Raw score
0/40
Estimated band
–
By section
–
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.
Your browser has no English speech voices available, so the audio cannot play. Try Chrome or Edge on desktop, or check your system's text-to-speech settings.
Section 1
A caller books guitar lessons at a music studio · 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
2Phone number: 07552 813 ______
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
3Level recorded: ______
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
4Lesson length chosen: ______ minutes
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
5Teacher: ______
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
6Lesson day: ______ at 6 pm
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
7Cost per lesson: £ ______
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 the caller bring to her lessons?
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
9Which entrance should students use in the evening?
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
10How much notice is needed to cancel a lesson without charge?
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
Section 2
A coordinator introduces a monthly community repair café · Coordinator
Questions 11-13
Choose the correct letter, A, B or C.
11What does Dawn emphasise about how the repair café works?
12What should people do with a large or heavy item?
13How are repairs allocated at each session?
Questions 14-17
Where is each station located? Choose the correct letter, A–F, from the plan description below.
Plan of Fairfield Community Centre — main doors lead into the lobby, then into the main hall; fire doors at the back of the hall open onto a courtyard, with a small brick annexe on the far side.
A = in the lobby, by the main doors B = in the main hall, on the left under the windows C = at the rear of the main hall D = in the courtyard, outside the fire doors E = in the annexe, across the courtyard F = upstairs, above the lobby
- A in the lobby, by the main doors
- B in the main hall, on the left under the windows
- C at the rear of the main hall
- D in the courtyard, outside the fire doors
- E in the annexe, across the courtyard
- F upstairs, above the lobby
14welcome desk
15textiles station
16bike station
17electronics bench
Questions 18-20
Complete the sentences below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.
18The café particularly needs volunteers with ______ skills.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
19Volunteers should register using the form on the ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
20The repair café takes place on the first ______ of every month.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
Section 3
A student and her supervisor review a draft conference abstract · Dr Mishra, Lena
Questions 21-24
Choose the correct letter, A, B or C.
21What is Dr Mishra's main criticism of the draft abstract?
22Why does Dr Mishra reject the title 'Swipe Right for Reading'?
23Which part of the abstract will Lena shorten?
24What does Dr Mishra clarify about the 30 April deadline?
Questions 25-27
Who suggests each change to the abstract? Choose A or B. NB You may use any letter more than once.
- A Lena
- B Dr Mishra
25replacing 'proves' with more cautious wording
26stating the number of participants
27keeping the sentence about implications for classrooms
Questions 28-30
Complete the sentences below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.
28The abstract for this year's conference may contain a maximum of ______ words.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
29If the abstract is accepted, the full paper must be submitted in ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
30Lena will email the revised abstract to Dr Mishra by ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER
Section 4
A lecture on what first names reveal to sociologists · Lecturer
Questions 31-40
Complete the notes below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.
31In pre-industrial England, about half of all men shared just ______ names.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
32The modern pool of names behaves like a ______, with regular rises and falls.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
33A popular name usually becomes usable again after about a ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
34The downward movement of names through society is called class ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
35Elite families give up a name once it has become ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
36Outcome differences linked to rare names disappear when family ______ is controlled for.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
37In experiments, CVs with minority-sounding names attract fewer ______.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
38This disadvantage is produced by bias among ______, not by the name itself.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
39Many first-generation immigrants ______ their names to fit into a new country.
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
40Members of the third generation often return to ______ names.
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 books guitar lessons at a music studio
Receptionist:Brightwater Music Studios, Ryan speaking. What can I do for you?
Caller:Hi. I'd like to book some guitar lessons — for myself, not a child. Is that something you do?
Receptionist:Absolutely, about half our learners are adults. Let me take some details. Your surname first?
Caller:It's Deakin.
Receptionist:Is that D-E-E-K-I-N?
Caller:No, with an A — D-E-A-K-I-N.
Receptionist:D-E-A-K-I-N, sorry. And a phone number?
Caller:Oh-seven-five-five-two, eight-one-three, four-oh-six... erm, actually no — I've just changed providers. The new one ends four-oh-nine. So oh-seven-five-five-two, eight-one-three, four-oh-nine.
Receptionist:Four-oh-nine at the end, lovely. Now, how would you describe your playing? We set the level before matching you with a teacher.
Caller:A complete beginner, really. Well — I did pass Grade Two, but that was a good ten years ago, so assume I remember nothing.
Receptionist:Ha, it comes back quicker than you'd think. If you've got Grade Two behind you, I'll put you down as intermediate — honestly, the beginners' course would bore you within a month. Your teacher can always adjust.
Caller:All right, intermediate it is. Slightly terrifying, but fine.
Receptionist:Now, lesson length. We do thirty minutes at sixteen pounds, forty-five at twenty-two, or a full hour at twenty-eight.
Caller:Hmm. The hour's tempting, but my hand will probably give out. Let's say forty-five minutes.
Receptionist:Forty-five it is, twenty-two pounds a lesson, paid online in blocks of four. There's also a Saturday group class, by the way — six learners, only ten pounds a session. A lot of adults like the company.
Caller:That's kind, but no — I'd rather make my mistakes in private. One-to-one only, please.
Receptionist:Fair enough! Now, teachers. For acoustic guitar at your level that would normally be Marco... although, hold on — Marco's on tour with his band until November. So you'd be with Elena. She taught at the conservatoire for years; people fight over her slots, so you're actually in luck.
Caller:Elena, fine. I was hoping for Tuesdays, about six in the evening?
Receptionist:Ah — Tuesday evenings are out for the next few weeks, I'm afraid. The practice rooms are being soundproofed and the builders have Tuesdays. Elena could do Wednesdays at six, though.
Caller:Wednesday at six works just as well, honestly.
Receptionist:Booked. A few practical things: bring your own guitar if you have one — we hire them at three pounds a lesson, but learners always do better on their own instrument.
Caller:I've got my grandfather's old acoustic, so I'll bring that.
Receptionist:Perfect. Music and picks we provide. And in the evenings the main door on the high street is locked after half five, so come round to the side entrance on Mill Street — there's a buzzer.
Caller:Side entrance, Mill Street. Got it. What if I ever have to cancel?
Receptionist:We ask for twenty-four hours' notice. Anything less than that and I'm afraid the lesson's still charged, because the teacher's booked.
Caller:Twenty-four hours, understood. Thanks so much, Ryan.
Receptionist:Pleasure. We'll see you Wednesday, Ms Deakin — enjoy dusting off that guitar.
Section 2 — A coordinator introduces a monthly community repair café
Coordinator:Thanks for coming, everyone. I'm Dawn, and I coordinate the Fairfield Repair Café, which opens for the first time a week on Saturday. Let me explain what it is, how the building's laid out, and how you can get involved.
Coordinator:So, the idea. You bring in a broken household item — a lamp, a torn jacket, a wobbly chair, a toaster — and our volunteer fixers repair it with you, free of charge. I do want to stress that word 'with'. This isn't a drop-off service; you stay with your item the whole time, you watch, you hold things, you learn. Half the point is that you leave more confident about fixing the next thing yourself. There's no fee at all, though there's a donations tin, and the money goes on tools and spare parts.
Coordinator:We run on the first Saturday of every month, ten till one, here at the Fairfield Community Centre. Now let me walk you through the layout, because we're spread across the site.
Coordinator:You come in through the main doors into the lobby, and the welcome desk is right there in the lobby as you enter. That's your first stop: you register your item, tell us what's wrong with it, and you're given a numbered ticket — repairs are strictly first come, first served, and the queue does build by eleven.
Coordinator:From the lobby you go straight into the main hall. The textiles station — that's sewing repairs, zips, hems, patching — is in the main hall, on the left-hand side under the windows, where the light's best.
Coordinator:Bikes. We can't have oily chains indoors on a polished floor, so the bike station is out in the courtyard, just through the fire doors at the back of the hall. Puncture repairs, brakes, gears — they'll be out there in all but the worst weather.
Coordinator:Now, electronics — and here there's a change from the printed leaflet, so listen carefully. The electronics bench was going to be at the rear of the main hall, but the hall's wiring is being upgraded this autumn and our insurers won't let us test appliances in there while that's going on. So the electronics bench has moved across the courtyard to the annexe, the small brick building opposite the fire doors. It's actually better — they've got the safety testing rig permanently set up there now.
Coordinator:One more practical point. If your item's big or heavy — a lawnmower, say, or a sewing machine in a cabinet — please don't just haul it in. Email us a photo beforehand, and the fixers will tell you whether it's worth the trip and whether they'll need parts.
Coordinator:Finally, volunteers — we always need more. You don't have to be an expert; greeters and tea-makers matter as much as fixers. But I'll be honest: what we're really short of is people with electrical skills, because every session brings a mountain of kettles and radios. If you'd like to help, sign up on the website — there's a short form, and Marion will call you back within the week. Right — questions?
Section 3 — A student and her supervisor review a draft conference abstract
Dr Mishra:Right, Lena, I've read the draft abstract for the education conference. There's a solid piece of work underneath it. Shall I start with the thing that worries me most?
Lena:Go on — the first sentence, isn't it.
Dr Mishra:The second, actually. You write that the study 'proves that tablet use improves reading comprehension'. You tested sixty pupils in one school over one term. That's a perfectly respectable design for a master's project, but it can't prove anything about tablets in general.
Lena:Hmm. I suppose I wanted it to sound confident. Reviewers must see hundreds of abstracts.
Dr Mishra:Confident and accurate aren't opposites. Say the results 'suggest an association' between tablet use and comprehension gains. Overclaiming is the single fastest way to get rejected, because it tells the panel you don't understand your own limitations.
Lena:All right — 'suggest', not 'prove'. What about the title? I was quite pleased with 'Swipe Right for Reading'.
Dr Mishra:Ha — it's catchy, I'll give you that. But think about how people find conference papers: they search keywords. Nobody types 'swipe right' into a database when they're looking for literacy research. A title with no keywords is a paper nobody finds.
Lena:But a plain title is so forgettable. Isn't there a case for standing out?
Dr Mishra:In a magazine, yes. In conference proceedings, discoverability beats charm every time. Keep the joke for your opening slide — the title needs 'tablets', 'primary' and 'reading' in it.
Lena:Okay, you've convinced me. Something like 'Tablet Use and Reading Comprehension in Primary Classrooms', and I'll save the pun for the talk itself. Now — length. We're allowed three hundred words, and I'm at two ninety, so... oh, hang on. No, sorry — three hundred was last year's conference. This one's two hundred and fifty. I'm forty words over.
Dr Mishra:Good catch, better now than at midnight on deadline day. And the cut is obvious: your second paragraph spends four sentences summarising previous studies. In an abstract, one sentence of background is plenty — the panel already knows the literature.
Lena:That's about fifty words back. Should I use some of them to state the sample size? I left it out to save space.
Dr Mishra:Definitely put the sixty pupils in — reviewers get suspicious when the numbers are missing, and given we're now saying 'suggest', the honest sample size actually supports the tone. I'd also keep your final sentence on classroom implications; that's what makes it a conference talk rather than a lab report.
Lena:Right. One thing I need to double-check — the thirtieth of April deadline. That's for the full paper, isn't it? Because I can't finish the full write-up by then.
Dr Mishra:No, no — breathe. The thirtieth of April is for the abstract only. If they accept it, the full paper isn't due until September, after the summer. You've got one page to polish, not forty.
Lena:Oh, that's an enormous relief. So I'll rewrite and send it to you — shall we say Monday?
Dr Mishra:I'm external-examining Monday and Tuesday. Email it by Friday this week, and we'll go through it at supervision on Wednesday as usual.
Lena:Friday it is. Thanks — I'll go and murder my favourite title.
Section 4 — A lecture on what first names reveal to sociologists
Lecturer:Today's lecture is about something you all carry and none of you chose: your first name. To a sociologist, names are a beautifully clean data source — every birth is registered, so we have near-complete records stretching back centuries — and names encode far more than parents intend.
Lecturer:Start with how radically naming has changed. In pre-industrial England the pool of names was astonishingly small — for long stretches, just three names covered roughly half of all men. Naming signalled continuity: you took your grandfather's name, and originality was nobody's goal. Today the pattern has inverted. Parents actively avoid the very popular names, and the modern name pool behaves exactly like a fashion — items rise, saturate, and fall from favour on remarkably regular schedules.
Lecturer:And those schedules are measurable. A name that peaks tends to feel impossibly dated for two generations and then becomes usable again — revival typically comes after roughly a century. That's why the names of your great-grandparents sound charming to you while your parents' generation's names sound, frankly, middle-aged.
Lecturer:Where do new fashionable names come from? Overwhelmingly from the top of the social scale. High-status families adopt a distinctive name; it filters steadily down the income distribution; and — this is the crucial part — once the name becomes common, the elite abandon it and move on. Sociologists call this process class diffusion, and you can watch a name complete the whole journey in the registration data, usually inside forty years. The name isn't 'good' or 'bad' — it's a signal that wears out through use.
Lecturer:Now for the myth I promised to correct. You may have read popular books claiming that an unusual name shapes a child's future — dooming them to failure or propelling them to distinction. Large-scale studies say otherwise. Children with rare names do differ, on average, in later outcomes — but the differences all but vanish once you control for family background. Parents who choose unusual names differ in income, education and neighbourhood, and it's those things, not the syllables, doing the work. The name predicts; it does not cause.
Lecturer:One important exception, and it's an uncomfortable one. In field experiments, researchers send out identical CVs under different names, and applications carrying minority-sounding names consistently receive fewer interviews. Note carefully what that shows: the disadvantage arises from bias among employers, not from any effect of the name on the person who bears it. The problem sits with the reader of the name, and that distinction matters enormously for policy.
Lecturer:Finally, names as historical evidence. Because registers survive, naming lets us trace migration in a way few other records can. First-generation immigrants, throughout the twentieth century, frequently anglicised their names — softening or translating them to ease their path in a new country. Their children often kept those adjusted forms. But look at the third generation and you see something moving the other way: a deliberate return to traditional names, as grandchildren reclaim an identity their grandparents had set aside. You can read a family's whole trajectory of arrival, assimilation and reclamation in three lines of a register.
Lecturer:So: names won't tell you who a child will become — but they will tell you, quite precisely, who the parents are, where a family has been, and how a society ranks itself. Next week: surnames and social mobility.