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IELTS Listening — Practice Test 11

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Section 1 A parent phones a leisure centre to book swimming lessons for her daughter · Receptionist, Parent

Questions 1-7

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

1Child's surname: ______

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

2Child's age: ______

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

3Class group: the ______

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

4Lesson day: ______

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

5Start time: ______ pm

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

6Contact mobile: 07854 223 ______

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

7Cost per term: £ ______

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.

8How long will Freya's level assessment take?

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

9What must every child wear in the pool?

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

10Where do parents watch the lessons from?

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

Section 2 A coordinator introduces a neighbourhood car-sharing scheme · Coordinator

Questions 11-13

Choose the correct letter, A, B or C.

11What mainly prompted the creation of the scheme?

A the introduction of new parking charges B a survey showing local cars were hardly used C concern about air pollution

12What must every new member do before driving?

A pay a returnable deposit B take a short driving test C attend an induction session

13What is included in the hourly rate?

A fuel and insurance B fuel, but not insurance C insurance, but not fuel

Questions 14-17

Where will each vehicle be parked? Choose the correct letter, A–F, from the plan description below.

Plan of Bridgefield — the railway station is at the top (north) of the map and the river runs along the bottom (south).

A = outside the railway station B = behind the community centre, next to the bike racks C = on the corner of the market square D = beside the health centre E = at the end of Riverside Walk F = in the supermarket car park, by the recycling banks

A outside the railway station
B behind the community centre, next to the bike racks
C on the corner of the market square
D beside the health centre
E at the end of Riverside Walk
F in the supermarket car park, by the recycling banks

14the electric cars

15the van

16the wheelchair-accessible car

17the family estate car

Questions 18-20

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

18From October, the scheme will be open to the whole ______.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

19Members unlock the cars using their ______.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

20A fuel card is kept in the ______ of each car.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

Section 4 A lecture on the history and methods of mapping the ocean floor · Lecturer

Questions 31-40

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

31Early sailors measured depth by lowering a weighted ______.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS

32The measurement of ocean depth is known as ______.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS

33Work on underwater echoes speeded up after the sinking of the ______.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS

34Multibeam sonar maps a wide ______ of seabed on each pass.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS

35Satellites measure the exact height of the sea ______.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS

36A seamount's gravity pulls the water above it into a slight ______.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS

37Mars is easier to map because seawater absorbs ______.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS

38In 2005 an uncharted seamount was hit by a nuclear ______.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS

39Seamounts support dense communities of cold-water ______.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS

40Seabed 2030 also uses depth data donated by commercial ______.

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 parent phones a leisure centre to book swimming lessons for her daughter

Receptionist:Millpond Leisure Centre, good afternoon. Dean speaking.

Parent:Oh, hello. I'd like to enrol my daughter for swimming lessons, please. A friend said the autumn term starts soon.

Receptionist:It does, week after next. Let me set up a record. Can I take the child's name first?

Parent:Yes, it's Freya Whelan.

Receptionist:Whelan... I'll guess: W-H-E-E-L-A-N, like 'wheel'?

Parent:Nearly everyone does that! No, there's no double E — it's W-H-E-L-A-N.

Receptionist:W-H-E-L-A-N, thank you. And how old is Freya? The classes are grouped by age.

Parent:She turned eight in July.

Receptionist:Eight. So, our groups: the Ducklings are the four-to-sixes, complete beginners mostly. Eight-year-olds go into the Otters, which is seven to nine. And the Dolphins are ten and over — she'll move up in a couple of years.

Parent:The Otters, then. She can already swim a width, if that matters.

Receptionist:It does, actually, and we don't just take a parent's word for it — every new child does a short assessment with an instructor before we confirm the level. It's free, it takes fifteen minutes, and we run them on Saturday mornings. I'll book her in for this Saturday, shall I?

Parent:Please. What should she bring to that?

Receptionist:Just her usual swim things and a towel. Oh — one rule people grumble about: in the pool every child must wear a swimming cap. It's a hygiene thing. We sell them at reception for two pounds if you forget.

Parent:A cap, noted — she has one. Now, which day would her lessons actually be on?

Receptionist:The Otters run on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Which would you prefer?

Parent:Wednesday suits us much better — Thursday is her music lesson.

Receptionist:Let me check the register... ah. I'm sorry, the Wednesday Otters class is full — there are already two children on the waiting list. I can offer you Thursday at four thirty, and that class has four spaces.

Parent:Oh dear. Well... we'll just have to move the music lesson. All right, Thursday it is.

Receptionist:Thursday, four thirty. Now, a contact number for you?

Parent:My mobile: oh-seven-eight-five-four, double two... three, oh, six, one. No — sorry, wait. Six-one is my husband's; mine ends three-oh-six-seven. Oh-seven-eight-five-four, two-two-three, oh-six-seven.

Receptionist:Zero seven eight five four, two two three, zero six seven. Right. Now, the cost. Lessons are paid for by the term, not weekly... it says sixty-six pounds here — no, hold on, that's last year's sheet, I do apologise. The price went up in September: it's now seventy-two pounds for the twelve-week term.

Parent:Seventy-two, fine. My friend mentioned you also do one-to-one lessons?

Receptionist:We do — private half-hours at twenty pounds a session. Some parents combine them with the class.

Parent:Twenty pounds each? No, no, the group class will do perfectly well on its own.

Receptionist:Very good. Last thing: while the children swim, parents watch from the gallery upstairs, not from the poolside — the instructors find the little ones concentrate better that way. There's a coffee machine up there, for what it's worth.

Parent:The gallery, understood. And how do I pay the seventy-two?

Receptionist:Once the assessment confirms her group, you'll get an email with a payment link — pay within a week and the place is hers. Anything else?

Parent:No, that's everything. Saturday for the assessment, then Thursdays. Thanks so much.

Receptionist:Pleasure. See Freya on Saturday.

Section 2 — A coordinator introduces a neighbourhood car-sharing scheme

Coordinator:Thanks for squeezing into the hall tonight. I'm Patrick Doyle, coordinator of WheelShare, the car-sharing scheme launching in Bridgefield next month. I'll explain how it came about, how it works, and where the cars will actually be parked.

Coordinator:First, why do this? Some assume the trigger was the new parking charges; others think it was mainly about cutting pollution. Both played a part. But the real push came from the travel survey the residents' association ran last year, which found the average private car here sits parked for more than ninety-five per cent of its life. Hundreds of expensive machines going nowhere. Sharing a handful of vehicles is simply the rational answer.

Coordinator:How do you join? There's no deposit — I say that clearly because the rumour is we take two hundred pounds up front. Not true. You pay a small annual fee, show your driving licence, and the one thing we insist on is that every new member attends an induction session. It lasts an hour, we walk you round a car, and you make your first booking with someone beside you. Sessions run Tuesday evenings and Saturday mornings.

Coordinator:Costs, briefly: you book by the hour, and the rate covers everything — the fuel is included, and so is the insurance. The only extra is a charge for bringing a car back late, because that ruins the next booking.

Coordinator:Right — the cars, and where they live. Picture the neighbourhood with the railway station at the top of the map and the river along the bottom. We've secured six marked bays, though we start with four vehicles.

Coordinator:The two electric cars will be right outside the railway station, because that forecourt has the only public charging points in Bridgefield.

Coordinator:The van — the allotment holders will be pleased — goes in the supermarket car park, at the far end by the recycling banks: the supermarket donated the space, and it's the only bay wide enough for the sliding door.

Coordinator:Now, the wheelchair-accessible car. The spring plan had it on the corner of the market square — and that's still what the leaflet says — but we've had to move it: on market days the square is closed to traffic, making the car unreachable twice a week. It will now be beside the health centre, which is where most of its users are going anyway. Spread the word — the old leaflets are wrong.

Coordinator:And the family estate car, with the roof box and two child seats, will be behind the community centre — this building — next to the bike racks.

Coordinator:One more thing on geography. For the first six months, membership is limited to households on the Bridgefield estate, so we can iron out problems at a manageable scale. But from October the scheme opens to the whole postcode — if you've friends across the river, their turn is coming.

Coordinator:Finally, the practical bits. You unlock the car with your phone — no key exchange, the app does everything, and it won't unlock until your booking starts. Inside there's a fuel card in the glovebox: use it at any garage and it bills the scheme directly, never your own money. And before you drive off, walk round the car and report any damage through the app — the photos protect you as much as us. Right — questions?

Section 3 — Two students discuss their urban fox fieldwork with their tutor

Dr Shaw:Right, you two — the fox project. Remind me what the study is trying to establish; your proposal draft was a little woolly.

Lena:Fair criticism. We've tightened it: we want to know how foxes move between the city's green spaces — whether they follow particular corridors, like the railway embankments and the canal path, rather than crossing open streets.

Marcus:If they do use corridors, that's directly useful — the council could protect those strips when planning new building.

Dr Shaw:Good — a real question with a real user. Now, method. Your draft mentioned baiting the camera sites to guarantee fox visits. I want to talk you out of that.

Marcus:You don't need to — we've dropped it. Lena checked the literature: the problem isn't the cost, it's that bait changes what you're measuring — foxes start doing circuits of the feeding stations, so you're mapping the bait, not their natural movement.

Lena:And bait pulls in cats and rats, which trip the cameras constantly and bury the fox images in useless photos.

Dr Shaw:Exactly the right reasons. Unbaited cameras on natural runs, then. Where are you putting them?

Lena:That was our longest argument. Private gardens would be ideal habitat, but access means dealing with twenty separate householders, and people move cameras or let the dog out. The park was our second idea, but the rangers warned us the equipment would be vandalised within a fortnight.

Marcus:So we've settled on the allotments: fenced, gates locked at night, foxes constantly inside, and the allotment society's committee has already said yes — one signature instead of twenty.

Dr Shaw:Sensible. And mounting height? Students strap cameras at chest height and get nothing but blurred tails.

Marcus:My instinct was to go high — on the shed roofs, angled down, away from curious humans.

Lena:But a fox is small — from a roof you record the top of its head and lose the flank markings we need to tell individuals apart. They have to go at knee height, about forty centimetres, facing along the paths.

Marcus:Having seen the test shots, I concede — the knee-height frames were miles better. Knee height it is.

Dr Shaw:Agreed. How many cameras do you actually have?

Marcus:We ordered ten... well, we have ten boxes, but two came back faulty — they fire continuously — so realistically it's eight working cameras until replacements arrive.

Dr Shaw:Eight is enough for a pilot. Memory and batteries?

Lena:The cards fill fast, so we'll collect the memory cards every week — Sunday mornings, when the allotments are quietest. Batteries are good for a month.

Dr Shaw:Now, one administrative thing. The council's ecology team monitors foxes too, and any group filming wildlife on council-adjacent land must sign a data-sharing agreement — you get their historical sightings map, they get a copy of your location data at the end. It must be signed before the first camera goes up.

Lena:I'll draft it this week, then, and send it to their wildlife officer for signature.

Dr Shaw:Send the draft through me first — I have to countersign as supervisor. Last thing: the presentation. You're down for week eleven.

Marcus:Ah — haven't you seen the email? The external examiner visits in week eleven, so all presentations have been moved forward to week nine.

Dr Shaw:Week nine! You'd better be collecting data within a fortnight, then. Agreement signed, cameras up, and slides in week seven, please.

Section 4 — A lecture on the history and methods of mapping the ocean floor

Lecturer:This morning: a map that doesn't exist yet — the map of the ocean floor. Oceans cover seven-tenths of the planet, yet only around a quarter of the seabed has been surveyed in real detail.

Lecturer:For most of maritime history, depth was measured one point at a time: sailors lowered a weighted rope over the side and noted how much paid out before it touched bottom. The Challenger expedition of the eighteen-seventies spent four years doing this across the world's oceans — each deep sounding took hours. The science that grew from such work, the measurement of ocean depth, has a name you'll need: bathymetry.

Lecturer:The revolution came with sound: send a pulse downwards, time its echo, and depth becomes a calculation. The push came, as so often, from disaster and war — work on underwater echoes accelerated sharply after the sinking of the Titanic, and then during the submarine campaigns of the First World War. By the nineteen-twenties survey ships were drawing continuous depth profiles, which revealed the ridges and trenches that later underpinned plate tectonics.

Lecturer:A single echo sounder draws only a thin line below the ship. The modern instrument, multibeam sonar, fans out over a hundred beams at once and maps a wide strip of seabed with every pass — several kilometres across in deep water. The catch is coverage: mapping every ocean this way has been costed at several hundred ship-years. Nobody is paying for that.

Lecturer:So since the nineteen-nineties we have cheated, using satellites. A satellite cannot see the seabed, but it can measure, to within centimetres, the height of the sea surface — and the surface is not flat. Where a massive seamount rises, its extra gravity pulls seawater towards it, piling the water into a slight bulge, a couple of metres high. Map the bumps, and you have an indirect map of what lies beneath. Nearly everything in an online ocean map comes from this technique — but its resolution is coarse, roughly a kilometre and a half, so anything smaller simply isn't there.

Lecturer:Hence the popular claim that we know Mars better than our own oceans. The claim is true — our maps of Mars really are sharper — but the reason is usually given wrongly. It is not that space gets more money. The reason is physical: mapping radar passes cleanly through Mars's thin atmosphere, but seawater absorbs it — radar penetrates only centimetres into the ocean. There is no orbital shortcut: the seabed must be surveyed by sound.

Lecturer:Does the gap matter? In two thousand and five a nuclear submarine, the USS San Francisco, struck an uncharted seamount at full speed. Seamounts matter biologically too: their slopes force nutrient-rich water upwards, and they support dense communities of cold-water corals and the fish sheltering among them — several nations now protect newly charted seamounts almost as soon as they are found.

Lecturer:Hence Seabed 2030, the international project aiming for a complete map by the end of the decade. Coverage has roughly quadrupled, though a complete map by twenty-thirty is, I'd say, optimistic. The most interesting part is where the data comes from: alongside research fleets, the project harvests depth logs donated by commercial ships — ferries, cargo vessels, even fishing boats — recording as they sail. Millions of soundings from non-scientists. Next week: deep-sea currents.