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IELTS Listening — Practice Test 6

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40:00
Section 1 A caller enquires about evening cookery classes at a community college · Receptionist, Caller
Questions 1-7

Complete the form below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

1Surname: ______
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
2Mobile number: 0782 551 ______
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
3Course chosen: ______ cookery
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
4Level: ______
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
5Course starts: ______ September
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
6Classes held on: ______ evenings
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
7Weekly cost of ingredients: £ ______
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
Questions 8-10

Answer the questions below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

8What should students bring to each class?
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
9Which road is the entrance to the car park on?
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
10What must the caller pay online to secure his place?
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
Section 2 A guide introduces visitors to a restored windmill · Guide
Questions 11-13

Choose the correct letter, A, B or C.

11Why did the mill stop working in 1912?
12Who carried out most of the restoration work?
13What does the guide say about today's milling demonstration?
Questions 14-17

Where are the following places? Choose the correct letter, A–F, from the plan description below.

Plan of Cranfield Windmill — you enter through the gate at the south of the site; the gravel path runs north up the slope to the mill.

A = beside the entrance gate   B = halfway up the path, on the left   C = halfway up the path, on the right   D = attached to the east side of the mill   E = behind the mill, on the north side   F = in the far corner of the orchard

  • A beside the entrance gate
  • B halfway up the path, on the left
  • C halfway up the path, on the right
  • D attached to the east side of the mill
  • E behind the mill, on the north side
  • F in the far corner of the orchard
14Miller's cottage
15Bakehouse
16Granary
17Tearoom
Questions 18-20

Complete the sentences below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

18Children under ______ may not go above the first floor.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
19A maximum of ______ people may go up to the cap at one time.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
20The shop sells the mill's flour in bags weighing ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
Section 3 Two students and their tutor plan a psychology experiment on music and memory · Dr Ahmed, Mia, Josh
Questions 21-24

Choose the correct letter, A, B or C.

21What is the aim of the students' experiment?
22Why did the students reject using chart songs?
23Why did the students choose a two-group design?
24What does Dr Ahmed say about the number of participants?
Questions 25-27

Who makes each suggestion? Choose A, B or C. NB You may use any letter more than once.

  • A Mia
  • B Josh
  • C Dr Ahmed
25using instrumental music in the experiment
26testing participants one at a time
27increasing the size of the sample
Questions 28-30

Complete the sentences below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

28After the pilot study, each word list was increased to ______ words.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
29The students must give the ethics form to Dr Ahmed by ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
30The experiment will now run on ______ afternoons.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
Section 4 A lecture on how glaciers shape landscapes · Lecturer
Questions 31-40

Complete the notes below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.

31Glaciers form when layers of snow are compressed into ice over many ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
32When moving ice tears blocks of rock from the valley floor, this is called ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
33Abrasion leaves parallel scratches on the bedrock known as ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
34Unlike river valleys, glaciated valleys have a ______ cross-section.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
35Streams in stranded tributary valleys usually form ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
36A period of unusually fast glacier movement is called a ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
37Water at the base of a glacier acts as a ______, increasing its speed.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
38By mapping moraines, researchers can work out a glacier's former ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
39Boulders carried far from their source rock are known as ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
40Today, ice speed and thickness are measured mainly from ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS

Audio script / transcript

Trace every answer back to the exact words. Distractors — changes of mind, corrections, rejected options — are part of the recording, so read the whole exchange, not just one line.

Section 1 — A caller enquires about evening cookery classes at a community college

Receptionist:Good afternoon, Southgate Community College, Marion speaking.
Caller:Oh, hi. I saw a poster about your evening cookery classes — the ones starting in September. Could I get some details, and maybe put my name down?
Receptionist:Of course. Let me take your details first. Your full name?
Caller:It's Callum Whitaker.
Receptionist:Whitaker — is that the usual spelling, W-H-I-T-T-A-K-E-R?
Caller:Almost, but mine's got just the one T. So W-H-I-T-A-K-E-R.
Receptionist:W-H-I-T-A-K-E-R, one T. Thanks. And a contact number?
Caller:My mobile's best. It's oh-seven-eight-two, five-five-one, nine-one-six... no, hang on, I always do that — it ends nine-oh-six, not nine-one-six. Oh-seven-eight-two, five-five-one, nine-oh-six.
Receptionist:Zero seven eight two, five five one, nine zero six. Got it. Now, which course were you interested in? This term we're running Italian, Thai, and a baking workshop.
Caller:Italian was the one on the poster, actually.
Receptionist:Ah, I'm sorry — Italian filled up within a week. It always does. But the Thai course still has places, and it's the same tutor.
Caller:Hmm. I do love Thai food... yes, go on then, put me down for Thai.
Receptionist:Lovely. Now, it runs at two levels. Most people start with the beginners' group.
Caller:The thing is, I cook most nights already — I just want to stretch myself a bit.
Receptionist:In that case I'd honestly skip beginners and go straight into the intermediate class. It assumes you can already handle a knife and a wok.
Caller:Intermediate it is, then.
Receptionist:Right. Now, dates. The brochure says the course begins on the ninth of September, but the college kitchen is being rewired that week, so everything's been pushed back — you'll actually start on the sixteenth.
Caller:The sixteenth of September. Fine. And which evening is it?
Receptionist:Thai runs on Thursdays, half past six until nine. Tuesdays are the Italian group, so don't turn up then!
Caller:Thursday evenings, understood. What does it cost?
Receptionist:The intermediate course is one hundred and thirty pounds for the ten weeks. Beginners is one hundred and ten, but that doesn't apply to you. And on top of that there's a charge for ingredients each week.
Caller:The website said five pounds a class for ingredients, I think?
Receptionist:That page is out of date, I'm afraid — food prices being what they are, it went up to seven pounds this year. You pay that in cash to the tutor each week.
Caller:Seven pounds a week, okay. Is there anything I need to bring along?
Receptionist:Aprons and all the equipment are provided. The one thing everyone forgets is containers — you cook a full meal each session and you'll want to take it home. A couple of plastic tubs is plenty.
Caller:Containers, right. And parking? I'll be coming straight from work.
Receptionist:There's a free car park for evening students. Don't use the main entrance on Station Road, though — that gate's locked at six. The car park entrance is round the back, on Mill Road.
Caller:Mill Road, got it. So how do I actually secure the place?
Receptionist:I'll hold it for you now, but you need to pay a deposit online within five days — it's thirty pounds, and it comes off the course fee. If we don't receive it, the place goes back on the list.
Caller:I'll do it tonight. Thanks so much, Marion.
Receptionist:You're welcome, Callum. Enjoy the course.

Section 2 — A guide introduces visitors to a restored windmill

Guide:Welcome, everyone, to Cranfield Windmill. I'm Martin, one of the volunteer guides, and before we go inside I'll give you a bit of history and explain how the site is laid out.
Guide:The mill was built in eighteen-oh-six, and it ground flour for the village for over a century. Now, a lot of visitors arrive believing milling ended here because of a fire — there was indeed a small fire in the bakehouse in the nineteen-fifties, but milling had stopped long before that. What actually finished it was a storm in nineteen-twelve, which snapped two of the sails clean off. The owners couldn't afford new ones, and the mill stood derelict for decades.
Guide:The restoration you see today took nine years, and I'm proud to say the work was done almost entirely by local volunteers — the heritage grant we received paid for the new sails and the millstones, but the labour was all unpaid. We reopened in twenty-nineteen, and we're now one of only three mills in the county that still grind flour by wind power.
Guide:Now let me walk you round the plan on your leaflet. You came in through the gate at the south of the site, and the gravel path runs north from there, straight up the slope to the mill itself.
Guide:Just beside the entrance gate, where you bought your tickets, is the old stable block — that's now the shop, and I'll come back to it. As you walk up the path towards the mill, about halfway along on your left you'll see a low brick building with green shutters. That's the miller's cottage, furnished as it would have been in about nineteen hundred — do go in.
Guide:Directly opposite the cottage, on the right-hand side of the path, there's a long timber shed. That's the bakehouse, where the fire I mentioned broke out; on event days we bake bread there using our own flour.
Guide:Behind the mill, on the north side where the land drops away, stands the granary — the tall black building raised on staddle stones to keep rats away from the grain. You can't go inside, but it's the most photographed building here.
Guide:And if you carry on past the granary into the far corner of the orchard, you'll find the tearoom. The apple cake is worth the walk, trust me — it's open until half past four.
Guide:Now, the thing most of you came for: the milling demonstration. We normally run it at midday, but I have to apologise — there's barely a breath of wind this morning. The forecast says it'll pick up nicely after lunch, so we've moved the demonstration to half past two.
Guide:A couple of safety points before we climb. The ladders between floors are original and they are steep, so children under eight aren't allowed above the first floor — there's plenty for them to see at ground level. And because the cap at the top is a small space, we take a maximum of six people up at any one time, so you may have a short wait.
Guide:Finally, the shop. All the flour we grind is sold there, in cloth bags of one point five kilos, and every penny goes back into maintaining the mill. Right — follow me, and mind the step.

Section 3 — Two students and their tutor plan a psychology experiment on music and memory

Dr Ahmed:Right, Mia, Josh — your experiment on background music and memory. Talk me through where you've got to.
Josh:So the core question is whether people remember fewer words from a list when music is playing than when they learn in silence.
Mia:There's plenty of research on music and mood, but the recall studies are surprisingly mixed, which is why we think it's worth doing properly.
Dr Ahmed:Good. And what will participants actually listen to? Last time, Josh, you wanted current chart songs.
Josh:I did, but we've dropped that idea. Mia talked me out of it, actually.
Mia:The problem is the lyrics — if people are learning a word list, songs with words compete directly with the material. And familiarity is all over the place: one person's favourite track is another's first hearing. So I suggested we use instrumental pieces instead, film music nobody's likely to recognise.
Dr Ahmed:That's the right call. Lyrics would have been a confound you couldn't untangle. Now — one group hearing both conditions, or two separate groups?
Josh:We went back and forth on this. Testing the same people twice halves the recruitment, but if they see two word lists, the second attempt benefits from practice.
Mia:So we've settled on two separate groups — between-subjects. One learns with music, one in silence, and we compare the averages.
Dr Ahmed:Sensible. It costs you participants, but it keeps the comparison clean. Speaking of which, how many are you planning for?
Josh:Forty — twenty in each group.
Dr Ahmed:Hmm. I ran your predicted effect through a power calculation after our last meeting, and honestly, forty is thin. You'd want sixty — thirty per group — to have a reasonable chance of detecting anything real. Can you manage that?
Mia:If we recruit through the first-year lectures as well as the notice boards, I think so. Okay, sixty it is.
Dr Ahmed:And test them individually, not in batches — one person whispering or fidgeting contaminates a whole room's data. It's slower, but it's worth it.
Mia:Noted. Now, the lists themselves. Each list has twenty words — sorry, twenty-four, I keep forgetting we added four after the pilot, because too many people were scoring near the maximum.
Josh:And on scoring, we did disagree for a while. I wanted a recognition test — tick the words you saw — because it's quicker to mark.
Mia:And I argued recognition is too easy; everyone scores high and the music effect gets buried. Free recall — writing down everything you remember — spreads the scores out.
Josh:Which, having seen the pilot numbers, I now accept. Free recall it is.
Dr Ahmed:Good — a ceiling effect would have wasted the whole study. Now, the paperwork. You cannot recruit a single participant until the ethics form is approved, and the committee only meets monthly.
Mia:It's nearly done. When do you need it?
Dr Ahmed:Get it to me by Friday and I'll sign it before the committee's cut-off. Miss that and you lose a month.
Josh:Friday, understood. Last thing — we'd booked the lab for Monday mornings, but apparently that's changed?
Dr Ahmed:Yes, sorry — the eye-tracking project has the lab every morning this term. I've rebooked you for Wednesday afternoons instead. Same room, two till five.
Mia:Wednesday afternoons. Fine — actually better for my timetable.
Dr Ahmed:Then you're in good shape. Ethics form Friday, and bring me the pilot data next time.

Section 4 — A lecture on how glaciers shape landscapes

Lecturer:This morning we turn to glaciers — because if you want to understand the scenery of highland Britain, Scandinavia, or the Alps, you are really reading a story written in ice.
Lecturer:First, what a glacier is. Where more snow falls in winter than melts in summer, the surplus accumulates, and layer upon layer of snow is compressed into dense ice over many decades. Once that ice becomes heavy enough to move under its own weight, we call it a glacier.
Lecturer:Now, how does ice, which you can crush in your hand, carve through solid rock? Two processes work together. In the first, meltwater seeps into cracks in the bedrock and freezes onto the glacier's base; as the ice moves on, it simply tears blocks of rock away with it. We call this plucking. The second process uses those torn-off blocks as tools: embedded in the base of the ice, they grind across the bedrock like sandpaper. That grinding — abrasion — polishes the rock and leaves long parallel scratches known as striations, which record the direction the ice was flowing.
Lecturer:The results are unmistakable. A river cuts downwards, giving a valley a V-shaped cross-section. A glacier, by contrast, fills the whole valley and erodes floor and walls together, so it leaves behind a broad, steep-sided trough — the classic U-shaped valley you see in the Lake District or the fjords of Norway. Where a small tributary glacier once joined a much deeper one, its valley is left stranded high on the wall, and in most cases the stream that occupies it today plunges over the lip as waterfalls.
Lecturer:At this point let me correct a popular idea. Ask most people how fast a glacier moves and they'll say 'glacial pace' — barely at all. Many do manage only centimetres a day, but as a generalisation that is wrong. Some glaciers periodically enter a phase of dramatically accelerated flow that we call a surge, and during a surge the ice can travel several metres a day — fast enough to watch.
Lecturer:What controls the speed? Largely what is happening underneath. When water melts at the base of the ice, it acts as a lubricant between glacier and bedrock, and the whole mass slides faster. This is a genuine cause-and-effect relationship with modern consequences: warmer summers mean more meltwater at the bed, which accelerates the very glaciers warming is already shrinking.
Lecturer:Glaciers don't only erode; they also deposit. All that plucked and ground-up debris is eventually dumped, most visibly in ridges called moraines. A moraine left at the snout marks the furthest point the ice reached — so by mapping moraines, researchers can reconstruct a glacier's former extent, and from that, the climate of the time.
Lecturer:Ice also carries rock astonishing distances. Across the plains of northern Europe you find isolated boulders whose mineral composition matches bedrock hundreds of kilometres away in Scandinavia. These transported boulders are called erratics, and in the nineteenth century they were among the first clues that vast ice sheets had once covered the continent.
Lecturer:Finally, how do we study glaciers now? Fieldwork continues, but the decisive change has been observation from satellites, which measure ice velocity and thickness across entire ice sheets every few days. And what those measurements show, almost without exception, is retreat.