started off doing classical and ballet, but then I realised that I preferred dancing to the
music I really love so now I mainly do hip hop work, and a little bit of African dance as well.

Interviewer: Where does most of your work come from?

Alicia: I do some musical theatre and quite a few concert tours, but most of my working week is actually
spent making music videos.

Interviewer: And I suppose you have to work out at the gym every day too.

Alicia: I certainly exercise seven days a week, but going to the gym isn’t always the best exercise for
dancers. In fact, what benefits me most is yoga. I walk a lot as well when I have time. Most people
probably think dancers only work three of four hours a day. But on a typical working day, I spend
about nine hours getting the movements and dances right with the other dancers.

Interviewer: And did you always want to be a dancer?

Alicia: Yes, from quite a young age. I joined a youth dance group, which was where I really made
progress as a dancer, when I was nine. The classes I did before then, from when I was five,
weren’t really serious.

Interviewer: What’s the best part of your job?

Alicia: Oh, the travel! I love visiting different places. This year I’ve already been to America, Brazil,
Australia and, most recently, Japan, and last year I went all round Europe and to South America
too. It gets a bit lonely, though. My mum wanted to travel with me at first, but I travel so much these
days she doesn’t have time.

Interviewer: And is it well-paid?

Alicia: At first, definitely not! I had to have another job as well to pay the bills. But these days, the average
I make for things like video shoots is about $250 for a full day’s work. You can earn about $500
dollars a week if you’re on tour but of course your hotels and food are all paid for too.

Interviewer: And what ambitions and dreams do you have for the future?

Alicia: Well, I’m starting to think I’d like to be an actor when I can’t dance professionally any more. I
wanted to be a dance teacher for a long time but I think I’m changing my mind!

[Track 5]

Flora: I hate being a couch potato and really prefer doing things to staying home and watching TV. I’m the
drummer in a band and we practise at least once a week. I love it, and we’re hoping to play some
concerts soon and, who knows, turn professional one day. I love the cinema too. I don’t know why, but
I love scary films and watch one maybe twice a month. My brother’s crazy about novels and graphic

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novels, but I’m not really into that sort of thing. I prefer surfing the internet and reading the stuff I find
there.

Luke My dad always tells me that I’ve got square eyes! It’s true, I suppose, but I do lots of other things as
well. I’m really interested in street dance and sometimes I dance against other people to see who’s
best. I don’t usually win, but it’s great fun taking part. I don’t really want to work as a dancer, though. I
played the guitar for a bit but stopped when I started dancing because I liked that more. The other
thing I’m keen on is film, especially the funny ones. I watch them online rather than going to the
cinema – it’s so much easier.

Yasmin: I’ve written short stories for about five years now. They’re mainly romantic stories, because that’s what
I’m mad about, films as well as books. I think I’m improving and my friends read them and say they’re
good, so maybe one day I’ll be a full-time writer. My mum and dad want me to be a doctor, and I
wouldn’t mind, but it’s not my real passion. Lots of my friends listen to techno and hip hop all the time
and some are in bands or write songs on their computers, but that’s not really my thing.

Shania I tried all the usual things that my friends are into and some of them were OK. But when my mum and
dad bought me a camera, my whole life changed. I spend most of my time taking photographs and the
other part of my free time reading about it or watching video clips about it. I have friends who are
computer freaks; well, I’m a bit of a photography freak, I guess! I’d love to work as a photo-journalist in
the future, then I could make some money from my passion.

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