Practice Listening English Exercises for A1 – Profiles

1   F (… a successful doctor.)

2   T

3   T

4   F (… in the area for decades.)

5   F (… leaving Angola next month.)

Audioscript

Working with the Sick

34-year-old Dianne Grey was a successful doctor in the south of England, but for the last eight months she has been living in Angola, working for an organisation called Doctor Without Frontiers that provides emergency health care in several African countries.

Dianne was a GP in Horsham, Surrey. She had a good career ahead of her and a comfortable life, but she began to find her job rather boring. She says, “I was treating patients with routine medical problems – colds, sore throats and so on – and I felt a need to do something more important.”

The organisation she works for has been sending medical teams and equipment to Angola since 1986. Various armies have been fighting each other in the area for decades, and standards of health care have grown worse and worse. Outside the cities there aren’t enough hospitals, clinics, doctors or nurses, and many diseases have become a major problem.

At first Dianne was shocked, but she has been working hard to improve conditions there. During her time in Angola, she has treated thousands of patients and has been training local people as health care workers.

“Working here has been a very meaningful experience,” she says. “I have never felt so useful before. It’s so great to know that we have been helping people who really need it.” She will be leaving Angola next month, but she has already decided to return to Africa as soon as possible.

paint the walls, hang the curtains, lay the carpets, repair the back door, put up shelves, mend the fence

Audioscript

Sandra:   (phone rings) 427-37 double 1. Hello?

Joanne:   Hello, Sandra. It’s me – Joanne. How are you?

Sandra:   Fine, thanks. I haven’t spoken to you for ages! How are you getting on with your new house? Are you settling in all right?

Joanne:   Yes, thanks. I wanted to call you weeks ago, actually – it’s just that we’ve been so busy recently …

Sandra:   Yes, of course, I understand. So, tell me all about it, then!

Joanne:   Well, it really is a lovely house, but we’ve still got lots of things to do to it. So far, we’ve painted the walls white, and we’ve hung the curtains, too.

Sandra:   Did the dining-room curtains from your old house fit the windows? I know you thought that they’d be too short.

Joanne:   No, no. Luckily they’re OK. We’ve also laid the carpets. They look really nice. We’ve repaired the back door, too. We haven’t got round to buying all the furniture we need yet, but I’ve got my eye on a lovely blue sofa in Brown’s.

Sandra:   Oh, really? Aren’t they quite expensive?

Joanne:   Well, a bit – but their furniture is really good quality.

Sandra:   What about the kitchen? Have you got everything you need there?

Joanne:   Yes, but there wasn’t much storage space, so we’ve put up some shelves.

Sandra:   And what about that lovely big garden?

Joanne:   That jungle, you mean! We haven’t tidied up the garden yet – we just don’t have time, with everything else – but we have mended the fence. You know, to keep the dogs in. It’ll be lovely when it’s all finished, though.

Sandra:   I’d like to come round and see you, if I may.

Joanne:   Sure. I’d love to see you. We all would!

Sandra:   Well, I’ll try to pop round this weekend, then.

Joanne:   All right. Give me a ring before you come, to make sure we’re in, okay?

Sandra:   Yes, alright. See you soon, Joanne. Thanks for calling.

Joanne:   Lovely to speak to you, Sandra. Bye!

1 1955   2 1973   3 1994   4 1995

Audioscript

Bill Gates

Everyone has heard of Bill Gates, one of the richest and most successful people in the world. Microsoft, the business he started with a friend in 1975, has become the world’s largest computer software company, and Gates was the world’s youngest billionaire at the age of 31.

His full name is William Henry Gates III, and he was born on 28th October, 1955, in Seattle, USA. At school, Bill soon showed that he was very intelligent, and especially good at Maths and Science. His parents decided to send him to Lakeside, the private school where he first began to use computers. 13-year-old Bill Gates and his schoolfriend Paul Allen were soon spending all their time writing programs and learning about computers instead of doing their schoolwork!

After finishing school in 1973, Bill went to Harvard, America’s most famous university. The next year, he and Paul Allen wrote an operating program for the Altair, one of the world’s first microcomputers. The two friends started Microsoft in 1975, and Gates left Harvard. Before long, Microsoft was a major business success. Since then, the company has continued to grow, producing most of the world’s leading PC software. One reason for his success is that Gates has always been very ambitious and hardworking. This has not left him much time for a normal personal life, but in 1994 he married Melinda French, a Microsoft employee, and in 1995 he wrote a best-selling book, The Road Ahead.

Bill has mixed feelings about spending so much time running Microsoft. “There are a lot of experiences I haven’t had, but I do like my job,” he says. When he does find time to relax, he likes puzzles, golf and reading about science. For such a rich person, his life is simple, and he spends little on himself and his family. When it comes to helping others, though, Gates is very generous. He has already given huge amounts of money to charity, and says that he plans to give away almost all of his wealth when he retires.

B   1980, 1988

C   1994, 1996, 1998

D   going to museums … to keep racehorses

Audioscript

Narrator:   Martina Hingis has been a professional tennis player since 1994 and has already proved that she is one of the greatest players in the history of women’s tennis.

Martina was born in Kosice, Czechoslovakia, on 30th September, 1980. Her parents named their daughter after tennis star Martina Navratilova. She started learning to play tennis at the age of three, and has played in competitions since she was five years old. Her parents divorced, and her mother remarried in 1988, when Martina was eight. She moved to Switzerland with her mother and stepfather, and has lived there ever since.

In 1994 she became European Champion for players under 18. In 1996, she won the Wimbledon doubles title – at the age of 15! – and became the youngest player ever to earn $1 million in prize-money. In 1998 she won all four Grand Slam double titles. Since then, her career has had its ups and downs, with injuries and some surprising defeats, but her future still looks very bright.

Martina doesn’t have a lot of time for a social life. She is determined and hardworking. She is also very keen on all sports. Apart from tennis, her favourite sports are horse riding and skiing. She also likes going to museums, art galleries, the theatre and the cinema. When she retires from tennis, she’d like to keep racehorses.