Test 3: Listening, Part 1 (page 72)

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 will hear this sound. Remember to play
each piece twice.

Now open your question paper and look at Part 1.

Extract One

You hear part of a discussion programme in which two artists are talking about their work.
Now look at questions 1 and 2.

F: I’m always getting asked where I get the inspiration for my art. I find that a tough one to
answer, don’t you?

M: Well, I think the answer’s got to be there. The real issue is whether you’re ready to open up to
that extent. Because whether you think in those terms yourself or not, it’s hardly an easy thing
to articulate.

F: You seem to manage.

M: Well, take my most recent work. In that, I’ve been looking at the idea of the annual holiday. I
was struck by the thought that it was just another thing that we interact with. In the various
brochures and pamphlets, destinations are similarly grouped together in digestible sections,
making them objects of desire that we use in our leisure time.

F: You mean, the gloss and the allure of the images, tempting us to make the visit?

M: Not just that. It’s also that from there it’s a short step to believing that we’re leaving the
pressures of the everyday behind us, when in truth there’s a difference between the actual
experience and the sanitised reality printed on the page. And that’s what I want to look into.
Extract Two

You hear two club DJs talking about their work.

M: I started out working for a radio station as a studio assistant and because of my love of
electronic music, I tried to push it at the station. I pretty soon got my own show because I was
pretty knowledgeable about the music scene. It wasn’t easy and I soon discovered that I
wasn’t really cut out to be an interviewer – so I wasn’t comfortable in the role. But once I
started doing club DJ-ing, I knew I’d found my real niche.

F: Yeah. The connection with the crowd can sometimes be incredible, can’t it? I’d never have
thought that playing records could ever become my life. But here I am, making a living out of
it.

M: And not a bad one either. I play lots of different styles because I like them all in their own
way. But it really depends on the party and the crowd – you’ve got to give them what they
want.

F: No two sets are ever the same in that respect and that’s the beauty of it. I’m all for being
flexible, but I don’t play tracks which I don’t like myself. I reckon that’d be selling out.

M: Really? I’m happy to go with the flow actually.

Extract Three

You hear part of an interview with the owner of a new cake shop.
Now look at questions 5 and 6.

M: Now Teresa, you’ve just opened your own cake shop in town. Was it always your ambition to
be a cake-maker?

F: Hardly. I left school at seventeen with little idea of where I was heading. I took a job in an
Italian restaurant because there was little else available. I had no experience but I found I
loved the buzz of working in the kitchen, so I decided to go to catering college. Although I’d
never actually done any before, I focussed on cake-making there because it’s quite artistic,
but also scientific. Getting the right ingredients in the right measures is not something you can
leave to chance. I like that idea.

M: So how’s the cake shop going?

F: Well, after the initial blaze of publicity, you get really worried about whether you’ve made the
right decision. People come and try your stuff cos you’re the new shop on the block … but do
they come back? I had lots of expert advice about pricing and the range of goods to offer, but
most of it turned out to be pretty wide of the mark. So I’ve learnt to follow my instincts, and
fortunately we’re beginning to see a firm customer base emerging as a result.
Test 3: Listening, Part 2 (page 74)
You’ll hear a man called Paul Osborne giving a careers talk about his work as a computer game
designer.

For questions 7–14, complete the sentences with a word or short phrase. In the exam, you have 45
seconds to look at Part 2.

Hi. My name’s Paul Osborne. I work as a designer in the computer-game industry. Like a lot of my
colleagues, I grew up playing video games; wasting money on arcades, playing the early game
consoles. Computer games have always been a big part of my life.

Basically, lots of people are involved in the production of a game. As a designer, I’m largely
concerned with the visual material that you see, so my background’s artistic. People sometimes
wrongly assume that I’m a developer – that’s the guy with a maths background who actually figures
out how the game works. We work closely together, of course, also with the game’s market
researcher, who tells us what players are asking for.

So, how did I get into game designing? My degree was in art and design, and I did courses in
painting and drawing as you’d expect, as well as one in computer graphics, which really captured
my imagination, and one in animation. That was the one which enabled me to build up the key
conceptual and visual design skills that I use now. But I wasn't afraid of technology, so my career
could’ve gone in a number of directions.

My first job was as a graphic designer, doing book covers largely, though occasionally video game
boxes or CD sleeves did come my way too. After a while, an opening came up in the company’s
games division for someone who had art and design sensibilities, along with some technical
acumen, to work on things called user interfaces. I saw that as the opportunity to move into
designing software. It was interesting to put together visual design, ergonomics, psychology and
technology. I had some great mentorship from the head of my section and really developed a
passion for the work.

Basically, what you're responsible for as a designer is whether a game’s fun or not. I’ve worked on
a number of great games: Purple Moon was my first big challenge, and I had a key role on
Defending Planet X. But the one I got most out of was Star City because I was working on defining
the multi-player experience. That’s when two or more people play against each other. We wanted
multi-players to play the game as if they were creating their own narrative, as compared to a single
player when they're experiencing a story you’ve made up for them.

I love being able to come up with a cool idea and actually see it happen. The most challenging
aspect of the game, however, is hitting the right level of difficulty. You want the game to be hard
enough to reward people who gain expertise, but not so hard that people become frustrated and
stop playing.

So, what does it take to be a game designer? You need the creativity to have a vision – see what
will make a game fun and create a great experience. You need the communication to articulate that
vision to other people and get them to do what you think needs to be done. But above all, you need
dedication to see your vision through – to work your way through the disappointments and failures.
When you're three months from shipping, working until two in the morning, that’s what sees you
through.
Test 3: Listening, Part 3 (page 75)
You will hear an interview with an archaeologist called Julian Radwinter.

For questions 15–20, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which fits best according to what you hear.
In the exam, you have 70 seconds to look at Part 3.

Interviewer: My guest today’s the archaeologist Julian Radwinter, who works at Dunstan
University. Julian, welcome.
Julian: Hi.
Interviewer: Tell us about how you first got involved in archaeology – what attracted you to it.
Julian: Well, it all started when a team of archaeologists came to dig up the field next to my
parents’ farm one summer. It was an exciting prospect for a teenager and despite
strict instructions from my father not to make a nuisance of myself, it wasn’t long
before I was roped in to lend a hand – on a purely voluntary basis, of course.
There’s always a need for someone to do the fetching and carrying on such digs –
and I was full of questions. That’s the sort of boy I was, and I guess it broke up the
day for those involved in the more tedious work! Anyway, I was in my element and
from then on, there was no question what subject I was going to study at university.
Interviewer: And does the subject still hold the same fascination?
Julian: Well yes. I mean, on that dig some strangely shaped metal objects were unearthed,
clearly carbon dateable to the time of the buildings they’d already found traces of.
But this object didn’t seem to fit in with anything they’d found. And this is exactly the
kind of puzzle that makes the subject so gripping – you have a fragmented object
and some contextual information but clearly pieces of information are missing and
need to be filled in by the archaeologist. You have to make assumptions –
interpretations based on the evidence you’ve got – and that often involves
eliminating possibilities – ticking off the things it might be, but clearly isn’t. At the
end of the day it’s still mostly conjecture – so the debate continues.
Interviewer: Do you think archaeology gets the recognition it deserves as a profession?
Julian: Well, people think of archaeology and they think of ancient civilisations, buried
treasure and all sorts of romantic notions, often stemming from the mythology
surrounding startling twentieth-century discoveries in the eastern Mediterranean
and the Nile valley. All that’s fuelled by the image projected by certain feature films
– that beguile people into the idea that archaeology’s a glamorous discipline. I have
no problem with any of that, but everyday archaeology actually involves a lot of
painstaking gathering of data, often in far from romantic surroundings – you get
cold, wet and dirty – and the discoveries are mostly small and cumulative rather
than dramatic, which is the point that the world at large really tends to miss.
Nonetheless, it is a science, and it has a lot to tell us and the data is actually
surprisingly accessible to ordinary people in the way that a lot of science isn’t.
Interviewer: Which brings us neatly on to your own current research post. Why have you
decided to concentrate your efforts on southeastern England?
Julian: Well, most of my colleagues are jetting off around the world – digging in remote
spots in faraway places. It calls for a lot of organisation and involves all manner of
setbacks and frustrations, not to mention tedious long-haul flights and endless
inoculations. But I have none of those problems. Indeed, now that archaeology is
becoming much more oriented towards the collection and analysis of data, rather
than the just locating and digging up key sites, we come to realise just how much
England has to offer. Basically, with a relatively modest budget, we can gather far
more relevant data here than in many of the places that have been the typical focus
of archaeological activity.
Interviewer: But why is that, and what is it that you’re hoping to find?
Julian: Well, for the last two thousand years, and probably long before that too,
southeastern England has undoubtedly been one of the most densely inhabited
parts of the world. There was a lot of human activity here and the evidence is to be
found beneath our feet. The land’s been intensively farmed since the Iron Age and
most modern-day villages have been continuously inhabited for over a thousand
years – some much longer. But I find it tantalising to think that you’ve only got to dig
a hole somewhere in a settlement, and you’ll probably uncover data that’ll reveal
how people lived and the way different things influenced their way of life – be it
political changes, climate change, disease or whatever.
Interviewer: Finally Julian, you’re taking part in a project that looks at the role of humour in
archaeology. That sounds intriguing – tell us a bit about that.
Julian: Well traditional storytelling, the passing on of ideas and deep cultural knowledge is
one of those things that we’re tending to lose with the digital age – and it struck me
that it’s there in archaeology itself. There’s often a mismatch between the dry
reports written up after successful digs and the warmth and intimacy that is built up
within a team. Basically, you’re all living and working cheek by jowl for long periods
and a kind of camaraderie develops – the telling of anecdotes around the campfire
after a long day’s digging is full of humour – but also full of the folk memory of
archaeology itself. The project I’m involved in seeks to capture and preserve some
of that rich fund of humour and anecdote – so that it can be preserved for future
generations along with the archaeological evidence itself.

Interviewer: Fascinating, thank you very much …

Look at task 1. For questions 21–25, choose from the list A–H what made each speaker decide to
join the club. Now look at task 2. For questions 26–30, choose from the list A–H the main
disadvantage of being a club member which each speaker mentions.

While you listen you must complete both tasks. In the exam, you have 45 seconds to look at Part 4.

Speaker one
You see clubs advertised on the college noticeboard, but joining one’s never appealed to me really.
On the whole, my friends are more into music and going out than joining stuff. I only really went
along to the salsa group to keep my boyfriend company. His sister back home had told him it was
great fun, but he didn’t fancy going alone. And I got quite a shock. I mean, it’s quite laidback the
way it’s organised; you don’t have to go every week or anything and everyone was really giving it
their all. I could’ve done with someone telling me how I was doing actually, because nobody
seemed worried about my mistakes. But I’ll certainly go again.

Speaker two
Lots of people at the drama club already had acting skills before coming to college, but I thought if I
joined, it’d be a chance to pick some up. I mean, it’s a nice group of people, the whole thing’s very
professionally organised, and they’re always giving me positive feedback at the rehearsal sessions,
but I haven’t made much progress. And I think it’s because I only get very small parts to play in our
productions. I think everyone needs to be given something to get their teeth into. I mean I don’t
mind the draughty hall and giving up two nights a week to it, but I want to feel I’m getting
somewhere.

Speaker three
People always say that you make new friends if you join a club, try something new. But for me it
was the other way round. With my mates it was a case of ‘we’re doing golf this term; are you up for
it or not?’ So I went along with the idea. I guess the exercise doesn’t do me any harm, but I do find
some of the people you meet there a bit superior. So what if I haven’t improved my handicap or
whatever it’s called? Anyway, the course isn’t far from the college, fortunately, and it’s a stunning
location overlooking the sea, so I’m quite happy to do a round on my free afternoon – nice walk
really!

Speaker four
At first, I couldn’t find anybody else interested in badminton, so I put an advert on the college
website. I’m not that skilled myself, but you can’t play on your own, and I thought a club would be a
way of getting in touch with like-minded students on other courses! I got a few replies, mostly
people looking for a new way of getting some exercise. Trouble is, they don’t all turn up that
regularly, so I feel kind of duty bound to be there to make sure there’s always a match. It’s a bit of a
drag week-in, week-out, and we pay to hire the court – it’s not much, but it’d be a shame to waste it.

Speaker five
I’d have done yoga if the sessions on campus had been at a more convenient time, but studying
medicine you have more commitments than students on some other courses. So when a doctor I
met at the hospital said they did Tai Chi at lunchtimes there, why didn’t I give it try, I thought ‘why
not?’ I have to pay, which wouldn’t be the case on campus, but that doesn’t matter, and I’ve met
new friends as well as getting some exercise. I just wish they’d run a session at the university, then
some of my friends might come along too. I’m going to put an announcement on the website to see
if anyone’s interested.