There are four sections in the listening test. Each section has 10 questions, making a total of 40 questions. The sections become progressively harder. The answers to the questions come in the same order as the information on the recording. The whole test lasts about 30 minutes, including the instructions, your reading and listening time, and the time allowed for transferring your answers from the questions paper to an answer sheet. The instructions are included on the recording.
Section 1
This is a conversation between two speakers on an everyday, social topic. This means that you listen to two people talking to each other about arranging a trip, organising an event, etc. The focus is on listening for specific factual information.
Section 2
This is a talk by one speaker on a general topic. This means that you listen to one person giving information about a public event, a service provided, etc. The focus is on listening for specific factual information.
Section 3
This is a discussion between two to four speakers on a topic related to ‘academic needs’. This means that you listen to up to four people talking to each other about an assignment for a course, an academic subject in a seminar, etc. The focus is on listening for specific factual information, attitudes and speakers’ opinions.
Section 4
This is a lecture or talk by one speaker on an academic or study-related topic. This means that you listen to a person giving a lecture, a talk, etc. The focus is on listening for main ideas, specific factual information, attitude and speakers’ opinions.
You will be allowed approximately 30 seconds to study the questions before the test begins. You can use this time to check what types of answers are needed (for example, dates, times, names, money, etc.), and pay special attention to the first question.
When completing a table, look at the headings in the table to try to predict what information you are looking for. The numbers on the answer spaces will tell you what order the information will be presented in.
In this type of exercise, you will hear the information on the recording in the same order as the numbers on the answer sheet. Before you listen, look at the diagram and notice the position of the numbers. Underline any information you have about the diagram, including the parts that are already labelled.
For Listening Section 4, you will hear a talk by a student or an expert on an academic subject.
Speakers and lecturers indicate the stage of their talk through the use of signposting words. These words direct our listening: they warn us that more information is coming and suggest what kind of information this may be. Being able to identify and follow the signpost words will help you make sense of what you hear and help you answer the questions.
A shift in topic often indicates that you should move on to the next question. Use signposting words (as well as headings) in the notes to help guide you through the topics and the questions.
You should adjust your reading speed throughout the exam. When you are looking for detailed information (e.g. the writer's opinion), you will need to slow down to make sure you find the exact answer. When you are asked for more general information (e.g. matching paragraph headings), you may be able to read faster. By practising, you will find the ideal balance between reading slowly enough to understand and fast enough to finish on time.
Early Childhood Education
New Zealand's National Party spokesman on education, Dr Lockwood Smith, recently visited the US and Britain. Here he reports on the findings of his trip and what they could mean for New Zealand's education policy.
A
'Education To Be More' was published last August. It was the report of the New Zealand Government's Early Childhood Care and Education Working Group. The report argued for enhanced equity of access and better funding for childcare and early childhood education institutions. Unquestionably, that's a real need; but since parents don't normally send children to pre-schools until the age of three, are we missing out on the most important years of all?
B
A 13-year study of early childhood development at Harvard University has shown that, by the age of three, most children have the potential to understand about 1000 words - most of the language they will use in ordinary conversation for the rest of their lives.
Furthermore, research has shown that while every child is born with a natural curiosity, it can be suppressed dramatically during the second and third years of life. Researchers claim that the human personality is formed during the first two years of life, and during the first three years children learn the basic skills they will use in all their later learning both at home and at school. Once over the age of three, children continue to expand on existing knowledge of the world.
C
It is generally acknowledged that young people from poorer socio-economic backgrounds tend to do less well in our education system. That's observed not just in New Zealand, but also in Australia, Britain and America. In an attempt to overcome that educational under-achievement, a nationwide programme called 'Headstart' was launched in the United States in 1965. A lot of money was poured into it. It took children into pre-school institutions at the age of three and was supposed to help the children of poorer families succeed in school.
Despite substantial funding, results have been disappointing. It is thought that there are two explanations for this. First, the programme began too late. Many children who entered it at the age of three were already behind their peers in language and measurable intelligence. Second, the parents were not involved. At the end of each day, 'Headstart' children returned to the same disadvantaged home environment.
D
As a result of the growing research evidence of the importance of the first three years of a child's life and the disappointing results from 'Headstart', a pilot programme was launched in Missouri in the US that focused on parents as the child's first teachers. The 'Missouri' programme was predicated on research showing that working with the family, rather than bypassing the parents, is the most effective way of helping children get off to the best possible start in life. The four-year pilot study included 380 families who were about to have their first child and who represented a cross-section of socio-economic status, age and family configurations. They included single-parent and two-parent families, families in which both parents worked, and families with either the mother or father at home.
The programme involved trained parent-educators visiting the parents' home and working with the parent, or parents, and the child. Information on child development, and guidance on things to look for and expect as the child grows were provided, plus guidance in fostering the child's intellectual, language, social and motor-skill development. Periodic check-ups of the child's educational and sensory development (hearing and vision) were made to detect possible handicaps that interfere with growth and development. Medical problems were referred to professionals.
Parent-educators made personal visits to homes and monthly group meetings were held with other new parents to share experience and discuss topics of interest. Parent resource centres, located in school buildings, offered learning materials for families and facilitators for child care.
E
At the age of three, the children who had been involved in the 'Missouri' programme were evaluated alongside a cross-section of children selected from the same range of socio-economic backgrounds and family situations, and also a random sample of children that age. The results were phenomenal. By the age of three, the children in the programme were significantly more advanced in language development than their peers, had made greater strides in problem solving and other intellectual skills, and were further along in social development. In fact, the average child on the programme was performing at the level of the top 15 to 20 per cent of their peers in such things as auditory comprehension, verbal ability and language ability.
Most important of all, the traditional measures of 'risk', such as parents' age and education, or whether they were a single parent, bore little or no relationship to the measures of achievement and language development. Children in the programme performed equally well regardless of socio-economic disadvantages. Child abuse was virtually eliminated. The one factor that was found to affect the child's development was family stress leading to a poor quality of parent-child interaction. That interaction was not necessarily bad in poorer families.
F
These research findings are exciting. There is growing evidence in New Zealand that children from poorer socio-economic backgrounds are arriving at school less well developed and that our school system tends to perpetuate that disadvantage. The initiative outlined above could break that cycle of disadvantage. The concept of working with parents in their homes, or at their place of work, contrasts quite markedly with the report of the Early Childhood Care and Education Working Group. Their focus is on getting children and mothers access to childcare and institutionalized early childhood education. Education from the age of three to five is undoubtedly vital, but without a similar focus on parent education and on the vital importance of the first three years, some evidence indicates that it will not be enough to overcome educational inequity.
There are four sections in the listening test. Each section has 10 questions, making a total of 40 questions. The sections become progressively harder. The answers to the questions come in the same order as the information on the recording. The whole test lasts about 30 minutes, including the instructions, your reading and listening time, and the time allowed for transferring your answers from the questions paper to an answer sheet. The instructions are included on the recording.
Section 1
This is a conversation between two speakers on an everyday, social topic. This means that you listen to two people talking to each other about arranging a trip, organising an event, etc. The focus is on listening for specific factual information.
Section 2
This is a talk by one speaker on a general topic. This means that you listen to one person giving information about a public event, a service provided, etc. The focus is on listening for specific factual information.
Section 3
This is a discussion between two to four speakers on a topic related to ‘academic needs’. This means that you listen to up to four people talking to each other about an assignment for a course, an academic subject in a seminar, etc. The focus is on listening for specific factual information, attitudes and speakers’ opinions.
Section 4
This is a lecture or talk by one speaker on an academic or study-related topic. This means that you listen to a person giving a lecture, a talk, etc. The focus is on listening for main ideas, specific factual information, attitude and speakers’ opinions.
You will be allowed approximately 30 seconds to study the questions before the test begins. You can use this time to check what types of answers are needed (for example, dates, times, names, money, etc.), and pay special attention to the first question.
Because you will hear each section once only you need to listen carefully to all parts of the test. Don’t lose careless marks in Section 1 and 2. If you are asked to write a word, listen to whether there is an ‘s’ at the end. Make sure you take the word from the recording. You won’t need to change the words.
In the real test, you have time at the beginning of each section to look at the task. Use this time well to read the questions and think about the topics. The questions always follow the order of the recording. Don’t panic if you miss one question – look ahead and think about the next one.
Section three is concerned with educational or training contexts. You will hear a conversation among up to four people, for example, a discussion between a tutor and a student, or several students discussing an assignment. Some typical tasks that can be found in this section are summary completion, diagram labelling, and matching. This section may test a range of skills, such as listening for specific information, main ideas and supporting points, and understanding a speaker’s opinion. The following are examples of conversations you may hear in section three:
1) A conversation between a tutor and a student about completing an entry form for an engineer competition 2) A group of students giving a presentation on an academic topic 3) A job interview 4) A discussion between a student and a tutor on how to complete a project
Section four, which is also concerned with educational and training context, will feature a monologue, for example, a lecture or talk of general, non-specialist academic interest. Some typical question types found in this section are matching, classification and multiple choice. As there is no break during this section, you must look through all the questions in the time given at the beginning. It is also especially important to listen for words signalling a change from one part of the lecture to another. The following are examples of monologues you may hear in section four:
1) A lecture on the radio about a health problem 2) A university lecture about eclipse 3) A monologue on how to breed animals 4) A lecture about Neolithic Britain
Do you like travelling alone or with your friends?
Have you travelled to other places? Where are they?
What do you usually do when you first arrive in a new place?
What are the benefits of travelling?
Why do so many people like travelling nowadays?
Do you think it's true that travel broadens the mind?
Do young people and older people benefit differently from travelling?
How can you make sure you get the most from your travels?
1. Do you like travelling?
Yes. Travelling just changes your mind and refreshes you and makes you forget the busy work schedule. When you start enjoying yourself for some time, you get charged up.
2. Whom do you often spend the holiday with?
I often spend my holidays with my cousins at my grandma’s place in the countryside. We enjoy each other’s company.
3. Have you done much travelling?
Yes. I have. Places I have visited have a very rich heritage and are colourful like European capitals which are also great metropolitan cities. I've been to a great number of sea resorts in Turkey, Egypt, Europe famous for lively atmosphere and according to the state field trip programme I have been to a plethora of historical and cultural sights in Belarus. A lot of them are included in the World Heritage List.
4. What kind of places have you visited in your life?
I have visited almost every type of place where people enjoy their life, places where people have a lot of opportunities to express their creativity, places which are well known for their educational facilities etc.
5. When you visit new places, what do you like to do?
Whenever I visit a place the first thing I do is search about the history or past of that place, then take a lot pictures and record the experiences I get there. I write about what I did, what I liked etc. I just jot down in my travel diary so that whenever I open and read it I can relive those memories.
6. Do you prefer travelling alone or in a group?
I prefer travelling in a group as it’s always safe and most affordable. Also when we go on a trip as a group we are bonded with different type of people and make a lot beautiful, both sour and sweet memories.
7. Do you often travel abroad?
I've been to a great number of European countries, sea resorts in Africa and Asia. I really appreciate travelling to other countries, meeting new people, go sightseeing, tasting national cuisine, etc.
I haven’t travelled abroad yet. First I want to tour all places within my country.
8. In which seasons do you prefer to travel?
I prefer travelling in winter because the weather and atmosphere remains cool and soothing and it feels good to travel when it’s cool and soul-satisfying.
It doesn't matter when to travel. What is more significant, it is the process of travelling, anticipation of something good going to happen.
9. What is the best season to travel in your country?
Belarus has a cool continental climate, with warm summer days typically in the mid 20°Cs, and winters dropping below freezing. The best time to travel around Belarus is from mid May to mid September, when it's comfortably warm. June, July and August are peak months for temps as well as tourists.
10. Would you say your country is a good place for travellers to visit?
Yes, definitely. Untouched corners of nature, thousands of lakes and rivers, a unique landscape, wildlife reserves with rare species of flora and fauna is considered to be one of the reasons Belarus is worth visiting.
Any time of the year you can become a participant of folk celebrations: Christmas-time (Kolyady), Maslenitsa festival, Kupalie, Dozhinki. Some Belarusian ceremonies are included in the UNESCO list of intangible heritage.
A lot of dishes of the Belarusian national cuisine may be exotic for many foreigners.
Last but not least, the way people in Belarus welcome others with such a warm heart is tremendous to be felt.
11. What would you recommend a foreigner to visit in your country?
There are a lot of worth visiting places in Belarus. You can see ancient towns with monuments and historical museums, National Parks with beautiful nature, zoo and open-air museums. They are our national heritage. Some of them are included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. For example, the Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park, the Mir castle complex, the Nesvizh Palace of the Radziwill Family and the Struve Geodetic Arc points. The Nesvizh Palace is extremely beautiful. Musical festivals are held there every year. I would definitely advise to visit Nesvizh, Mir and the Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park. You can even meet mighty European bison in the wild in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. This animal is one of the symbols of Belarus.
12. What places would you like to visit in the future?
I would like to visit New York and also Switzerland. These are my most favourite and desired destinations because of their scenic beauty and also the people who are very generous and sweet.
13. How much time do you spend travelling on a normal day?
On normal days I don’t spend much time as you know I’m pursuing my studies and working simultaneously. So it is really difficult to travel on normal days.
14. What do you do while you travel?
When travelling in a car I just sit back and enjoy the scenery. When on the train I really prefer sleeping and if I travel by plane I prefer reading a magazine with my music on.
15. Do you think your hometown is a good place for a holiday?
Soligorsk exists relatively recently, but this does not prevent it from being attractive for tourists. The star attraction is the mountains of salt, which make an indelible impression on everyone who visits them. It seems you are on Mars or another uninhabited planet. Some musicians came to this sight to shoot a video.
In the IELTS exam, you may be given a summary of, or notes about, a text, but there will be information missing which you will have to look for. You will usually find the information in a particular part of the text, but not in the same order. You will either have to choose words from the text or choose the correct option from those given. It is often easier to choose the correct answer if you can predict the type of word you need by using your knowledge of grammar.
The information in the text will be in the same order as the questions.
The Birth of Scientific English
World science is dominated today by a small number of languages, including Japanese, German and French, but it is English which is probably the most popular global language of science. This is not just because of the importance of English-speaking countries such as the USA in scientific research; the scientists of many non-English-speaking countries find that they need to write their research papers in English to reach a wide international audience. Given the prominence of scientific English today, it may seem surprising that no one really knew how to write science in English before the 17th century. Before that, Latin was regarded as the lingua franca¹ for European intellectuals.
The European Renaissance (c. 14th-16th century) is sometimes called the ‘revival of learning’, a time of renewed interest in the ‘lost knowledge’ of classical times. At the same time, however, scholars also began to test and extend this knowledge. The emergent nation states of Europe developed competitive interests in world exploration and the development of trade. Such expansion, which was to take the English language west to America and east to India, was supported by scientific developments such as the discovery of magnetism (and hence the invention of the compass), improvements in cartography and - perhaps the most important scientific revolution of them all - the new theories of astronomy and the movement of the Earth in relation to the planets and stars, developed by Copernicus (1473-1543).
England was one of the first countries where scientists adopted and publicised Copernican ideas with enthusiasm. Some of these scholars, including two with interests in language -John Wall's and John Wilkins - helped Found the Royal Society in 1660 in order to promote empirical scientific research.
Across Europe similar academies and societies arose, creating new national traditions of science. In the initial stages of the scientific revolution, most publications in the national languages were popular works, encyclopaedias, educational textbooks and translations. Original science was not done in English until the second half of the 17th century. For example, Newton published his mathematical treatise, known as the Principia, in Latin, but published his later work on the properties of light - Opticks - in English.
There were several reasons why original science continued to be written in Latin. The first was simply a matter of audience. Latin was suitable for an international audience of scholars, whereas English reached a socially wider, but more local, audience. Hence, popular science was written in English.
A second reason for writing in Latin may, perversely, have been a concern for secrecy. Open publication had dangers in putting into the public domain preliminary ideas which had not yet been fully exploited by their ‘author’. This growing concern about intellectual property rights was a feature of the period - it reflected both the humanist notion of the individual, rational scientist who invents and discovers through private intellectual labour, and the growing connection between original science and commercial exploitation.
There was something of a social distinction between ‘scholars and gentlemen’ who understood Latin, and men of trade who lacked a classical education. And in the mid-17th century it was common practice for mathematicians to keep their discoveries and proofs secret, by writing them in cipher, in obscure languages, or in private messages deposited in a sealed box with the Royal Society. Some scientists might have felt more comfortable with Latin precisely because its audience, though international, was socially restricted. Doctors clung the most keenly to Latin as an ‘insider language’.
A third reason why the writing of original science in English was delayed may have been to do with the linguistic inadequacy of English in the early modern period. English was not well equipped to deal with scientific argument. First, it lacked the necessary technical vocabulary. Second, it lacked the grammatical resources required to represent the world in an objective and impersonal way, and to discuss the relations, such as cause and effect, that might hold between complex and hypothetical entities.
Fortunately, several members of the Royal Society possessed an interest in language and became engaged in various linguistic projects. Although a proposal in 1664 to establish a committee for improving the English language came to little, the society's members did a great deal to foster the publication of science in English and to encourage the development of a suitable writing style. Many members of the Royal Society also published monographs in English. One of the first was by Robert Hooke, the society's first curator of experiments, who described his experiments with microscopes in Micrographia (1665). This work is largely narrative in style, based on a transcript of oral demonstrations and lectures.
In 1665 a new scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions, was inaugurated. Perhaps the first international English-language scientific journal, it encouraged a new genre of scientific writing, that of short, focused accounts of particular experiments.
The 17th century was thus a formative period in the establishment of scientific English. In the following century much of this momentum was lost as German established itself as the leading European language of science. It is estimated that by the end of the 18th century 401 German scientific journals had been established as opposed to 96 in France and 50 in England. However, in the 19th century scientific English again enjoyed substantial lexical growth as the industrial revolution created the need for new technical vocabulary, and new, specialised, professional societies were instituted to promote and publish in the new disciplines.
¹ lingua franca: a language which is used for communication between groups of people who speak different languages
This type of question tests if you can identify whether information is correct or not. You are given a factual statement and you have to check in a text if it is true. It is important not to use your own knowledge to answer the questions; the answer must come from the text.
If the text confirms the statement, your answer should be 'TRUE'.
If the test says the opposite is true, your answer should be 'FALSE'.
If it is impossible to know from the text if the statement is true or not, your answer should be 'NOT GIVEN'.
The information in the text will be in the same order as the questions.
What's so funny?
John McCrone reviews recent research on humour
The joke comes over the headphones: 'Which side of a dog has the most hair? The left.' No, not funny. Try again. 'Which side of a dog has the most hair? The outside.' Hah! The punchline is silly yet fitting, tempting a smile, even a laugh. Laughter has always struck people as deeply mysterious, perhaps pointless. The writer Arthur Koestler dubbed it the luxury reflex: 'unique in that it serves no apparent biological purpose'.
Theories about humour have an ancient pedigree. Plato expressed the idea that humour is simply a delighted feeling of superiority over others. Kant and Freud felt that joke-telling relies on building up a psychic tension which is safely punctured by the ludicrousness of the punchline. But most modern humour theorists have settled on some version of Aristotle's belief that jokes are based on a reaction to or resolution of incongruity, when the punchline is either a nonsense or, though appearing silly, has a clever second meaning.
Graeme Ritchie, a computational linguist in Edinburgh, studies the linguistic structure of jokes in order to understand not only humour but language understanding and reasoning in machines. He says that while there is no single format for jokes, many revolve around a sudden and surprising conceptual shift. A comedian will present a situation followed by an unexpected interpretation that is also apt.
So even if a punchline sounds silly, the listener can see there is a clever semantic fit and that sudden mental 'Aha!' is the buzz that makes us laugh. Viewed from this angle, humour is just a form of creative insight, a sudden leap to a new perspective.
However, there is another type of laughter, the laughter of social appeasement and it is important to understand this too. Play is a crucial part of development in most young mammals. Rats produce ultrasonic squeaks to prevent their scuffles turning nasty. Chimpanzees have a 'play-face' - a gaping expression accompanied by a panting 'ah, ah' noise. In humans, these signals have mutated into smiles and laughs. Researchers believe social situations, rather than cognitive events such as jokes, trigger these instinctual markers of play or appeasement. People laugh on fairground rides or when tickled to flag a play situation, whether they feel amused or not.
Both social and cognitive types of laughter tap into the same expressive machinery in our brains, the emotion and motor circuits that produce smiles and excited vocalisations. However, if cognitive laughter is the product of more general thought processes, it should result from more expansive brain activity.
Psychologist Vinod Goel investigated humour using the new technique of 'single event' functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRl). An MRI scanner uses magnetic fields and radio waves to track the changes in oxygenated blood that accompany mental activity. Until recently, MRI scanners needed several minutes of activity and so could not be used to track rapid thought processes such as comprehending a joke. New developments now allow half-second 'snapshots' of all sorts of reasoning and problem-solving activities.
Although Goel felt being inside a brain scanner was hardly the ideal place for appreciating a joke, he found evidence that understanding a joke involves a widespread mental shift. His scans showed that at the beginning of a joke the listener's prefrontal cortex lit up, particularly the right prefrontal believed to be critical for problem solving. But there was also activity in the temporal lobes at the side of the head (consistent with attempts to rouse stored knowledge) and in many other brain areas. Then when the punchline arrived, a new area sprang to life -the orbital prefrontal cortex. This patch of brain tucked behind the orbits of the eyes is associated with evaluating information.
Making a rapid emotional assessment of the events of the moment is an extremely demanding job for the brain, animal or human. Energy and arousal levels may need, to be retuned in the blink of an eye. These abrupt changes will produce either positive or negative feelings. The orbital cortex, the region that becomes active in Goel's experiment, seems the best candidate for the site that feeds such feelings into higher-level thought processes, with its close connections to the brain's sub-cortical arousal apparatus and centres of metabolic control.
All warm-blooded animals make constant tiny adjustments in arousal in response to external events, but humans, who have developed a much more complicated internal life as a result of language, respond emotionally not only to their surroundings, but to their own thoughts. Whenever a sought-for answer snaps into place, there is a shudder of pleased recognition. Creative discovery being pleasurable, humans have learned to find ways of milking this natural response. The fact that jokes tap into our general evaluative machinery explains why the line between funny and disgusting, or funny and frightening, can be so fine. Whether a joke gives pleasure or pain depends on a person's outlook.
Humour may be a luxury, but the mechanism behind it is no evolutionary accident. As Peter Derks, a psychologist at William and Mary College in Virginia, says: 'I like to think of humour as the distorted mirror of the mind. It's creative, perceptual, analytical and lingual. If we can figure out how the mind processes humour, then we'll have a pretty good handle on how it works in general.
There are four sections in the listening test. Each section has 10 questions, making a total of 40 questions. The sections become progressively harder. The answers to the questions come in the same order as the information on the recording. The whole test lasts about 30 minutes, including the instructions, your reading and listening time, and the time allowed for transferring your answers from the questions paper to an answer sheet. The instructions are included on the recording.
Section 1
This is a conversation between two speakers on an everyday, social topic. This means that you listen to two people talking to each other about arranging a trip, organising an event, etc. The focus is on listening for specific factual information.
Section 2
This is a talk by one speaker on a general topic. This means that you listen to one person giving information about a public event, a service provided, etc. The focus is on listening for specific factual information.
Section 3
This is a discussion between two to four speakers on a topic related to ‘academic needs’. This means that you listen to up to four people talking to each other about an assignment for a course, an academic subject in a seminar, etc. The focus is on listening for specific factual information, attitudes and speakers’ opinions.
Section 4
This is a lecture or talk by one speaker on an academic or study-related topic. This means that you listen to a person giving a lecture, a talk, etc. The focus is on listening for main ideas, specific factual information, attitude and speakers’ opinions.
You will be allowed approximately 30 seconds to study the questions before the test begins. You can use this time to check what types of answers are needed (for example, dates, times, names, money, etc.), and pay special attention to the first question.
At the beginning of each section read the questions for that section carefully, before the recording starts. This will help you to follow the recording and identify the answers.
You need to listen and read the text at the same time in the IELTS Listening exam. Before you listen, it is a good idea to underline the words you think may be paraphrased. This will help you prepare you to listen more efficiently.
In the IELTS Listening exam, your answer will need to be grammatically correct. It is important to read the questions carefully and decide what kind of words is missing. For example, some words must be followed by specific prepositions, and knowing which these are will help you write a grammatically correct answer. When you learn new verbs, make sure you know if they have a dependent preposition. A good dictionary will usually tell you this.
