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IELTS Listening — Practice Test 30

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Section 1 A passenger reports a delayed bag at an airport baggage services desk · Agent, Passenger

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

2Flight number: BA ______

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

3Missing item: a dark green ______

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

4Identifying feature: a red ______ around the middle

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

5Delivery address: 27 ______ Avenue, Kendal

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

6Delivery slot booked: tomorrow ______ (6–9 pm)

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

7File reference: ______

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 must the passenger keep in order to claim for essential items?

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

9How can the passenger follow the progress of his bag?

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

10Who should the courier leave the suitcase with if the passenger is out?

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

Section 2 A director of studies welcomes new students on orientation day at a culinary school · Director of Studies

Questions 11-13

Choose the correct letter, A, B or C.

11What does the speaker say about the school building?

A It was converted from a hotel. B It was purpose-built as a cookery school. C It used to be a railway station.

12What does the speaker warn new students about most strongly?

A forgetting their equipment B arriving late for practical classes C wearing the wrong shoes

13What does the speaker say about white jackets?

A Students must wash them at home. B The school laundry cleans them. C Students have to pay for them.

Questions 14-17

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

Plan of the ground floor — you enter through reception at the southern end; the main corridor runs north towards the courtyard.

A = directly opposite reception, across the entrance hall B = first door on the left along the corridor C = at the far northern end of the corridor, overlooking the courtyard D = upstairs, above reception E = across the courtyard, in a separate building F = to the right of reception, beside the staircase

A directly opposite reception, across the entrance hall
B first door on the left along the corridor
C at the far northern end of the corridor, overlooking the courtyard
D upstairs, above reception
E across the courtyard, in a separate building
F to the right of reception, beside the staircase

14Demonstration Theatre

15Uniform Store

16Pastry Kitchen

17Student Dining Room

Questions 18-20

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

18Because of rewiring work, the knife-skills induction now takes place on ______.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

19For the basement lockers, students must bring their own ______.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

20If the fire alarm sounds, students should assemble in the ______.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

Section 4 A lecture on how and why rivers change their course · Lecturer

Questions 31-40

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

31People commonly treat rivers as ______ features of the landscape, e.g. when fixing borders and property lines.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS

32On a bend, the fastest current erodes the outer bank while sediment is deposited on the ______ of the bend.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS

33A loop that is cut off and stranded becomes a curved lake known as an ______ lake.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS

34The sudden abandonment of a whole channel for a new route is termed ______.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS

35Deposition can leave a river perched above the level of its own ______.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS

36An exceptional flood is not the true cause of an avulsion but only the ______.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS

37In 2008 the Kosi River shifted its course by about 120 km in a matter of ______.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS

38Levees confine deposition to the channel, so the river's ______ rises faster than it would naturally.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS

39Old channels that cannot be seen from the ground are clearly visible in ______.

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS

40Where possible, permanent settlement should be placed on ______, leaving the floodplain for farmland and parks.

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 passenger reports a delayed bag at an airport baggage services desk

Agent:Good afternoon, Northgate Airport baggage services. Take a seat — how can I help?

Passenger:Hi. I've just come off a flight and one of my bags hasn't appeared. The belt's stopped and there's nothing left.

Agent:I'm sorry about that. Let me open a report for you. Which flight were you on?

Passenger:The one from Amsterdam — BA four-seven-six. Actually, hang on, no. Four-seven-six was my first leg, out of Stockholm. The Amsterdam flight was BA four-six-seven.

Agent:BA four-six-seven, landed fourteen twenty. Got it. And your full name, please?

Passenger:Joel Farrier.

Agent:Is that F-E-R-R-I-E-R?

Passenger:No, with an A — F-A-R-R-I-E-R. Like the person who shoes horses.

Agent:F-A-R-R-I-E-R, thank you. Now, can you describe the missing bag for me?

Passenger:It's a large suitcase, hard shell, dark green. I was also travelling with a black holdall, but that's not the problem — I had it with me in the cabin, actually.

Agent:So one dark green suitcase. Is there anything that would help the handlers pick it out? An awful lot of green cases come through here.

Passenger:Er, yes — there's a red strap buckled right round the middle. My wife's idea.

Agent:A red strap, lovely. Now, if it arrives on a later flight, we courier it out to you rather than making you drive back. What's the delivery address?

Passenger:It's twenty-seven Braeside Avenue, Kendal.

Agent:Is that B-R-A-Y-side?

Passenger:No — B-R-A-E. So the whole thing is B-R-A-E-S-I-D-E.

Agent:B-R-A-E-S-I-D-E, number twenty-seven. Right. Bags that missed the Amsterdam connection normally come in on tomorrow's first flight, so the courier could reach you between eight and midday. Would a morning slot suit you?

Passenger:Not really — I leave for work at half past seven. Is there anything later in the day?

Agent:There's an evening slot, six till nine. Shall I book that one instead?

Passenger:Yes please, the evening's much better for me.

Agent:Done. And I've logged the report — your file reference is eight, four, six, double two. You'll need that for any enquiry, so do write it down somewhere safe.

Passenger:Eight-four-six-two-two. Got it.

Agent:Now, because the delay will be over twelve hours, you can claim for essentials — toiletries, a change of clothes, that sort of thing. I can give you an interim expenses form to fill in right now, if you like.

Passenger:Mm, I'd honestly rather not do paperwork tonight after ten hours of travelling. Can I sort that part out later?

Agent:Of course — most people claim online afterwards anyway. Just make sure you keep the receipts for anything you buy, because we can't refund a penny without them.

Passenger:Receipts, fine. And how will I know where the bag's actually got to?

Agent:You can follow it online — enter the reference on the tracking page of our website and it updates at every stage. Far quicker than telephoning us, honestly.

Passenger:One last thing about that evening slot. If I'm held up and miss the courier, what happens then?

Agent:They'd try once more the following day — but you can nominate a safe alternative now, if there is one.

Passenger:Then leave it with my neighbour at number twenty-five. She's nearly always in.

Agent:With the neighbour at twenty-five — I've noted that on the docket. Anything else?

Passenger:No, that's everything. Thanks very much for your help.

Section 2 — A director of studies welcomes new students on orientation day at a culinary school

Director of Studies:Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Fenwick School of Culinary Arts. I'm Marion Hale, Director of Studies, and before you're let loose on the kitchens I'll give you a quick tour on paper, plus one or two changes to today's programme.

Director of Studies:First, the building itself, because people are always curious. Most new students assume it was purpose-built as a cookery school. It wasn't — it began life as a Victorian railway hotel, and when the school took the site over in the nineties, the training kitchens were fitted into what used to be the ballroom. The station it once served is long gone, by the way.

Director of Studies:Now, a word of warning, and I give it every year. The thing that trips up new students isn't the cooking, and it isn't forgotten equipment — we keep spares of almost everything. It's timekeeping. Practical classes start on the hour, and once service begins the kitchen doors are locked, exactly as they would be in a restaurant. Arrive ten minutes early, every time.

Director of Studies:Uniforms next. You'll be issued two white jackets free of charge, and the school laundry washes the jackets for you — there's a basket by the locker room. Aprons and trousers, though, are your own responsibility, so take those home. And kitchen shoes must never be worn outside the building — it's a hygiene rule.

Director of Studies:Right, the ground floor, and do follow on the plan you were given. You came in through reception at the southern end of the building, and the main corridor runs north from there, up towards the courtyard.

Director of Studies:Directly opposite reception, across the entrance hall — those double doors behind you now — is the Demonstration Theatre. That's where visiting chefs cook, and where most lectures happen.

Director of Studies:The Uniform Store is on this side too: as you face up the corridor it's to the right of reception, tucked in beside the staircase. Collect your jackets there any time before four today.

Director of Studies:If you walk up the corridor, the first door on the left is the theory classroom, and upstairs, above reception, you'll find the staff offices. Carry on right to the very end of the corridor and the last room, the one with windows overlooking the courtyard, is the Pastry Kitchen — deliberately the coolest room in the building, which is exactly what pastry needs.

Director of Studies:And the Student Dining Room isn't in the main building at all. Cross the courtyard and it's in the converted stables on the far side — you'll eat what the second-years cook.

Director of Studies:Now, one change to your printed timetable. The knife-skills induction was due to run this afternoon in the Demonstration Theatre, but the theatre is being rewired, so it's been moved to Thursday — same time, two o'clock, but in the Pastry Kitchen instead. Please don't turn up this afternoon.

Director of Studies:Two housekeeping points and I'll let you go. Lockers are in the basement, and you'll need to bring your own padlock — we don't sell them. And finally, if the fire alarm sounds, the assembly point is the car park at the front — not the courtyard, which is enclosed. Right — let's go and find you some jackets.

Section 3 — Two students and their tutor plan a museum exhibit about a local cotton mill

Dr Osei:Right, you two — the exhibit for the local history module. The museum has confirmed your slot, so let's pin things down. Where have you got to with the theme?

Amber:Well, we started with 'Two hundred years of Milbrook' — basically everything — but once we actually measured the space we realised we'd be giving each decade about a sentence. It's one room; really one long wall and two display cases.

Leo:So it was my suggestion that we cut it right down to the cotton mill and the people who worked in it. One story, told properly.

Dr Osei:Good. A single focused story always beats a crowded timeline, and frankly the size of that room was my worry from the start. Now — displays. Leo, you wanted a touchscreen, didn't you?

Leo:I did — visitors browsing the worker records. But we've dropped it, and not because of money, oddly enough. The museum could actually lend us a tablet.

Amber:The curator told us what happened with the interactive in their last exhibition. It froze in the first week, nobody on the staff could repair it, and it just stood there, dead, for a month.

Dr Osei:A wise retreat. Low-tech is reliable. So what carries the wall instead?

Amber:A printed timeline along the bottom, but I think the photographs should do the real work. The historical society has albums of the mill floor from the nineteen-twenties. My idea is to enlarge four or five of them to poster size and let the wall make the argument itself.

Dr Osei:I agree entirely. Text below eye level, images above. And the display cases — this is the society's loan, yes?

Amber:Yes. That was my other contribution, actually — I wrote and asked whether we could borrow original tools rather than buying reproductions, and they've said yes: shuttles, a spinner's oil can, some wage books.

Dr Osei:Excellent. The museum's own insurance covers incoming loans, so that's no obstacle. But I've seen the society's loan letter, and there is one condition: nothing they lend may sit in direct sunlight. So the cases go against the north wall, away from the window.

Leo:Fine. Now, the part we still don't agree on — my audio idea. I recorded interviews with two former weavers, and I want them playing in the room.

Amber:And I keep saying a small room with sound running on a loop drives everyone out.

Dr Osei:Can I offer a way through? The museum owns two listening posts — headsets on stands. Sound only for the person who chooses it.

Amber:Oh — headphones change everything, actually. If it's optional, I'm persuaded. Keep the interviews, Leo.

Leo:Then that's settled. Right — I'm drafting the final panel this week. The mill closed in nineteen eighty-two... sorry, seventy-two — I always do that — nineteen seventy-two, when production moved to Lancashire.

Dr Osei:Please do. And installation — you'd planned Friday, hadn't you?

Amber:We had, but the curator emailed this morning: there's a school group in all day Friday, so she's asked us to install on Wednesday instead. The museum's closed to the public on Wednesdays, so we'd have the room to ourselves.

Dr Osei:Better all round. One last thing before you go — paperwork. The society's loan runs for six weeks. Your exhibit is only up for four, which gives you a week either side for installing and packing.

Section 4 — A lecture on how and why rivers change their course

Lecturer:This week we turn to the awkward fact that rivers move. We tend to treat rivers as permanent features of the landscape: we draw borders along them, fix property lines to them, and build cities on the assumption that the water will stay where the map says. Over any timescale that matters to a settlement, that assumption is wrong.

Lecturer:Start with the slow version. On any bend the current runs fastest around the outside, eating away at the outer bank, while the slack water deposits sand and silt on the inside of the bend. So the bend grows year on year, and the river swings across its valley in loops we call meanders — loops that, left alone, exaggerate themselves.

Lecturer:Eventually a loop becomes so extreme that, during high flow, the river shortcuts across the narrow neck and abandons it. The stranded loop remains as a curved body of still water — an oxbow lake. Fly over any lowland floodplain and you'll see dozens, each recording a course the river once took.

Lecturer:That's the gradual mechanism. The dramatic one is called avulsion — the sudden abandonment of an entire channel for a completely new route across the plain. Not a bend migrating a few metres a year, but a river relocating itself.

Lecturer:Why does it happen? The cause-and-effect chain matters here. A lowland river carries enormous sediment loads, and where the gradient flattens it drops them in its own channel and along its banks. The bed rises. Given a few decades, the river can end up perched — flowing above the level of its own floodplain, held in place by its own natural embankments. Water wants the lowest point, and a perched river no longer occupies it.

Lecturer:When an avulsion happens, the popular explanation is nearly always the storm — an exceptional flood carved the new channel, people say. That gets the physics backwards. The flood is merely the trigger; the true cause is the decades of sediment that left the channel elevated and unstable. Without that build-up, the same storm would simply have passed downstream.

Lecturer:The consequences can be enormous. In two thousand and eight, the Kosi River in northern India burst an embankment and reoccupied a channel abandoned generations earlier — a shift of roughly one hundred and twenty kilometres, in a matter of days, not decades. Millions of people found a major river where there had been farmland.

Lecturer:Here is the irony for engineers. Artificial levees, built to hold a river in place, confine deposition to the channel itself — so the bed rises faster than it would naturally. Each decade of protection raises the stakes, because the river sits ever higher above the surrounding land. In most lowland basins, levees postpone avulsion; they do not prevent it.

Lecturer:What should planners do? Two things. First, know where the river used to be, because old channels are the routes it is most likely to reclaim. Happily, abandoned channels that are invisible from the ground show up with remarkable clarity in satellite images — curving scars across the fields. Second, respect what those scars are telling you. Wherever the choice exists — and in crowded deltas it often doesn't — permanent settlement belongs on higher ground, with the floodplain kept for farmland, parks and uses that can flood without tragedy. The river's history is the best available map of its future.