Section 1

Peter: Good morning McMurray's real estate Peter speaking, how may I help you?
Susan: Hi Peter, my name is Susan, I'm calling from Australia. I will be moving to New
Zealand soon and I was hoping you could help me find somewhere to live in Auckland.
Peter: Would be pleased to. I just need to get some information about what you want so we
can find the perfect place.
Susan: Sounds good.
Peter: Let's start with some personal details. What's your last name?
Susan: It's Smith.
Peter: And your phone number?
Susan: I only have a mobile. Is that okay?
Peter: That’s fine
Susan: Okay, it's 614381997. But if you want to contact me usually the best way is by email.
Peter: Okay, what's your email address then?
Susan: It's [email protected].
Peter: Thanks. Now you said you're living in Australia.
Susan: Right, in Brisbane.
Peter: Okay, what's your address in Brisbane then?
Susan: 234 Beckets, that's B E C K E T T S Road, Brisbane, 4054.
Peter: Right, will you be working in New Zealand?
Susan: Yes, I have a job at Auckland Hospital.
Peter: Oh, are you a nurse?
Susan: Most people assume that or think I'm a doctor but actually I'm a chemist.
Peter: Oh sorry.
Susan: That's okay.
Peter: When will you need the accommodation from?
Susan: Well I don't start work until the 25th of February but I'd like to give myself some
time to settle in. A couple of weeks would be nice. Let's say from the 10th of February.
Peter: At least it's start from a Monday and the Monday closest to that is the 8th of February.
Would that suit?
Susan: That's fine.
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Peter: Okay, let's talk about what kind of place you'd like to rent.
Susan: Hmm, I like the outdoors so my dream would be a house that has its own garden.
Peter: Is there anything else you'd consider? An apartment for example?
Susan: I don't know. They usually don't have an outdoor area but I guess as an alternative if
you could find me one with a large balcony I'd be happy.
Peter: How many rooms do you want?
Susan: Usually one bedroom place is a too small. Two would be ideal.
Peter: Now what would you like to have in the place when you move in?
Susan: I'm bringing most of what I need with me. I have beds and sofas and a television, all
that sort of stuff so none of that is necessary.
Peter: Sounds like you want to partially furnish the house with a washing machine.
Susan: Actually I'm bringing that too. All I really need in the place is a fridge. I don't have
one so we'll definitely need one.
Peter: Okay
Susan: Can you find something like that for around $350 a week?
Peter: Well I'll certainly try. I'll start looking for places that cost around $300 and see if
there's anything suitable. You definitely won't need to pay more than $400 for something
like that.
Susan: Oh that's good. I couldn't pay more than that.
Peter: Alright I'll see what I can find. You're working at the hospital. Do you want to live
somewhere near there?
Susan: Most people think it's strange but I don't like living close to work. But I'm a mad
keen surface so it's important for me to be close to the beach.
Peter: Okay do you need to be near public transport?
Susan: No I usually drive to work because I work a lot of shift work so wherever I live we'll
need to have parking close to the doors so I won't have to walk far at night.
Peter: Anything else?
Susan: I've heard that power bills can get quite expensive especially in the winter. It'd be
great if electricity was part of the rent.
Peter: Okay just one last question for our records. Where did you hear about us? You call
me......
Section 2
I'm Chris Butler and I'm the chairperson of the Middletown Urban Farming Scheme, or
MUFS for short, a highly successful program which encourages city dwellers to grow their
own fruit and vegetables to become city farmers if you will. Who started MUFS? Well, the
idea of urban farming has been around for quite a while, particularly among town planners.
But it was actually a group of Middletown business people, including myself, who decided
to create what became MUFS. University agricultural specialists got involved later. Now
initially, the aim was not some eco-friendly goal of reducing seal to emissions caused by the
transport of food from farm to dinner plate. It was simply to maximize the utilization of the
vacant or idle land that lies within the city. Of course, later we realized that an additional
benefit might be a healthier diet for local people. Let me tell you a bit about the groups that
have joined the scheme. We've got any number of schools involved and loads of corporate
employees, so our message seems to have been well received there. But for next year, we're
going to concentrate on getting various community centers, like those for senior citizens to
join, because so far, they've been somewhat slow to take up the scheme. Now, the core
committee of the MUFS is a group of dedicated gardeners. They probably won't be familiar
with your specific plot of land. They're mostly amateurs, but they are the people who know
the ins and outs of gardening, and they will be happy to sit down with any MUFS member
and make some hands-on suggestions about gardening. But don't expect them to know the
answers to technical questions, like the Latin names of plants. The MUFS are keen to
support members who are physically disabled. We're looking at the possibility providing
specially adapted gardening tools on loan to members who can't cope with regular tools.
That's not happening yet. But we do have some window boxes as well as larger containers,
which we can distribute free of charge to these members, although they will have to provide
their own soil and compost themselves. I'm especially proud of the work we've done with the
local schools, both grade school level and high schools. The teachers say that they knew the
scheme would be of some practical use in science classes, like biology. Despite the original
hopes of some, the fruit and vegetable plots haven't provided cheaper lunches for their
students. But what they didn't anticipate was the change in attitude that the scheme has
created amongst their students. They say the students have become much more conscious of
their surrounding environment. They want to keep it neat and tidy.
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Now a number of local organizations and businesses provide our members with free goods
and services. Let me go through some of them. The city hospital, as you might expect, has to
provide thousands of meals for its patients. So the manager of its kitchen runs a course for
our members on how to use vegetables in a huge variety of dishes. The local government
found it had a large glass building, which the parks department used to start off flower seeds
in young plants during the winter. And they agreed to allow our members to use this free of
charge to get their own little seedlings off to a good start. Another thing, the university has
agreed that if members send them a sample of their soil, they will do a series of tests on it to
indicate what kind of plants will grow best and what types of fertilizer and nutrients would
be best to use. And just to make sure our members know what's good for them, a
supermarket is offering a series of classes on how to lose weight and stay healthy by having
a sensible diet. Now let's talk about the practicalities......
Section 3
Lorna: So Gareth, we need to organize the findings from our survey on music students for
the final presentation.
Gareth: Yes, Lorna. I think we've got some very interesting results. Obviously we need to
start by saying that we interviewed all the third year students doing a music degree and state
the objective of our research project that is to find out about their attitudes to performing.
Lorna: And then we should talk about the students' musical backgrounds before coming to
university. The most important points to make are that although most people have actually
composed music during the course, that wasn't the case when they arrived, and the other
thing they had in common was the piano.
Gareth: Well, they'd had access to a piano at some point, but not all had studied it formally.
I thought the most interesting finding was that before coming here, almost everyone was
involved in a chamber orchestra or band or singing in a choir and playing in front of live
audiences.
Lorna: But varying enormously in size. Some had only played in tiny venues. I think it's
worth saying that.
Gareth: Okay. And as you might expect from people wanting to study music, they all had a
degree of proficiency in at least two instruments. But in most cases, one of the instruments
was dominant.
Lorna: Right. We need to talk about attitudes to music practice. The most striking thing here
is that even students who'd expect to practice for hours every day until they get it perfect say
it's being terrified of failing that really makes them practice. I know I'm the same.
Gareth: Me too. It's interesting what was said about practicing alone. Some people preferred
that because they could focus more on their weak points.
Lorna: But that wasn't a majority view. What most of them agree on is that there's nothing
more rewarding than mastering something that's really hard to learn.
Gareth: That's right. Okay. After that, we should talk a bit about the pieces that students
select for assessed performances.
Lorna: There wasn't quite so much consensus on this, was there? A few people prefer to do
pieces which are relatively unknown; while others choose the ones they think will show off
their technical ability. But they were in the minority.
Gareth: I think the first thing to say is that a high percentage said they would always try to
learn their pieces by heart because it's too easy to get lost if you're trying to read and play
when you're nervous.
Lorna: Okay. And quite a lot of them said it helps to listen to other people playing your
chosen piece, preferably recordings, but even just other students.
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Lorna: So finally, we need to look at the findings for students' attitudes to performing. We
should point out that this includes informal and formal public performances as well as
assessed ones.
Gareth: Yes. That's important. I expected to find that performing solo would make students
very nervous, but in fact, that isn't the case.
Lorna: They do find it hugely challenging to start with, but they appreciate the challenge
and find it stimulating.
Gareth: Right. I was surprised by what students said about deciding which pieces to
perform. I thought they'd all say this was easy. For me, it's always been quite
straightforward. Which pieces do I like best, and which pieces can I play well? And my
repertoire is quite limited anyway. But the most commonly cited answer was that it took
them ages to make their minds up.
Lorna: I suppose it's because there are so many factors involved. You need to consider your
audience, the venue, the time available to learn the piece, especially if it's complicated. You
need to think about all these things, and you can't do that in a hurry.
Gareth: That's true.
Lorna: Then there's performing with musicians from a different genre, like a classical
musician playing with a jazz group. That can really be fun.
Gareth: But most of the music students had never even considered it.
Lorna: Right. For performing with musicians who play the same instrument, almost
everyone put the same thing.
Gareth: Yes. They all said it was incredibly helpful. And not at all intimidating, which says
a lot for the department's ethos.
Lorna: Yes. That's a good point. Okay. What I think we should sort out now……
Section 4
This week's lecture on a scientific topic of current general interest is on sustainability. The
term “Sustainability” is not new. It was first coined in 1987 in a report for the United
Nations World Commission on Environment and Development. Since then however, the
term has been applied to everything from cars to agriculture and even economics. My
specific focus in fact derives from this problem. I want to analyze what seems to me to be the
confusion that surrounds sustainability. That UN document defines sustainable development
as “Development that allows both the present and all future generations to meet their needs”.
Here is the first myth. Sustainability is not simply about the environment, which may come
as a surprise to you. In fact, the original definition says nothing about it at all. Sustainability
is not about protecting the world around us. The original focus was on finding ways to help
poor nations catch up with richer nations, which primarily meant giving them similar rights
to natural resources, water, food, energy, the things that many of us take for granted. The
consequence and ultimate goal was improving living standards for all. Another myth is that
sustainability is a synonym for green, as in green movement, green products, etc. So there is
some overlap between the terms. Green suggests a preference for natural living, for example,
when you go shopping; products marketed as green imply the absence of high technology
and mass manufacturing processes. Those groups who campaign for sustainability, we can
call them the lobby for sustainability, acknowledge that the situation is desperate. The main
problem they stayed correctly is time, with 6 billion people on the planet now and a billion
more expected in the next 30 years. Only technology will be able to provide everyone with
an acceptable and safe lifestyle. Electric cars, wind turbines, and solar cells are key examples
of this. They make great use of renewable resources while emitting fewer noxious chemicals.
Nuclear power, too, is something the sustainability lobby has come to accept, unlike most
greens.
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And here's the third myth. It concerns the role of technology. Technology is not rejected as
evil, but we should not overemphasize the role of technology either. Take electric cars, for
example. Researchers are currently working on plans to electrify the world's car fleet. New
technology is currently being developed to make better batteries, giving longer performance.
But a better way of thinking is perhaps to have battery stations for drivers to use on roads.
When the battery is getting low, they simply swap the old one for a fully charged one. In
other words, new business thinking, not new technology, for a sustainable future. There are
similarities in agriculture where knowledge can be more productive than new technology.
Agriculture uses up about three quarters of the world's water. Some crops are very thirsty
and require a lot of water. So many farmers who believe in sustainability are now planting
crops like sunflowers and wheat instead of corn, which are happy with much less water. In
terms of water consumption, one of the biggest problems is that our diet is changing. As
countries develop and people become richer, they aspire to a diet with more meat. Now
admittedly, most of the new births that will take our population to over six billion are going
to be born in countries with largely vegetarian diets. However, most of them will be born in
the city, and this is where water consumption is highest. That introduces the topic for next
week's lecture……