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Estimated with the standard Listening conversion. Every question below now shows the correct answer and what confirmed it — and the full transcript is open at the bottom so you can trace anything you missed.
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Section 1
A customer arranges to rent a bicycle for a week · Assistant, Customer
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: 0794 622 ______
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
3Bike chosen: ______
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
4Cost for one week: £ ______
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
5Refundable deposit: £ ______
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
6Included free: a lock and a ______
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
7Collection: Thursday at ______
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 document will the customer bring as ID?
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
9What is kept under the saddle of every bike?
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
10Where can the bike be left after the shop has closed?
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
Section 2
The site secretary gives an information talk to new allotment holders · Site secretary
Questions 11-13
Choose the correct letter, A, B or C.
11What does the speaker say about watering?
12What is different about this year's site inspection?
13When are bonfires allowed?
Questions 14-17
Where are the following places? Choose the correct letter, A–F, from the plan description below.
Plan of Fenwick Lane Allotments — the main gate is at the west end; the central track runs east from the gate through the middle of the site.
A = just inside the main gate, on the right B = halfway along the track, on the left C = halfway along the track, on the right D = at the far east end of the track E = in the north-east corner, behind the tall hedge F = in the south-east corner, beside the stream
- A just inside the main gate, on the right
- B halfway along the track, on the left
- C halfway along the track, on the right
- D at the far east end of the track
- E in the north-east corner, behind the tall hedge
- F in the south-east corner, beside the stream
14Trading shed
15Water tanks
16Communal hut
17Wildlife pond
Questions 18-20
Complete the sentences below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.
18The annual rent for a full plot is £ ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
19New plot holders pay a £10 deposit for a ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
20Communal working mornings are held on the first ______ of each month.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
Section 3
Two students discuss their business case study on a coffee chain · Hannah, Tom
Questions 21-24
Choose the correct letter, A, B or C.
21Why do the students decide against using SWOT analysis?
22Why does Tom want to reject the company's press releases?
23According to the students, why are Beanhouse's sales falling?
24What has changed about the presentation?
Questions 25-27
Who will do each task? Choose A, B or C. NB You may use any letter more than once.
- A Hannah
- B Tom
- C both Hannah and Tom
25calculating the financial ratios
26writing the introduction
27preparing the presentation slides
Questions 28-30
Complete the sentences below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.
28Since the spring openings, Beanhouse has had ______ stores.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
29Apart from the annual report, industry figures will come from the ______ database.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
30The students will now exchange their drafts on ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
Section 4
A lecture on adolescent sleep and school start times · Lecturer
Questions 31-40
Complete the notes below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.
31Adolescents need about ______ of sleep a night — more than adults.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
32At puberty, the hormone ______ starts to be released later in the evening.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
33Researchers call this shift in the body clock the ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
34Late nights are popularly blamed on ______, but these are only part of the cause.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
35The same sleep pattern occurs in communities that have no ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
36After Seattle schools started later, students slept about ______ more per night.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
37Sleep loss particularly affects the prefrontal cortex, leading to more ______ behaviour.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
38During deep sleep, the ______ replays new material and transfers it to the cortex.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
39This overnight storage process is known as ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
40Any daytime naps should last no more than ______.
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 customer arranges to rent a bicycle for a week
Assistant:Harbour Cycles, good morning. Dev speaking.
Customer:Oh, hello. I'm coming to Saltmere next week and I'd like to rent a bike for the whole week, if that's possible.
Assistant:Certainly is. Let me set up the booking. Could I have your name?
Customer:It's Freya Osborne.
Assistant:Osborne — with a U, like the television family? O-S-B-O-U-R-N-E?
Customer:No U in mine, actually. It's just O-S-B-O-R-N-E.
Assistant:O-S-B-O-R-N-E, lovely. And a mobile number?
Customer:It's oh-seven-nine-four, six-two-two, two-five-eight — oh no, wait, sorry, that's my daughter's. Mine ends three-five-eight. So oh-seven-nine-four, six-two-two, three-five-eight.
Assistant:Zero seven nine four, six two two, three five eight. Right. Now, bikes. What sort of riding are you planning?
Customer:Mostly the coastal path, I think, and a bit of shopping in town. I did wonder about one of those electric bikes, to be honest.
Assistant:We do rent e-bikes, but for a full week you're looking at a hundred and ten pounds, and the coastal path is pretty flat. Honestly, most visitors find that's money they didn't need to spend.
Customer:A hundred and ten... yes, that's more than I wanted to pay. What else is there?
Assistant:There's the city bike, which is fine for town but a bit heavy on gravel, or the hybrid — lighter frame, wider tyres, happy on the path and in town. That's what I'd suggest.
Customer:Let's go with the hybrid, then.
Assistant:Good choice. For a week the hybrid comes to forty-eight pounds. And there's a refundable deposit on top — that's sixty pounds... actually, forgive me, I'm looking at last season's card. The deposit on hybrids went up to eighty pounds this year. You get it all back when the bike comes home in one piece.
Customer:Eighty, fine. Does that include any equipment, or is it all extra?
Assistant:A helmet and a lock come free with every rental — we don't charge for those. Lights are five pounds for the week if you want them, but in July you'll hardly need them.
Customer:I'll skip the lights, I won't be out after dark. What about punctures? Just in case.
Assistant:Every bike goes out with a repair kit under the saddle — pump, levers, spare tube. If anything bigger goes wrong, ring us and we'll come out to you anywhere within ten miles.
Customer:That's reassuring. Now, I arrive on Thursday. Could I collect it at nine, before the crowds?
Assistant:Ah — Thursday's the one day that won't work, I'm afraid. We've got the new stock being delivered first thing, so we don't open until half past ten. Any time after that is fine.
Customer:Half past ten on Thursday, then. Do I need to bring anything?
Assistant:Just some photo ID for the deposit. Most people bring a passport — a driving licence does the job too, but we do need one or the other.
Customer:I'll bring my passport. And if I'm ever back late — after you close, I mean?
Assistant:No problem. We close at five thirty, but you can leave the bike at the harbour office — it's staffed until nine every evening, and they lock the bikes away for us. Don't just chain it up outside the shop, whatever you do.
Customer:The harbour office, got it. Thanks so much — see you Thursday.
Assistant:See you then, Freya. Enjoy Saltmere.
Section 2 — The site secretary gives an information talk to new allotment holders
Site secretary:Hello everyone, and welcome to Fenwick Lane Allotments. I'm Barbara, the site secretary, and this little talk saves me answering the same twenty questions one by one.
Site secretary:Let's start with the layout, because the site's bigger than it looks. You all came in through the main gate at the west end, and the central track runs east from there, right down the middle of the site, with plots on either side.
Site secretary:Just inside the main gate, on your right as you come in, there's a green shipping container. That's the trading shed — it's run by volunteers on Sunday mornings, and you can buy seed, compost and netting there at pretty much cost price.
Site secretary:Walk on down the track and about halfway along, on the right-hand side, you'll see two big black tanks up on brick piers. Those are the water tanks. They're filled from the mains between April and October, and this is important — hosepipes are not allowed on this site, full stop. Watering cans only. It feels slow, but the tanks simply can't refill fast enough if people run hoses, and it keeps everyone's costs down.
Site secretary:Right at the far east end of the track, where it stops at the boundary hedge, there's the communal hut. Tea urn, noticeboard, a shelf of spare tools, and the only toilet on site — worth knowing. Committee meetings happen there on the first Thursday of the month, and you're all welcome.
Site secretary:And in the south-east corner, down beside the stream, we've created a wildlife pond. Do wander down — the frogs eat your slugs — but keep children close, because the banks are slippery.
Site secretary:The compost bays are in the north-east corner behind the tall hedge, by the way — woody stuff only in the far bay, everything soft in the near ones.
Site secretary:Now, a few rules and dates. Normally the committee walks round every plot in mid-May — the annual inspection, just to check plots are being worked, not to judge your weeds too harshly. This year, though, half the committee are away for the county show, so the inspection's been pushed back to the middle of June. So you've got an extra month before anyone comes peering at your brambles — use it well.
Site secretary:Bonfires. I know everyone loves one, but they're only permitted during the winter months — November through to February — and never on a Sunday. The rest of the year, everything either goes in the compost bays or comes home with you.
Site secretary:Money matters. Rent for a full plot is forty-two pounds a year, half plots are twenty-two, and it's due every January. On top of that, new holders pay a one-off deposit of ten pounds for the gate key, which you get back if you ever leave us and hand the key in.
Site secretary:Last thing: we're a community, not just a row of vegetable patches. There's a communal working morning on the first Sunday of every month — mowing the track edges, fixing fences, that sort of thing — followed by bacon rolls in the hut. Come along, even just once. It's the quickest way to learn who grows what, and who gives away their spare seedlings. Right — any questions, I'll be by the trading shed.
Section 3 — Two students discuss their business case study on a coffee chain
Hannah:Right, Tom — the Beanhouse case study. We present in a few weeks and we still haven't fixed the framework. You were set on SWOT last time.
Tom:I was, because everyone understands it. Strengths, weaknesses, four boxes, done.
Hannah:That's exactly my worry. SWOT just describes — it ends up as a list of bullet points, and Dr Lindqvist said in the briefing she wants analysis, not description. Half the groups will hand in a SWOT.
Tom:Hmm. So what's your alternative — Porter's Five Forces?
Hannah:Yes. It forces you to explain why the industry is hard to make money in: supplier power, the threat of substitutes, rivalry. It answers questions instead of listing facts.
Tom:You know what — you're right. Mine would've read like a shopping list. Five Forces it is, and I'll admit that in the presentation, actually — why we rejected SWOT. It shows we thought about method.
Hannah:Good idea. Now, sources. I started pulling together Beanhouse's own press releases, there are dozens of them.
Tom:I'd honestly bin those. Every single one says the brand is thriving — they're marketing documents, they'd drag the whole analysis toward the company's own story. If we cite them, Lindqvist will mark us down for bias.
Hannah:Fair enough, dropped. So we lean on the annual report instead — the numbers there are audited, at least — and I can pull industry figures from the Mintel database through the library.
Tom:Perfect. The annual report also has the store count. They're at two hundred and sixty stores — no, hold on, that was before the spring openings. It's two hundred and eighty now. I keep quoting the old figure.
Hannah:Two eighty, I'll note it. Now, the interesting question — why are their sales falling when coffee consumption nationally is up?
Tom:The rents are part of it — nearly all their sites are inside railway stations, which was genius for fifteen years.
Hannah:And is now the problem. With so many people working from home part of the week, the commuter traffic those stores depend on just isn't there on Mondays and Fridays. It's not that competitors out-advertised them — footfall itself has gone.
Tom:Agreed, that's our central argument. Right, jobs. I'm happiest in spreadsheets, so shall I take the financial ratios — margins, revenue per store, that side?
Hannah:Please do. Then I'll take the competitor analysis, and I'd like to write the introduction as well, since it has to set up the Five Forces structure.
Tom:Fine by me. And the slides we should build together — if we design half each, they always look like two different presentations stapled together.
Hannah:Definitely — one Sunday session with both of us on the deck. Oh — and did you see the email? The presentations were supposed to be week ten, but Lindqvist is examining abroad that week, so we've been moved to week nine.
Tom:A week earlier? That kills our schedule. We'd said full drafts by Friday the twentieth.
Hannah:Which no longer works. Let's swap drafts on Monday instead — that leaves the weekend for reading each other's half before the joint slide session.
Tom:Monday it is. Tight, but doable. I'll start on the ratios tonight.
Section 4 — A lecture on adolescent sleep and school start times
Lecturer:This week's topic: why adolescents stay up late, why they can't get up in the morning, and what that means for how we schedule their education.
Lecturer:Let's begin with what the sleep itself should look like. Contrary to the folk belief that teenagers are simply lazy, adolescents actually need more sleep than adults — around nine hours a night, against the seven or so most adults function on. Very few get it — surveys put the school-night average closer to six and a half.
Lecturer:Why the shortfall? The core of the answer is biological. At puberty, the timing of the body clock changes: melatonin — the hormone that signals to the brain that it is time to sleep — begins to be released noticeably later in the evening than it is in children or adults. A fifteen-year-old told to sleep at ten is, hormonally speaking, being asked to fall asleep in the early afternoon of their internal day. Sleep researchers call this shift the phase delay, and it peaks at around age twenty before drifting back.
Lecturer:Now, the popular explanation for teenagers' late nights is, of course, technology. Screens are blamed almost universally, and not entirely without reason — the light and the stimulation certainly don't help. But screens are at best a partial account, and here is the evidence: the same delayed sleep pattern has been documented in adolescents in communities living without electricity. The shift, in other words, travels with puberty, not with the phone.
Lecturer:This matters most where biology collides with the school timetable. If the adolescent brain isn't ready to sleep before eleven, and school demands attendance at eight, the arithmetic of nine hours simply cannot work. In the best-known study, in Seattle, schools shifted their start by nearly an hour, and researchers with wrist monitors — not just questionnaires — found students gained a median of thirty-four minutes of nightly sleep. Grades in the monitored classes rose, and first-period absences fell, particularly in the poorer of the two schools studied.
Lecturer:What happens when adolescents don't get the sleep? Two findings deserve your attention. First, chronic sleep loss disproportionately affects the prefrontal cortex, the region responsible for judgement, planning and impulse control — the very region still under construction in the teenage years. Sleep-deprived teenagers show measurably more risk-taking behaviour, from driving decisions to substance use, and the effect appears within days, not years.
Lecturer:Second — and this is the finding with the most direct consequence for education — sleep is when learning is secured. During the deep stages of sleep, the hippocampus, which holds the day's new material in temporary form, replays that material and gradually transfers it to the cortex for long-term storage. This overnight process is called consolidation, and it is not optional: material learned but not slept on is, to a substantial degree, material lost.
Lecturer:So what do we advise, beyond later start times? The evidence supports a few modest behavioural measures: consistent wake times, even at weekends, since a Sunday lie-in of three hours effectively re-jetlags the body clock for Monday; caffeine ended by mid-afternoon; and if daytime naps are needed, keeping them to twenty minutes or less, because longer naps drop the sleeper into deep sleep and make the following night worse. Unglamorous advice — but in adolescent sleep research, it is the unglamorous findings that replicate.