Practice English Listening Tests for B1 – Listening Test 11

8 B   9 B   10 A   11 B   12 A   13 B

Audioscripts

8   You will hear two friends discussing what to do in the afternoon.

Man:   Do you still fancy going out for a walk this afternoon?

Woman:   Yes, but shall we see what the weather’s like first? The forecast says we’re going to get heavy rain.

Man:   OK, but I really don’t want to stay in. We can have a look around the shopping centre in town if it rains. That’s all indoors.

Woman:   I want to go out too but not more shopping, please. I’ve already spent too much money this month.

Man:   Yes, me too. Yes, let’s see if the forecast is correct before we decide.

Now listen again.

9   You will hear two friends talking about keeping fit.

Man:   Have you decided to renew your gym membership?

Woman:   I’m not sure really. I don’t know if it’s doing me any good.

Man:   Why don’t you try swimming? You’re a good swimmer.

Woman:   I could do I suppose. It might be more fun than the gym.

Man:   I don’t think there’s a better way to keep fit. Plus, that new swimming pool is huge. I always find swimming pools get crowded and you get in each other’s way, but that’s not a problem in the new one.

Now listen again.

10   You will hear a woman telling a friend about a handbag.

Woman:   Can you pass me the laptop? I need to write an email complaining about that handbag.

Man:   What’s the problem with it?

Woman:   Well, I’ve already sent one back. I ordered one in brown and they sent me a black one. I really don’t like black so I returned it and they sent me the correct one. But look, the handle is coming off.

Man:   Oh yes. That’s not very good is it?

Woman:   No, it’s not. And what makes me angry is I have to keep going to the post office to post it back. It doesn’t cost anything but it’s annoying and a waste of time.

Now listen again.

11   You will hear two friends talking about a new doctor.

Man:   I’ve got to make an appointment with that new doctor tomorrow. Have you seen him yet?

Woman:   Yes, I went to the clinic a couple of weeks ago. Doctor Collins. He’s a lot younger than the last doctor, and very caring.

Man:   Good, I was hoping he’d be better than the last doctor we had.

Woman:   I know. That one never seemed to listen to what you were saying, did he? You should phone early for your appointment though. The new one is the only doctor there at the moment, so he’ll get booked up very quickly.

Now listen again.

12   You will hear two friends talking about a storm.

Woman:   Was there anything interesting on the news tonight?

Man:   They’re still reporting on the storm that happened last night. They said we had a month’s rain in one night.

Woman:   It was terrible, wasn’t it? There’s been so much damage to people’s property.

Man:   Our area escaped the worst of it. It seemed to affect the northern parts of the country most. They think there’s another storm heading our way at the end of the week. It’s not going to be quite as bad but we still need to take care.

Now listen again.

13   You will hear a woman telling a friend about her noisy neighbours.

Woman:   Ever since those people moved into the flat upstairs, I haven’t been able to sleep properly.

Man:   Why is that? Do they make a noise?

Woman:   Yes, they play music quite loudly late at night and they seem to have a party almost every weekend.

Man:   Have you spoken to them about it?

Woman:   Not yet. My husband thinks we should knock on their door and tell them to be quiet but I’m thinking of asking them round for dinner. It will be a nice thing to do and then if we do need to complain in the future, they might be more likely to agree.

Now listen again.

20 A   21 B   22 C   23 A   24 C   25 C

Audioscripts

Interviewer:   Today I’m speaking to Matt Jennings about using email safely.

Matt:   Hi. Thanks for inviting me on. People are generally taking more care to protect themselves and noticing things that aren’t correct, but at the same time criminals are getting better at inventing new ways to get what they want.

Interviewer:   So give us some of your tips for email safety.

Matt:   Let’s start with the emails you might receive. Every day I get at least one telling me I need to change my password on a company website. Sometimes I don’t even have an account with the company, so I know immediately that this email needs deleting. But if you do recognise the company and think you may have an account with them, do not click any links in the email.

Interviewer:   So what should we do?

Matt:   Go to the company website and log in with your personal details. If you’re concerned about security, simply change your password on the website itself. The link in the email might take you to a website that looks like the company’s but could be a copy. Any information you add will be seen by the criminals.

Interviewer:   OK, so what’s your next tip?

Matt:   OK, there are emails that arrive telling you that someone is in trouble and needs your help urgently. I had one the other day from an email address of someone I know. It said they had lost their purse and needed money to get home. It started ‘Dear Matt’ and ended with the name of the person. To a lot of people, it would look OK.

Interviewer:   So what did you do?

Matt:   I certainly didn’t send any money. Not long after, I received another email from the same address, this time from my friend. She explained that someone had got into her email account and had sent the earlier message. But even if she hadn’t contacted me, I would have tried to phone her to check that everything was OK.

Interviewer:   We need a strong password on our email account then?

Matt:   Yes, on all your accounts really. And don’t use passwords that people can easily guess. If you use words, and people do because they can remember them, change some letters for numbers, so use 1 instead of i, or zero instead of o. And start the password with an unusual character like a question mark or full stop. And make sure one of the letters is a capital.

Now listen again.