PRACTICE TEST 1

Section 1
Mrs Blake: Hello?

Conor: Oh, hello I'm ringing about the advertisement in yesterday’s newspaper...
the one for the bookcases can you tell me if They're still available?

Mrs Blake: We've sold one, but we still have twoavailable.

Conor: Right. Err... can you tell me a bit about them?

Mrs Blake: Sure, er. what do you want to know?

Conor: Well, I'm looking for something to tit in my study, so. well, I’m not too worried
about the height, but the width's quite important Can you tell me how wide each of
them is?

Mrs Blake: They're both exactly the same size let me see. I’ve got the details written
down somewhere. Yes. so they're both 75 cmwide and 180 cm high

Conor: OK. fine, that should fit m OK. And I don't want anything that looks too
severe . . not made of metal, for example I was really looking for something made
of wood?

Mrs Blake: That's all right, they are, both of them

Conor: So. are they both the same price as well?

Mrs Blake: No, I he first bookcase is quite a bit cheaper. It's just £15.00. We paid
£60.00 for it just five years ago. so it's very good value. It's in perfectly good condition,
they're both in very good condition in tact, but the first one isn't the same quality as the
other one It's a good sturdy bookcase, it used to be in my son’s room, but it could do
with a fresh coat of paint...

Conor: Oh, it’s painted?

Mrs Blake: Yes, it’s cream at present, but as I say you could easily change that if
you wanted to fit in with your colour scheme.

Conor: Yes. I'd probably paint it white if I got it Let's see, what else ... how many
shelves has it got?

Mrs Blake: Six two of them are fixed, and the other four are adjustable so you can
shift them up and down according to the sizes of your books.

1
Conor: Right, fine Well that certainly sounds like a possibility.

Mrs Blake: But the second one's a lovely bookcase too. That's not painted, it’s just
the natural wood colour, a dark brown It was my grandmother’s, and I think she bought
it sometime in the 1930s so I'd say it must be getting on for eighty years old, it’s very
good quality, they don’t make them like that nowadays

Conor: And you said it's the same dimensions as the first one?

Mrs Blake: Yes, and it's got the six shelves, but it also has a cupboard at the bottom
that’s really useful for keeping odds and ends in.

Conor: Right

Mrs Blake: Oh. And I nearly forgot to say, the other thing about it is it's got
glass doors, so the books are all kept out of the dust. So it's really good value for the
money. I’m really sorry to be selling it but we just don’t have the room for it.

Conor: Mmm So what are you asking for that one?

Mrs Blake: £95.00 It's quite a bit more, but it’s a lovely piece of furniture - a real
heirloom.

Conor: Yes all the same, it's a lot more than wanted to pay .. I didn't really want to
go above thirty or forty Anyway, the first one sounds fine for what' need.

Mrs Blake: Just as you like.

Conor: So is it all right if I come round and have a look this evening, then if it's OK
I can take it away with me?

Mrs Blake: Of course. So you’ll be coming by car. will you?

Conor: ‘ve got a friend with a van, so I'll get him to bring me round, if you can just
give me the details of where you live.

Mrs Blake: Sure. I'm Mrs Blake. ..

Conor: B-L-A K E?

Mrs Blake: That's right, and the address is 41 Oak Rise, that’s in Stanton.

Conor: OK so I'll be coming from the town centre, can you give me an idea of where
you are?

Mrs Blake: Yes. You know the road that goes out towards the university?

Conor: Yes.

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Mrs Blake: Well you take that road, and you go on till you get to a roundabout, go
straight on, then Oak Rise is the first road to the right.

Conor: Out towards the university, past the roundabout, first left?

Mrs Blake: First right. And we're at the end of the road.

Conor: Got it. So I’ll be round at about 7:00, if that's alright. Oh, and my name's
Conor .. Conor Field.

Mrs Blake: Fine I’ll see you then, Conor Goodbye

Conor: Goodbye

Section 2
Announcer: One of the most anticipated art events-m Christchurch is the Chanty Art
Sale, organised this year by Neil Curtis. Ne»l, tell us all about it Neil: Well, Diane, this
looks like being the biggest art sale yet, and the best th ng about it is that the money
raised will all go to charity. So what you probably want to know first is where it is. Well,
the pictures will be on view all this week, most of them at the Star Gallery in the
shopping mall, but we have so many pictures this year that we're also showing some
in the cafe next door, so do drop in and see them any day between 9.00 and 5.00.
Now if you're interested in buying rather than just looking - and we hope a lot of you
will be the actual sale will take place on Thursday evening, with sales starting at 7.30 -
refreshments will be available before the sale, starting at 6.30. We’ve got about 50
works by local artists showing a huge range of styles and media, and in a minute. I'll
tell you about some of them. You’re probably also interested in what’s going to happen
to your money once you've handed it over well, all proceeds will go to support children
who are disabled, both here in New Zealand and also in other countries, so you can
find an original painting, support local talent, and help these children all at the same
time.

Now let me tell you a bit about some ot the artists who have kindly agreed to donate
their pictures to the Charity Art Sale.

One of them 15 Don Studley, who has a special interest in the art sale because his
five-year-old daughter was born with a serious back problem After an operation earlier
this year, she's now doing fine, but Don says he wants to offer something to help other
less fortunate children. Don is totally self taught, and says he's passionate about
painting. His paintings depict some of our New Zealand birds in their natural habitats.

One relative newcomer to New Zealand is James Chang, who came here from Taiwan
nine years ago. At the age of 56, Mr Chang had 13 exhibitions in Taiwan before he
came to live here in Christchurch so he's a well-established artist and art has been a

3
lifelong passion for him. His paintings are certainly worth looking at - if you
like abstract pictures with strong colour schemes, you'll love them.

Natalie Stevens was born in New Zealand, but has exhibited in China. Australia and
Spain. As well as being an artist, she's a website designer. She believes art should be
universal, and her paintings use soft colours and a mixture of media Most of her
pictures are portraits so watch out - some of them may even be friends of yours.

And then we have Christine Shin, from Korea. Christine only started to learn
English two years ago, when she arrived in New Zealand, but she's been painting
professionally for over ten years and she sure knows how to communicate strong
messages through the universal language of art She usually works from photographs,
and paints delicate watercolours, which combine traditional Asian influences with New
Zealand landscapes, giving a very special view of our local scenery.

Well, that's all I have time to tell you now, but as well as these four, there are many
other artists whose work will be on sale so do come along on Thursday We accept
cheques, credit cards 01 cash and remember, even if you don't buy a picture you can
always make a donation!

Section 3
Olivia: Hi, Joey. How are you doing? I heard you were sick.

Joey: Oh, hi, Olivia. Yeah, I had a virus last week, and I missed a whole pile of
lectures, like the first one on the Great Books in Literature where Dr Castle gave us all
the information about the semester project.

Olivia: i can give you copies ot the handouts, I've got them right here.

Joey: That’s OK. I already collected the handouts but I'm not very clear about all
the details... I know we each have to choose an individual author ... I think I'm going
to do Carlos Castenada ... I'm really interested in South American literature.

Olivia: Have you checked he's on the list that Dr Castle gave us? We can't just
choose anyone.

Joey: Yeah. I checked, it's OK Who did you choose?

Olivia: Well, l was thinking of choosing Ernest Hemingway, but then I thought no,
I'll do a British author not an American one, so I chose Emily Bronte.

Joey: OK .. and first of all it says we have to read a biography of our author I guess
it's OK if we just look up information about him on the Internet?

4
Olivia: No, it's got to be a full-length book I think the minimum length's 250 pages .
there's a list of biographies, didn't you get that?

Joey: Oh right I didn't realise we had to stick with that. So what do we have to do
when we've read the biography?

Olivia: Well, then we have to choose one work by the writer .. again it's got to be
something quite long, we can't just read a short story.

Joey: But I guess a collection of short stories would be OK?

Olivia: Yes, or even a collection of poems, they said, but I think most people are
doing novels. I'm going to do Wuthenng Heights, I've read it before but I really want to
read it again now I've found out more about the writer

Joey: And then the video . . we have to make a short video about our author and
about the book. How long has it got to be?

Olivia: A minute

Joey: What? Like, sixty seconds? And we gotta give all the important information
about their life and the book we choose ...

Olivia: Well you can't do everything I wrote it down somewhere ... yes, Dr Castle
said we had to ’find or write a short passage that helps to explain the author's passion
for writing, why they're a writer' So, we can back this up with reference to important
events in the writer's life if they’re relevant, but it’s up to us really. The video's meant
to portray the essence of the writer's life and the piece of writing we choose.

Joey: So when we read the biography, we have to think about what kind of person
our writer is...

Olivia: Yes . and the historical context and so on. So for my writer, Emily Bronte,
the biography gave a really strong impression of the place where she lived and the
countryside around.

Joey: Right, I'm beginning to get the idea.

Joey: Er can I check the other requirements with you?

Olivia: Sure

Joey: The handout said after we'd read the biography, we had to read the work
we'd chosen by our author and choose a passage that's typical in some way that
typifies the author's interests and style.

Olivia: Yes, but at the same time it has to relate tc the biographical extract you
choose there's gotta be some sort of theme linking them

5
Joey: OK. I'm with you

Olivia: And then you have to think about the video.

Joey: So are we meant to dramatise the scene we choose?

Olivia: I guess we could, but there's not a lot of time for that ... I think it’s more how
we can use things like sound effects tc create the atmosphere, the feeling we want.

Joey: And presumably visuals as well?

Olivia: Yeah, of course - I mean, I suppose that's the whole point of making a video
but whatever we use has to be historically in keeping with the author. We can use
things like digital image processing to do it all

Joey: So we can use any computer software we want?

Olivia: Sure. And it's important that we use a range - not just one software program
That's actually one of the things we're assessed on.

Joey: OK.

Olivia: Oh, and something else that’s apparently really important is to keep track of
the materials we use and to acknowledge them

Joey: Including stuff we download oft the Internet presumably?

Olivia: Yeah, so our video has to list all the material used with details of
the source in a bibliography at the end.

Joey: OK And you were talking about assessment of the protect did they give us
the criteria? I couldn't find anything on the handout.

Olivia: Sure He gave us them in the lecture. Let’s see. you get 25 percent just for
getting all the components done that’s both sets of reading, and the video. Then the
second part is actually how successful we are at getting the essence of the work, they
call that ’content’ and that counts for 50 percent Then the last 25 percent is on the
video itself, the artistic and technical side.

Joey: Great Well, that sounds a lot of work, but a whole lot better than just handing
n a paper. Thanks a lot, Olivia

Olivia: You're welcome.

Section 4

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Hello, everybody, and welcome to the sixth of our Ecology evening classes. Nice to
see you all again. As you know from the programme, today I want to talk to you about
some research that is pushing back the frontiers of the whole field ol ecology. And this
research is being carried out in the remoter regions of our planet .. places where the
environment is harsh and until recently it was thought that the conditions couldn't
sustain life of any kind. But, life forms are being found and these have been grouped
into what is now known as extremophiles that is, organisms that can survive in the
most extreme environments. And these discoveries may be setting a huge challenge
for the scientists of the future, as you'll see in a minute.

Now, the particular research I want to tell you about was carried out in Antarctica one
of the coldest and driest places on Earth. But a multinational team of researchers -
from the US, Canada and New Zealand - recently discovered colonies of microbes in
the soil there, where no one thought it was possible. Interestingly enough, some of the
colonies were identified as a type of fungus called Beauvena Bassiana a fungus that
lives on insects. But where are the insects in these utterly empty regions of Antarctica?
The researchers concluded that this was clear evidence that these colonies were
certainly not new arrivals they might've been there for centuries, or even millennia
possibly even since the last Ice Age'. Can you imagine their excitement?

Now, some types of microbes had previously been found living just a few millimetres
under the surface of rocks porous, Antarctic rocks, but this was the first time that living
colonies had been found surviving - erm relatively deeply in the soil itself, several
centimetres down in fact.

So, the big question is: how can these colonies survive there? Well, we know that the
organisms living very near the rock surface can still be warmed by the sun, so they
can survive in their own microclimate ... and this keeps them from freezing during the
day But this isn't the case for the colonies that are hidden under the soil.

In their research paper, this team suggested that the very high amounts of salt in the
soil might be the clue because this is what is preventing essential water from freezing.

The team found that the salt concentration increased the deeper down they went in
the soil But while they had expected the number of organisms to be fewer down there,
they actually found the opposite. In soil that had as much as 3000 parts of salt per
million, relatively high numbers ol microbes were present - which seems incredible!
But the point is that at those levels of salt, the temperature could drop to minus 56
degrees before frost would cause any damage to the organisms

This relationship between microbes and salt at temperatures way below the normal
freezing point of water - is a really significant breakthrough As you all know, life is
dependent on the availability of water in liquid form, and the role of salt al very low
temperatures could be the key to survival in these kinds of conditions. Now the process
at work here is called supercooling - and that's usually written as one word but it isn’t
really understood as yet, so, there's a lot more for researchers to work on However,
the fact that this process occurs naturally in Antarctica, may suggest that it might occur
in other places with similar conditions, including on our neighbouring planet, Mars. So,
you can start to see the wider implications of this kind of research.

7
In short, it appears to support the growing belief that extraterrestrial life might be able
to survive the dry, cold conditions on other planets alter all. Not only does this research
produce evidence that life is possible there, it’s also informing scientists of
the locationswhere it might be found. So all of this might have great significance for
future unmanned space missions.

One specialist on Mars confirms the importance …

PRACTICE TEST 2
Section 1
Cindy: Hello, Brindall's Estate Agents here. How may I help you?

Martin: Oh, good morning, I’m ringing to see what flats you have for rentat the
moment.

Cindy: Right. Can I start by just taking your name Mr em...

Martin: Hill, Martin Hill

Cindy: Right, and are you looking for a flat for yourself or ... em ... a family
perhaps?

Martin: Well it's for three of us myself and two friends - we're going to share
together.

Cindy: I see . . erm, what about employment - are you all students?

Martin: Oh no, we’ve all got full time jobs - two of us work in the Central Bank,
that's Chris and me and Phil that’s the other one is working for Hallam cars, you
know, at the factory about two miles out of town?

Cindy: I'll put you down as young professionals, then and I suppose you'll be
looking for somewhere with three bedrooms?

Martin: Yeah - at least three. But actually, we'd rather have a fourth room as
well if we can afford it - for friends staying over and stuff

Cindy: Is that with a living room to share? Plus kitchen and bathroom?

Martin: Yeah, that sounds good But we must have a bathroom with a shower. We
don't mind about having a bath, but the shower's crucial.

8
Cindy: OK, I'll just key that in ... Arid, are you interested in any particular area?

Martin: Well the city centre would be good for me and Chris, so that's our first
preference ... but we'd consider anything in the west suburbs as well really - actually
for Phil that'd be better, but he knows he's outnumbered. But we aren't interested in
the north or the east of the city.

Cindy: OK, I'm just getting up all the flats on our books.

Cindy: Just looking at this list here, I’m afraid there are only two that might
interest you ... do you want the details?

Martin: OK, let me just grab a pen and some paper, fire away!

Cindy: This first one I'm looking at is in Bridge Street - and very dose to the bus
station. It's not often that flats in that area come up for rent. This one’s got three
bedrooms, a bathroom and kitchen, of course ... and a very big living room That
sounds a good size for you.

Martin: Mmmm . So, what about the rent? How much is it a month?

Cindy: The good news is that it's only four hundred and fifty pounds a month.
Rents in that area usually reach up to six fifty a month, but the landlord obviously
wants to get a tenant quickly.

Martin: Yeah, it sounds like a bit of a bargain. What about transport for Phil?

Cindy: Well, there'll be plenty of buses so no problem for him to use public
transport... or... but unfortunately there isn't a shower in the flat, and that location is
likely to be noisy, of course ...

Martin: OK - what about the other place?

Cindy: Let's see ... oh yes. well this one is in a really nice location - on Hills
Avenue. I'm sure you know it. This looks like something a bit special It's got four big
bedrooms and erm, there's a big living room and ... oh. this will be good for you
a dining room. It sounds enormous, doesn't it?

Martin: Yeah, it sounds great!

Cindy: That whole area's being developed, and the flat's very modern, which I'm
sure you'll like. It’s got good facilities, including your shower. And of course it's going
to be quiet, especially compared with the other place.

Martin: Better and better but I'll bet it's expensive, especially if it's in that trendy
area beside the park.

Cindy: Hmm, I'm afraid so. They're asking £800 a month for it.

9
Martin: Wow it sounds a lot more than we can afford.

Cindy: Well maybe you could get somebody else to move in too? I'll tell you what,
give me your address and I can send you all the details and photos and you can see
whether these two are worth a visit.

Martin: Thanks, that would be really helpful my address

Section 2
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to your very own tour of the
British Library on this lovely afternoon. My name is Tony Walters and I'm your guide
for today. Could I please see your tickets for the guided tour?

I'd also like to remind you that any tickets bought today do not include a visit to the
reading rooms. I’m afraid we don’t do visits on Fridays - or any weekday during working
hours, so as not to disturb the readers. But if you do want to see those rooms, the only
day there are tours is on Sundays. So, I don't want anyone to be disappointed about
that today. OK? thank you.Right. We'll start with a brief introduction As many ol you
know, this is the United Kingdom's National Library and you can see that this is a
magnificent modern building. It was first designed by Sir Colin St John Wilson in 1977,
and inaugurated by Her Majesty the Queen more than twenty years later, in 1998.

As you can see. the size is immense and the basements alone have 300 kilometres
of shelving - and that's enough to hold about 12 million books. The total floor space
here is 100,000 square metres and, as I'll show you, the library houses a huge range
of facilities and exhibition spaces, and it has a thousand staff members based here in
the building - so, you can appreciate the scale of our operation.

In fact, this was the biggest publicly-funded building constructed in the United Kingdom
last century. It is still funded by the government as a national institution, ot course, and
it houses one of the most important collections in the world. The different items come
from every continent and span almost 3000 years.

The library isn't a public library, though you can't just come in and join and borrow any
of the books. Access to the collections is limited to those involved in carrying
out research, so it's really a huge reference library for that purpose, and anyone who
wants to consult any materials that are kept here can formally apply to use the library
reading rooms.

Right, well, here we are, standing at the Meeting Point on the lower ground floor just
to the right of the Main Entrance. I've given you all a plan of the building so that we
can orientate ourselves and get an idea of where we'll be going. Now outside the Main
Entrance you'll see the wide Piazza with the stunning sculpture of Newton.

10
The sculptor was Paolozzi, but it's based on the famous image by William Blake - and
it’s definitely worth a closer look. On the other side ot the Piazza from the statue is
the Conference Centre, which is used for all kinds of international conventions we'll
take a quick look inside at the end of our tour.

Looking ahead of us now, you'll see that we're standing opposite the staircase down
to the basement where you'll find the cloakroom, and to the left of that, we have
the information desk where you can find out about any current exhibitions, the times
of the tours and anything you need to know - if you don't have a tour guide. As you
can see, on this lower ground floor we also have a bookshopthat's the area over to the
left of the main entrance. You'll be free to browse there when we get back to the ground
floor.

Now, opposite the main entrance on this floor we have the open stairs leading up to
the upper ground floor. And at the top of them, in the middle of the upper ground floor,
you can see a kind of glass-sided tower that rises all the way up through the ceiling
and up to the first floor. This is called the King's Library, it's really the heart of the
building, it was built to house the collection that was presented to the nation in 1823
by the King. You can see it from every floor above ground. When we go up there, you'll
find the library's Treasures Gallery on the left. Can you find it on your plan? That's the
exciting one, so we'll be visiting that first but we'll also take a look at the stamp
display situated behind it, on the way to the cafe - a lot of people miss that. The
Cafeteria runs along the back of the floor and, in the right hand corner, you’ll find the
lifts and toilets ... ha, always good to locate them. The other main area on that floor is
the Public Access Catalogue section and I’ll show you how that operates when we get
up there ...

Section 3
Dr Green: Good afternoon, Dave, come on in and take a seat.

Dave: Hi, Dr Green thanks

Dr Green: Hang on a minute, I'll just find the first draft ot your project paper and
we can have a look at it together. Now yours is the one on Work Placement, isn't it?

Dave: Yeah, that's right.

Dr Green: So what made you choose that for your project?

Dave: Well, l suppose it was because sending students off to various companies
for work experience seems to be such a typical part of educational courses these
days - I mean, even school kids get to do it. But I felt everyone just kind of assumes
it's a good thing and l guess I wanted to find out if that's the case.

11
Dr Green: But you don't look at schools or colleges, right? You've stuck
to university placement schemes

Dave: Yeah, well, I quickly found that I had to limit my research, otherwise the
area was just too big. Do you think that was OK?

Dr Green: I think it's very sensible, especially as the objectives might be very
different. So how many schemes did you look at?

Dave: Well, I sent out about 150 questionnaires altogether - you know. 50 of each
to university authorities, students and companies, and I got responses from 15
educational institutions, and. er, 30 students in 11 individual companies.

Dr Green: Great, that sounds like a good sample. And who did you send your
company questionnaires to?

Dave: Well, the idea was to have them done by the students’ Line Managers, but
sometimes they were filled in by the Human Resources manager or even the owner
of the company.

Dr Green: Right. I didn’t find a full list anywhere, so I think it's very important to
provide that, really. You can put it as an appendix at the back.

Dave: Right. I've got a record of all the respondents so that'll be easy. I hope other
things were OK. I mean I’ve already put such a lot of work into this project,
identifying the companies and so on.

Dr Green: Oh, I can tell I think you've done a good job overall.

Dr Green: I thought your questionnaires were excellent, and you'd obviously done
lots of background reading, but there were a few problems with the introduction. First
of all, I think you need to make some slight changes to the organisation of your
information there, at present it's a bit confused.

Dave: OK. What did you have in mind?

Dr Green: Well, you write quite a bit about Work Placement in general, but you
never explain what you mean by the term.

Dave: So you think I should give a definition?

Dr Green: Exactly. And the introduction is the place to do it. And then look, you
start talking about what's been written on the topic - but it's all a bit mixed up with
your own project.

Dave: So do you think it would be better to have two sections there like, a survey
of the literature as the introduction and then a separate section on the aims of my
research?

12
Dr Green: I do. You can include your methods for collecting data in the second
section too. It would be much dearer for your reader .. you know, establish the
background first, then how your work relates to it, it would flow quite nicely then.

Dave: Yes, I see what you mean

Dr Green: Anyway, moving on i like the way you've grouped your findings into
three main topic areas

Dave: Well, it became very obvious from the questionnaires that the preparation
stage was really important for the whole scheme to work. So had to look at that first.
And I found a huge variation between the different institutions, as you saw.

Dr Green: I was wondering if you could give a summary at the end of this stage of
what you consider to be the best practice you found, I think that would be very
helpful ..

Dave: Right, I'll just make a note of that What did you think of my second set of
findings - on Key Skills development? For me, this is the core of my whole project
really ...

Dr Green: And you've handled it very well. I wouldn't want you to make any
changes you've already got a nice final focus on good practice there

Dave: Thanks.

Dr Green: Right, now I think the last part, which deals with the reasons why
students don't learn ...

Dave: What? The constraints on learning chapter?

Dr Green: Yes. that's the one I think you need to refer to the evidence from your
research a bit more closely here. Yon know, maybe you could illustrate it with
quotations from the questionnaires, or even use any extracts from a student 'diary' if
you can. And refer back to what you've written about good practice ...

Section 4
When we took at theories of education and learning we see a constant shifting of
views as established theories are questioned and refined or even replaced, and we
can see this very clearly in the way that attitudes towards bilingualism have changed.

Let’s start with a definition of bilingualism, and for our purposes today, we can say
it's the ability to communicate with the same degree of proficiency in at least two
languages. Now, in practical terms this might seem like a good thing - something

13
we'd all like to be able to do. However, early research done with children in the USA
in fact suggested that being bilingual interfered in some way with learning and with
the development of their mental processes, and so in those days bilingualism was
regarded as something to be avoided, and parents were encouraged to bring their
children up as monolingual - just speaking one language, But this research, which
took place in the early part of the twentieth century is now regarded as unsound for
various reasons, mainly because it didn't take into account other factors such as the
children's social and economicbackgrounds

Now, in our last lecture we were looking at some of the research that's been done
into the way children learn, into their cognitive development, and in fact we believe
now that the relationship between bilingualism and cognitive development is actually
a positive one, it turns out that cognitive skills such as problem solving, which don't
seem at first glance to have anything to do with how many languages you speak, are
better among bilingual children than monolingual ones.

And quite recently there's been some very interesting work done by Ellen Bialystok
at York University' in Canada, she's been doing various studies on the effects of
bilingualism and her findings provide some evidence that they might apply
to adults as well, they’re not just restricted to children.

So how do you go about investigating something like this? Well, Dr Bialystok used
groups of monolingual and bilingual subjects, aged from 30 right up to 88 for one
experiment, she used a computer program which displayed either a red or a blue
square on the screen. The coloured square could come up on either the left-hand or
the right- hand side of the screen. If the square was blue, the subject had to press
the left 'shift' key on the keyboard and if the square was red they had to press the
right shift key. So they didn't have to react at all to the actual position of the square
on the screen, just to the colour they saw. And she measured the subjects' reaction
times by recording how long it took them to press the shift key. and how often they
got it right.

What she was particularly interested in was whether it took the subject longer to
react when a square lit up on one side of the screen - say the left, and the subject
had to press the shift key on the right band side. She'd expected that it would take
more processing time than if a square lit up on the left and the candidates had
to press a left key.

This was because of a phenomenon known as the 'Simon effect', where, basically
the brain gets a bit confused because of conflicting demands being made on it - in
this case seeing something on the right, and having to react on the left and this
causes a person's reaction times to slow down.

The results of the experiment showed that the bilingual subjects responded more
quickly than the monolingual ones. That was true both when the squares were on the
'correct' side of the screen, so to speak, and - even more so - when they were not.
So, bilingual people were better able to deal with the Simon effect than the
monolingual ones.

14
So, what's the explanation for this? Well, the result of the experiment suggests that
bilingual people are better at ignoring information which is irrelevant to the task
in hand and just concentrating on what's important. One suggestion given by Dr
Bialystok was that it might be because someone who speaks two languages can
suppress the activity of parts of the brain when it isn't needed in particular, the part
that processes whichever language isn’t being used at that particular time.

Well, she Then went on to investigate that with a second experiment, but again the
bilingual group performed better, and what was particularly interesting, and this is I
think why the experiments have received so much publicity, is that in all cases, the
performance gap between monolingual and bilinguals actually increased with age
- which suggests that bilingualism protects the mind against decline, so in some way
the life-long experience of managing two languages may prevent some of the
negative effects of aging. So that’s a very different story from the early research.

So what are the implications of this for education . .

PRACTICE TEST 3
Section 1
Ralph: Hello?

Paula: Ralph, it’s Paula

Ralph: Hi

Paula: You know i told you we could apply to the local council for money for our
drama club .. I've got the application form here but we need to get it back to them by
the end of the week. I could send it on to you you really ought to fill it in as president
of the club but I don't know if it’ll get to you in time.

Ralph: Well, you're the secretary, so I expect it's OK if you fill it in.

Paula: Yeah, but I'd really like to check it together.

Ralph: Right. That's fine.

Paula: Like the first part asks for the main contact person can l put you there?

Ralph: Sure

15
Paula: Right. So that's Ralph Pearson .. and then need your contact address, so
that's 203 South Road, isn't it?

Ralph: No. 230

Paula: Sorry. I always get that wrong .. Then it's Drayton .. do you think they need
a postcode?

Ralph: Better put it's DR6 SAB

Paula: Hmm mrnm. OK ... telephone number that’s 01453 586098 isn’t it?

Ralph: Yes.

Paula: Right Now, in the next part of the form I have to give information about our
group ... so. name of group, that's easy, we're the Community Youth Theatre Group,
but then I have to describe it. So, what sort of information do you think they want?

Ralph: Well, they need to know we're amateurs, not professional actors... and
how many members we've got what's that at present, twenty?

Paula: Eighteen and should we put in the age range, that's 13 to 22?

Ralph: No, I don't think we need to. But we'd better put a bit about what we
actually do ... something like 'members take part in drama activities’.

Paula: Activities and workshops?

Ralph: OK.

Paula: Right That’s all for that section I think.

Paula: Now, the next bit is about the project itself what we're applying for funding
for. So first of all They need to know how much money we want. The
maximum's£500.

Ralph: l think we agreed we’d ask for £250. didn't we?

Paula: OK. There’s no point in asking for too much, we'll have less chance of
getting it. Then, we need to say what the project ... erm, the activity is.

Ralph: Right so we could write something like 'to produce a short play for young
children’.

Paula: Should we say it's interactive?

Ralph: Yes, good idea ...

16
Paula: Right . I've got that. Then we have to say what we actually need the money
for...

Ralph: Isn’t that it?

Paula: No, we have to give a breakdown of details, I think.

Ralph: Well, there's the scenery

Paula: But we're making that.

Ralph: We need to buy the materials, though

Paula: OK Then there’s the costumes.

Ralph: Right. That’s going to be at least £50.

Paula: OK. And what else ... oh, I just found out we have to have insurance ... I
don’t think it’ll cost much, but we need to get it organised.

Ralph: Yes ... I’d forgotten about that, and we could be breaking the law if we
don’t have it. Good thing we’ve already got curtains in the hall, at least we don’t have
to worry about that.

Paula: Mrhm. We'll need some money for publicity otherwise no one will know
what we’re doing.

Ralph: And then a bit of money for unexpected things that come up - just
put ’sundries' at the end of the list.

Paula: OK. fine Now the next thing they want lo know is if they give us the grant,
how they'll be credited.

Ralph: What do they mean, credited?

Paula: I think they mean how we'll let the public know that they funded us .. they
want people to know they've supported us, it looks good for them.

Ralph: Mmm. Well, we could say we'd announce it at the end of the play. We
could make a speech or something.

Paula: Hmm, they might prefer to see something in writing we'll be giving the
audience a programme, won't we - so we could put an acknowledgement in that?

Ralph: Yeah, that's a better idea.

Paula: OK And the last thing they want to know is if we've approached any other
organisations for funding, and what the outcome was.

17
Ralph: Well, only National Youth Services and they said that at present funds
were not available for arts projects

Paula: Right. I’ll put that and then I think that’s it. I'll get that in the post straight
away I really hope we get the money.

Ralph: I think we've got a pretty good chance hope so anyway. Thanks for doing
all this, Paula.

Paula: That’s OK See you soon .. Bye

Ralph: Bye

Section 2
Rob: Joanne?

Joanne: Hi you must be Rob Nice to meet you. So, I hear you're planning to visit
Australia.

Rob: Yeah and I really wanted to talk to you because I was thinking of spending
some time in Darwin and my sister told me you're from there.

Joanne: That’s right.

Rob: So tell me about it.

Joanne: Well .. where shall I start . . well, Darwin's in what they call the ’top end’
'cause it’s right up at the northern end of Australia and it’s quite different from the
rest of Australia in terms of cultural influences - in fact it’s nearer to Jakarta
in Indonesia than it is lo Sydney, so you get a very strong Asian influence there. That
means we get lots of tourists - people from other parts of Australia are attracted by
this sort of international, cosmopolitan image. And as well as that, we've got the
same laid back atmosphere you get all over Australia - probably more so if anything,
because of the climate. But, what a lot of the tourists don't realise until they get there
is that the city's also got a very young population .. the average age is just 29, and
this makes the whole place very buzzy. Some people think that there might not be
that much going on as far as an and music and dancing and so on are concerned,
because it's so remote. I mean, we don't really get things like theatre and opera in
the same way as-cities down in the south like Sydney, for example, because of the
transport expenses. But in fact what happens is that we just do it ourselves lots of
people play music, classical as well as pop, and there are things like artists groups
and writers groups and dance classes - everyone does something, we don't just sit
and watch other people.

18
Rob: You said it's very international?

Joanne: Yeah, they say there's over 70 different nationalities in Darwin. For
instance, there's been a Chinese population there for over 100 years we've even got
a Chinese temple. It was built way back in 1887, but erm, when a very bad storm a a
cyclone in fact hit Darwin in the 1970s it was almost completely destroyed. The only
parts of the temple that survived were part of the altars and the stone lions, but after
the storm they reconstructed it using modern materials. . it’s still used as a religious
centre today, but it's open to tourists too and it’s definitely worth going to see it. Oh
and as far as getting around goes, you'll see places that advertise bicycles for hire,
but I wouldn't recommend it. A lot of the year it's just so hot and humid. Some
tourists think it'll be fine because there's not much in the way of hills, and the traffic's
quite light compared with some places, but believe me, you're better off with, public
transport it's fine, and not expensive. Or you can hire a car, but it's not really worth it.

Rob: What's the swimming like?

Joanne: Well, there are some good beaches, but the trouble is that there's this nasty
creature called the box jellyfish and if it stings you, you're in bad trouble. So you
have to be very careful most of the year especially in the winter months.. You can
wear a lycra suit to cover your arms and legs, but I wouldn't like to risk it even so,
personally. And there are the salt water crocodiles too. I mean, I don't want to put
you off. there are protected swimming areas netted off where you'll be safe from
jellyfish and crocs, or there are the public swimming pools, they're fine of course.

Rob: So which places would you specially recommend?

Joanne: Well, one of the most popular attractions is called 'Aquascene'. What
happens is every day at high tide hundreds of fish come in from the sea - all different
sorts, including some really, big deep-sea fish - and some of them will even take
food from your hand. It's right in the middle of town, at the end of the Esplanade. It's
not free - I think you have to pay about five dollars but it's definitely something you
have to experience. Then of course Darwin has a great range of food, being such
a cosmopolitan place. And if you don't have lots to spend, the best place to go is to
Smith Street Mall where they have stalls selling stuff to eat, there's all sorts of
different things including south-east Asian dishes, which I really like. You'd think
there'd be plenty of fresh fish in Darwin as it’s on the coast, but in fact because of the
climate it mostly gets frozen straight away, but you can get fresh fish in the
restaurants on Culien Bay Marina - it's a nice place to go for a special meal and they
have some good shops in that area too. What else, well, there's the botanic garden:
it’s over a hundred years old and there's lots to see an orchid farm, rainforest, a
collection of palm trees, erm. a wetlands area you can easily spend an afternoon
there. That's at Fannie Bay. a couple of kilometres out to the north. Then, if you've
got any energy left in the evening, the place to go is Mitchell Street that's where it all
happens as far as clubs and music and things are concerned - you'll bump into lots
of my friends there! Talking of friends, why don’t I give you some email addresses,
I'm sure they …

19
Section 3
Dr Blake: Come in. Ah yes. Stella is Phil there too? Good. Come on in. OK, so
you’re here to discuss your research project. Have you decided what to focus
on? You were thinking of something about the causes of mood changes, weren't
you?

Stella: Yes, but the last time we saw you, you suggested we narrowed it down to
either the effects of weather or urban environment, so we've decided to focus on the
effects of weather

Dr Blake: Right. That's more manageable. So. your goal is ... Phil?

Phil: To prove the hypothesis no, to investigate the hypothesis that the weather
has an effect on a person's mood.

Dr Blake: Mmm. Good And what's your thesis? Stella?

Stella: Well, our thesis is that in general, when the weather's good it has a
positive effect on a person's mood and bad weather has a negative effect.

Dr Blake: Mmm Can you define your terms here - for example, what do you mean
by ‘good' and 'bad'?

Phil: OK. Well, good would be sunny, warm weather and bad would be when it's
cold and cloudy or raining

Dr Blake: And how would you define an effect on a person's mood? What would
you be looking to find?

Phil: An effect on the way a person feels ..

Dr Blake: Mmm?

Stella: A change in the way they feel? Erm, like from feeling happy and optimistic,
to sad and depressed

Dr Blake: Right. And what sort of weather variables will you be looking at?

Phil: Oh. sunshine, temperature, cloudiness, precipitation among others. It'll

depend a bit what the weather’s like when we do the survey.

Dr Blake: Fine We'll talk about that in a minute. But first, what about background
reading? I gave you some suggestions did you manage to read any of it ?

Stella: Yes - we read the Ross Vickers article the one comparing the groups of
American Marines training in summer and winter. That's quite relevant to our study, t

20
was interesting because the Marines who were training in the cold winter conditions
tried to cheer themselves up by thinking of warm places, but it didn’t really work.

Phil: Yes, they were trying to force themselves to have a positive mental outlook
but in fact it had the opposite effect, and they ended up in a very negative state of
mind.

Stella: And we found some more research by someone who wasn't on the reading
list you gave us - George Whitebourne. He compared people living in three countries
with very different climatic conditions. Actually he looked at several things, not just
the weather, but he found some people's reactions to bad weather were much worse
than others and it was linked to how stressed they were generally - the weather on
its own didn't have such a significant effect on mood.

Phil: And we looked at a paper by Haver.

Stella: Havedon.

Phil: Yeah. He broke weather up into about fifteen or sixteen categories and did
qualitative and quantitative research, he found that humans respond to conditions in
the weather with immediate responses, such as fear or amazement, but these
responses can also be linked to associations from their earlier life, such as a
particular happy or sad event.

Dr Blake: Did you have a look at Stanfield's work?

Stella: Yes. It was interesting because the type of questions he asked were
similar to what we were planning to use in our survey.

Dr Blake: Yes?

Stella: He asked people how they were feeling on days with good and had
weather. He found the biggest factor seemed to be the humidity moods were most
negative on days with a lot of rainfall. Long periods without sunshine had some effect
but nothing like as much.

Dr Blake: Mmm That could be quite a useful model for your project.

Phil: Yes. we thought so loo - although. We can't continue our survey for as long
as he did - he d d his over a six- month period.

Dr Blake: Right, well, you've made quite a good start. So, where are you going
from here?

Phil: Well, we’ve already made the questionnaire we're going to use for the survey
- it’s quite short, just eight questions. We're aiming to survey twenty people, over a
period of three months from October to December.

21
Stella: We can't specify the actual dates yet, because it depends on the weather -
we want to do the survey on days with a range of different weather conditions. And
we’ll just be working on campus, so our data will only be statistically sound for the
student population here.

Dr Blake: That's OK. Have you Thought how you'll determine what will constitute
each aspect of weather and how many you’re looking at?

Phil: We decided on four - the amount of sunshine, cloudiness, temperature and

precipitation ... we thought we might use the Internet to get data on weather
conditions on the days we do the survey but we haven't found the information we
need, so we might have to measure it ourselves. We'll see.

Stella: Then we've got to analyse the results, and we’ll do that using a
spreadsheet, giving numeric values to answers .... and then of course we have to
present our findings to the class, and we want to make it quite an interactive session,
we want to involve the class in some way in the presentation, maybe by trying to
create different climatic conditions in the classroom, but we’re still thinking about it.

Dr Blake: I see. Well, that sounds as il you're on the right lines. Now, what I'd
suggest that you think about...

Section 4
All over the world, there are passionate arguments going on about how educational
systems can be improved And ol all the ideas for improving education, few are as
simple or attractive as reducing the number of pupils per teacher. It seems like
common sense but do these ideas have any theoretical basis? Today, I want to look
at the situation in the USA and at some of the research that has been done here in
America on the effects of reducing class sizes. In the last couple of decades or so,
there has been considerable concern in the United States over educational
standards here, following revelations that the country's secondary school students
perform poorly relative to Asian and European students. In addition, statistics have
shown that students in the nation's lower income schools in the urban areas have
achievement levels far below those of middle-class and upper middle-class schools.

So would reducing class sizes solve these problems?

Well, we have to remember that it does have one obvious drawback, it’s expensive.
It requires more teachers and possibly more classrooms, equipment, and so on. On
the other hand, it smaller classes really do work, the eventual economic benefits
could be huge. Better education would mean that workers did their jobs more
efficiently, saving the country millions of dollars, it would also mean that people were
better informed about their health, bringing savings m things like medical costs and
days off sick.

22
So what reliable information do we have about the effects of reducing class
sizes? There's plenty of anecdotal evidence about the effect on students' behaviour.
But what reliable evidence do we have for this?

Let's have a look at three research projects that have been carried out in the USA in
the last couple of decades or so. The first study I'm going to look at took place in the
state of Tennessee in the late 1980s. It involved some 70 schools. In its first year
about 6,400 students were involved, and by the end of the study, four years later, the
total number involved had grown to 12,000. What happened was that students
entering kindergarten were randomly assigned lo either small classes of 13 to 17
students or regular-size classes of 27 to 26. The students remained in whatever
category they had been assigned to through the third grade, and then after that they
joined a regular classroom.

After the study ended in 1989, researchers conducted dozens of analyses of the
data. Researchers agree that there was significant benefit for students in attending
smaller classes, and it also appears that the beneficial effect was stronger
for minority students. However, there's no agreement on the implications of this we
still don't know the answer to questions like how long students have to be in smaller
classes to get a benefit and how big that benefit is, for example.

The second project was much larger and took place in California. Like the
Tennessee study, it focused on students from kindergarten through to grade 3, but in
this case, all schools throughout the state were involved. The experiment is still
continuing, but results have been very inconclusive, with very little improvement
noted. And the project has in fact also had several negative aspects.

It meant an increased demand for teachers in almost all California districts, so the
better-paying districts got a lot of the best teachers - including a fair number that
moved over from the poorer districts. And there were a lot of other problems with the
project - for example, there weren't any effective procedures for evaluation. All in all,
this project stands as a model of what not to do in a major research project.

A third initiative took place in the state of Wisconsin at around the same time as the
California project began, and it's interesting to compare the two. The Wisconsin
project was small class sizes were reduced in just 14 schools - but it was noteworthy
because it targeted schools at which a significant proportion of the students were
from poor families, compared with California's one-size- fits-all approach. Analysts
have found that the results are very similar to the Tennessee project, with students
making gains that are statistically significant and that are considerably larger than
those calculated for the California initiative.

Now, I'd like to apply some of these ideas to....

PRACTICE TEST 4
23
Section 1
Jacinta: Hi, Lewis it's Jacmta here

Lewis: Oh. hi, Jacinta. I was just going to call you I was thinking we ought to do
something about accommodation for our trip to Queenstown

Jacinta: Yeah, actually that's just why I rang you I've been looking on the Internet
- there was one place that looked OK called Travellers' Lodge, but when I checked
availability for January when we're planning to go I found it was fully booked.

Lewis: Right - well, we’d better do something now I suppose.

Jacinta: We've actually got a list up here on the computer, there's one place
called Bimgley's that looks possible, it's 19.75 dollars a night that's US dollars, they
quote all the prices in US dollars.

Lewis: So that's about 26 or 27 New Zealand dollars. That's OK. That'll be in a

dormitory, is it?

Jacinta: Yeah they say 8-bed dorms .And the hostel's right in the town centre and
they've got a cafe, they have theme nights every weekend, whatever that means ...

Lewis: Oh, you know, like certain sorts of food and music and people might wear
special clothes like that Egyptian evening we went to last year

Jacinta: Oh, OK. What else, they've got a sundeck area, and then all the usual
things Internet access and so on.

Lewis: Sounds good. Was there anywhere else?

Jacinta: Yeah, a couple more places. There's one called Chalet Lodge which is
just 18.00 US dollars, that's for a bed in a 12-bed dorm. They do single and family
rooms as well. It looks as if it's a bit out of town, says it's got an alpine setting ... a
'quiet' alpine setting. What do you think?

Lewis: Mmm, not sure ..

Jacinta: Oh, but actually it’s not far out at all .. it says 10 minutes' walk from town,
so ... Oh, and it says it’s ’children friendly'.

Lewis: Mmm. I'm not so sure about that. What about the third place?

Jacinta: Aah. That's called Globetrotters let's see, they do private rooms, or 5-bed
dorms for 18.50 - it's in the centre, just by the lake and that includes breakfast

Lewis: Didn't the other two?

24
Jacinta: I don't think so. They didn't mention it, so probably not. Oh, and it says
something about a free skydive .. wow!

Lewis: Don’t know if I’m all that keen on lumping out of aeroplanes..

Jacinta: Oh, actually what it says is you can win a chance to do a skydive they
give one away every day to one of the guests.

Lewis: Well, if I win it, you can do it. Anyway, do they have room?

Jacinta: Yeah, I checked the availability. Shall I go ahead and book there then?

Lewis: Fine.

Jacinta: I was looking at what there is to do, too .. there are lots of sites offering
deals for adventure sports ah, I suppose we have to do a bungee jump.

Lewis: Why?

Jacinta: Well, it's Queenstown where they more or less started it as a sport.

Lewis: You can . If you really want to jump off the side of a bridge with an elastic
rope tied round your ankles... I'll watch

Jacinta: OK. So what do you want to do?

Lewis: As far as adventure sports go? I was talking to someone who went white-
water rafting there he said it was really awesome. They drive you up the Shotover
River and then you come down on a rubber raft through the white-water rapids,
where the river's really narrow and fast, and end up going through a tunnel nearly
200 metres long. I think it's quite expensive, though.

Jacinta: Oh. I'm on for that if you are.

Lewis: Cool!

Jacinta: The other thing you can do is the jet-boat ride that sounded just a lot of
noise though. It's basically just whizzing round on the river on a very fast boat, isn't
it?

Lewis: My friend did that as well - hp said it was a bit touristy but worth it. I'll give
it a go. You go right up the river canyon. He said the drivers were really skillful, But I
don't mind going on my own.

Jacinta: But there's lots to do as well as the whole commercial adventure bit, we
ought to do some trekking. The scenery round there's amazing, I don't want to miss
that. The place to start’s Glenorchy, apparently about 40 minutes' drive, that's where
lots of the wilderness trails begin.

25
Lewis: OK, I'll pack my walking boots. I'd better start getting in training ... I haven't
done anything except sit at my desk for months. Now. is there anything else we need
to decide?

Section 2
Announcer: There’s been a great deal of interest lately in encouraging people to
use bicycles instead of cars as a means of transport. But not everyone is confident
about riding a bike at the best of times, let alone m the middle of a city like London.
Jack Hays is a professional trainer who works for a London-based company,
CitiCyclist, which provides cycle training for the public What exactly does CitiCyclist
do. Jack?

Jack: Well, our basic purpose is lo promote cycling as a sustainable form of

transport. We believe the best way to promote cycling is to teach people to use their
bikes safely and with confidence. In European countries, people all learned from
their parents, and they also learned in school, and when I tell them i teach people to
ride bikes they laugh. Let's say. But here in London it's completely different, you're
approaching the point where a whole generation of people have grown up not being
allowed by their parents to cycle, because it was considered to be getting too
dangerous, and so in turn, they can't teach their children ...

We believe in realistic training, so if someone wants to use a bike regularly, say to

get to work or school, we aim to train them by teaching them to ride on the actual
roads they'll use. so they can develop the basic skills they need and build up their
confidence that way.

At CitiCyclist we believe cycling's for everyone, no matter what age or level of ability
or mobility. We do complete beginners and also advanced courses - that's for urban
cyclists who want to deal with things like riding in streets with complicated
intersections and things like that. We don’t promote the use of personal protective
equipment for cyclists and we endorse the policy of the European Cyclists federation
that parents should be allowed to make an informed choice as to whether or not their
child wears a helmet. We believe the key to safe cycling is assertiveness - taking
your place on the road. This has to be led right from the beginning. Assertive road
positioning and behaviour is the key to safe cycling in congested urban
environments. Some people are surprised that we don't promote the segregation of
cyclists from motorised traffic, but we don't think that's practical in all urban
environments. Instead, we teach people to use as much road space as they need to
travel safely and effectively.

Now as well as courses for individuals, CitiCyclist provides a number of services for
organisations, for example, we can deliver fun, safe cycle-training activities
at schools, arranging courses so that the disruption of curriculum time is kept to a
minimum. As well as this, in order to promote safe cycling we have provided training
courses for employees and staff of local councils. And we are also increasingly

26
looking at developing training courses in companiesin order to help employers work
towards green transport plans by helping to increase the number of staff cycling to
work.

Right, so that's a brief summary of what we do. If any listeners would like to find out
more about the organisation, you can have a look at our website - that's
citicyclist.co.uk. And in order to book lessons, you can either phone us on 020 7562
4028. or do it online - there’s an application form on our website, and you can just
download that and send it in. We charge £27.50 per hour for one-to-one lessons plus
£6.00 for each extra person - so you're looking at just £39.50 for a family of three,
say. If you've never been on a bike in your life before, we reckon we can get you
riding in one hour, and for most people a course of road training usually takes three
hours. But whether you're a parent or a child, an individual or an institution, we'll be
happy to discuss your special needs and make a programme just for you.

Section 3
Tutor: So. Sharon and Xiao Li, in your presentation last week you were talking
about the digital divide - the gap between those who can effectively use
communication tools such as the Internet, and those who can't. And you compared
the situation here in Northern Ireland with South-East China. Right, so I asked you to
do some sell evaluation, watching the video of your presentation and thinking about
the three main criteria you're assessed by - content, structure and technique. What
do you think was the strongest feature of the presentation, when you watched it?
Sharon?

Sharon: Well. I was surprised actually, because l felt quite nervous but when I
watched the video, it didn't show as much as I expected.

Tutor: So which of the criteria would that come under?

Sharon: Er, confidence?

Tutor: That’s not actually one of the criteria as such Xiao Li?

Xiao Li: Technique? It's body language and eye contact, isn't it. Well, I didn't think
I looked all that confident, but I think, that our technique was generally good like the
way we designed and used the PowerPoint slides.

Tutor: Mmm. So you both feel happiest about that side of the presentation? OK,
now on the negative side, what would you change if you could do it again?

Xiao Li: Well, at first I'd thought that the introduction was going to be the problem
but actually I think that was OK. We defined our terms and identified key issues. It
was more towards the end, the conclusion wasn't too bad but the problem was the

27
questions, we hadn’t really expected there'd be any so we hadn't thought about them
that much.

Tutor: Uhuh OK. Anything else?

Sharon: Well, like Xiao Li says, I thought the conclusion was OK, but when I
watched us on the video I thought the section on solutions seemed rather weak.

Tutor: Mmm. Can you think why?

Sharon: Well, we explained what people are doing about the digital divide in China
and Northern Ireland but I suppose we didn't really evaluate any of the projects or
ideas, it was just a list. And that was what people were asking us about at the end
mostly.

Tutor: OK. Now, I also asked you to get some peer evaluation, from the other
students.

Sharon: Yes, er, well, people said it was interesting, like the fact that in China the
Internet was used more for shopping than in Northern Ireland. They said sometimes
it was a bit hard to understand because we were talking quite fast .. but we didn’t
think so when we watched the video.

Tutor: No, it’s a bit different though, because you know all this information
already. Mmm. If you're hearing it for the first time, you need more time to process it
... that's why signposting the structure and organisation of the talk is important.

Xiao Li: That seemed OK, no one mentioned that as a problem. Some people said
that we could have had more on the slides.. like some ot the other groups had nearly
everything they said written up on the visuals as well, ... the slides were good, they
had ... me key points

Tutor: Yes.

Sharon: And most people said we had quite good eye contact and body language.
They all pointed out we'd overrun .. they all said we were five minutes over but we
timed it afterwards on the video and it was only three minutes.

Xiao Li: We were a bit unsure about the background reading at first, but I think we
did as much as we could in the time. Anyway, no one commented on that under
content, but one thing that diet come out was that they liked the fact we'd done
research on both Northern Ireland and China, most other people had just based their
research on one country. We managed to get quite a lot of data from the Internet,
although we had to do our own analysis and we did our own surveys as well in both
countries. So the class gave us best feedback for content but it was all OK.

Tutor: Right. Well, that's quite similar to the feedback I’m giving you. I was very
impressed by the amount of work you'd done and by your research methodology ..
So actually I'm giving you full marks for content, five. The structure of the

28
presentation was good, but not quite as good as the content, so I gave that four, and
the same for technique. So, well clone.

Xiao Li/Sharon: Thank you

Tutor: Now, the next stage is to write up your report So just a few pointers for you
here. First of all, in your presentation think yourending was rather abrupt - you
suddenly just stopped talking. It wasn't a big problem but think about your closing
sentences in your report - you want to round it off well. One thing I forgot to mention
earlier was that I felt a very strong point was that after you'd given your results, you
explained them limitations.

Xiao Li: The fact that we didn't have a very reliable sample in terms of age in
China?

Tutor: Yes. that section. So don't forget to include that. And you had some
excellent charts and diagrams, but maybe you could flesh out the literature review a
bit. I can give you some ideas for that later on if you want. OK, is there anything else
you want to ask?

Xiao Li/Sharon: No . . Thank you. / Thanks.

Section 4
Well, Adam's just been talking about some of the problems that have resulted from
the rapid growth of cities in the last hundred years things like housing, sanitation,
crime, and so on. For my presentation, I’d like to look at some examples of what
cities are doing to try to solve some of these problems.

As part of its healthy city programme, the World Health Organisation the WHO has
come up with a set of criteria for a healthy city. The WHO says, that amongst other
things, a healthy city must provide a clean environment which is also safe it mustn't
be dirty, or dangerous for its inhabitants. As well as that, the WHO says a healthy
city has got to be able to satisfy its inhabitants' basic needsthat's all its inhabitants,
not just the rich ones or the ones with jobs. Everyone who lives there. A third thing a
third criterion, is that it's got to have health services which can be used by all the
inhabitants, and which they can access easily. The final point's to do with local
government the WHO says this is something that the whole community should be
involved in, not just a few powerful politicians or businessmen. So, a healthy city's
not just a matter of avoiding illness, that sort of 'healthiness', it's the way that the
whole city works together for the benefit of its population.

So what I'd like to do now is to look at some projects in different cities around the
world where cities have tried to meet these criteria to make their cities 'healthy' ones.

29
Right, the first project I'm going to discuss took place in Sri Lanka, and this project
was called the 'Community Contracts System'. Its aim was to improve the places
where the poorest section of the population lived - the squatter settlements.
Basically, the problem was lack of infrastructure things like drains, paths, wells for
water and so on. So, a programme was set in place to construct this infrastructure,
but what was different about was that the residents did this the people who actually
lived there, not people from outside. And this meant that not only did the people end
up with improved housing and infrastructure, but also because they had contracts
with the community, it improved their chances from an economic point of view. So
that's a way the lives of people in one urban environment were improved.

The next project I'd like to discuss took place in the capital city of Mali, in West
Africa. This project involved setting up a cooperative to try to solve the problems of
sanitation in the old central quarters of the city. One of the main problems was a lack
of a system for garbage collection, which meant that there were a lot of insects, and
this was causing disease. And again it's interesting to look at who was involved in
dealing with this problem - in this case, the cooperative involved students who had
graduated from secondary school ip getting a system going. As well as that, the
cooperative set up a campaign to educate the public about the importance of good
sanitation, through showing films and setting up discussion groups among the local
people, especially women and adolescents. And the outcome was an increased
environmental awareness which led to changes in household behaviour as well as
improved living conditions.

OK, the third project was in Egypt, just outside the capital, Cairo, which is a city that's
grown very rapidly in the last few decades. This project was based in a Women's
Centre in a poor area called Mokattam. The aim of the project was to support girls ...
young women from the area from poor families, so these were women who had no
education, they’d never been to school, so they were totally illiterate, and they had
no chance of getting jobs.

At the Women’s Centre, they were shown how lo sew and how to weave, and once
they'd learned these skills ,they were given the equipment, a sewing machine or a
loom - so that they could make things to sell, and have a chance of earning their own
living. And this project has meant that these young women have greater statusin the
community, but as well as that, they can enjoy a better quality of life.

So I don’t think the problem is that cities are bad. This world and its cities have the
resources lo provide for the population that lives there. What it takes is a stronger will
and a better distribution of resources.

PRACTICE TEST 5
Section 1
30
Woman: Hmm .. I'm interested in doing some work for the library - are you the
person to speak to?

Librarian: Yes Right, well, erm, what sort of work are you interested in?

Woman: I've just come to live here in Australia I don't want a full-time job until my
children have settled down, but t really need to get out of the house a bit, and l heard
you need voluntary workers for various projects...

Librarian: Right.

Woman: but I don't know if I have the right skills.

Librarian: Well, we do provide training

Woman: Oh.

Librarian: We always include an orientation to the library, together with

emergency procedures, that's fire regulations, emergency exits, first aid. So you can
cope with accidents or sudden illness, things like that which are necessary for
anyone who’s working with the public. Then we give specialist training for particular
projects - like using our database system.

Woman: I do have quite good computer skills, in fact.

Librarian: Umm Great!

Woman: Is there any sort of dress requirement?

Librarian: Well, all staff have to wear a name badge so they can be identified if
they go outside the ’staff only' areas. But apart from that there aren't many
regulations - we ask you to sign in and sign outfor insurance purposes, but that's all.
How about transport do you live locally?

Woman: Not too far away I'm at Porpoise Beach. My husband needs the car
during the day but it's only about twenty minutes on the bus.

Librarian: In fact, we can reimburse part of your travel expenses in that case.

Woman: Oh Would that be the same if I came by car?

Librarian: No, because parking is such a problem here. One thing we are looking
for though is someone who can drive a minibus.

Woman: No problem So. do the projects involve going outside the library?

Librarian: Some, yes. But not all. We’ve just finished one which involved working
with photographs taken of the area 50 or 100 years ago it basically involved what we
call encapsulation ..
31
Woman: Putting them in some sort of covers to keep them safe?

Librarian: Exactly, it’s time-consuming work, and we were very grateful to have
help with it. Then, sometime next year we're hoping to begin working on an initiative
involving the sorting and labelling of objects relating to local history. We'll be needing
help with the cataloguing.

Woman: I'd definitely be interested. How about at present?

Librarian: Well, we have a small team who work to support those who are unable
to read.

Woman: Working with the blind.

Librarian: Yes, or other groups who have reading difficulties. We provide

volunteers with equipment so that they can take books home with them and read
them aloud onto CDs. We're gradually building up a collection that can be lent to
those who need them

Woman: Mmm. I can see it would be useful, but I'd really like to do some sort of
work where I can get the chance to meet people. How about reading stories to
children?

Librarian: Mmm. That's done by our regular staff. But we do have another project -
it's a very long established scheme which involves helping those who are unable to
have direct access to the library.

Woman: Oh. I noticed someone with a trolley of books when i was at the
hospital last week. That sort of thing?

Librarian: That would have been one of ours, yes. It’s one of our most popular
services - lots of people who wouldn't dream of going to the library normally, when
they're at home, borrow a book when the trolley comes round the ward.

Woman: I can imagine. Yes, I'd definitely be interested in that. Right, so how do I
enroll?

Librarian: Well, we do ask all volunteers to commit themselves to a regular period

each week.

Woman: I could probably do five or six hours.

Librarian: Oh ... be careful not to take on too much - but we do need someone for
a couple of afternoons from 2 to 4 ... so four hours altogether.

Woman: That sounds fine.

Librarian: Right, so here's the application form . .. it asks the usual questions,
name and address and telephone number. You also need to fill in details of who we

32
should get in touch with in case of any accident or problem like that, we do need to
have that filled in, and there's a space for date of birth, but that’s only if you're over
75 so. we won't worry about that.

Woman: No. Oh. it asks for qualifications do I need to provide certificates?

Librarian: They're not necessary. We'll need the names of two referees not
relatives or family members, obviously. What else . . signature of parent or guardian
- that won't be necessary as i assume you're over 18?

Woman: Yes. What's this? it says 'civil conviction check'

Librarian: That's a document we have to provide by law for those working on

projects involving children, so we’ won’t need it in your case. But you will need to
sign this separate document that’s a copy of commitment, it's basically an agreement
to work according to the library guidelines. So if you'd like to fill this all in - you can
do it here, or take it home, whichever you prefer.

Woman: I'll take it home if that’s OK. Right, well thank you for your time ...

Section 2
Good morning, folks, and welcome to the Information Round-up on your own local
radio station. This is Larry Knowles talking to you this morning or Tuesday 25th May
.. And the first term coming up is a reminder to you all out there about Canadian
Clean Air Day - which is on June 6th.

In case you weren't around for the last one, this is a chance for Canadians
everywhere to focus on the problems of air pollution and to actually try to do
something to help reduce the problem.

How many Canadians do you think die annually because of air pollution? 2000?
3000? Well, the rate is a staggering 5000 and, it's likely to grow - unless we do
something. And, it's this concern with your health that's the driving force behind the
government campaign that is sponsoring Clean Air Day.

So what causes air pollution in the first place? Well, the transportation sector
accounts for 27 percent of all greenhouse gases produced in Canada. It’s also the
biggest source of that thick, polluted air tram traffic fumes that we call smog. And it's
the tiny particles and ground-level ozone in smog that are the main causes of health
problems, and even deaths, across the country. Of course, it's worse in the big cities
... but researchers have only recently realised that all you need are low levels of air
pollution to seriously damage your health, so we're all at risk.

33
So. what can we do to fight air pollution? Well, it should be pretty obvious by now
that the way we get to and from work every day can have a big impact on the air we
breathe. So the easiest action you can take on Clean Air Day is to accept what we
call the ‘CommuterChallenge' and get to work on foot or by cycling for a change. If
you have to use your car, try 'car pooling' and share the drive, or better still, use
public transit. If everyone tries this for just one day, you'll be amazed by the
difference it can make to the air in our towns and cities.

But, there's more you can do to improve air quality. For example, you can plant
trees. And if you don't have a garden, then you can do your bit in other ways. For
instance, did you know that modern, improved wood stoves can reduce wood smoke
by as much as 80-90 percent? So you can make a big difference if you upgrade the
appliances you use in your home.

The government is also working hard on your behalf to clean up our air. Its priority is
to reduce the emissions that cause smog and they have dear plans to get there. Last
year, Canada and the United States agreed to reduce emissions on both sides of
the border between the two countries and they plan to reach their targets in the next
few years.

The government's also taking action to get cleaner fuels, it's already reduced the
sulphur contained in gasoline, and it hopes to reach the reduction target for sulphur
in diesel by next year. But the measures don't just focus on the motorist - the federal
government's also working to reduce emissions from power plants and factories right
across the provinces.

You can find out all about government action and all the plans for Clean Air Day
events.

Section 3
Jack: Katy, hi. Thanks for inviting me round.

Katy: Thanks for coming know you're up to your neck in finals revision, but I've
got to make up my mind about next year's Geography field trip and I'd really like your
advice. We've got to choose between an African trip and one in Europe. They've told
us a bit about both trips in the lecture but I really can't make up my mind, and I know
you did the African one last year.

Jack: That's right.

Katy: So, where exactly did you go? I mean. I know it was in Kenya, in East Africa
...

Jack: Yes, well, we were right up in the north-west of the country. It was beautiful.
We stayed in a place called the Marich Pass Field Studies Centre.
34
Katy: Right. Dr Rowe said the accommodation was traditional African-
style cottages. er. he had a special name for them ..

Jack: Bandas. Yes, they're fine. You have to share two or three people together.
They're pretty basic but you have a mosquito net. They don't provide spray though
so remember to take plenty with you - you'll need it. And there's no electricity in the
Field Centre - you’ll have hurricane lamps instead They give a good light, it's no
problem.

Katy: What about places to study? Dr Rowe said there was a library ...

Jack: Yes. but it’s quite small. There's a lecture room as well - but most of us
worked out in the open air, there are plenty of places outside. And it's so beautiful -
you're right in the middle of the forest clearing

Katy: I gather it's a relatively unmodernised area?

Jack: Definitely. They actually set up the centre there because it's on the
boundaries of two distinct ecological zones the mountains, where the people are
mainly agriculturalists, and the semi-arid plains lower down, where they're semi
nomadic pastoralists.

Katy: So, how much chance did you get to meet the local people there? Did you
get die chance to do interviews?

Jack: Yes though we had to use local interpreters. But that was OK. Then we
did field observation, of course, looking at environmental and cultural conditions, and
morphological mapping.

Katy: What's that?

Jack: Oh. Looking at the surface forms of the landscape, the slope elements and
so on.

Katy: What about specific projects?

Jack: Yes. After the first two or three days, we spent most of our time on those.
We could pretty well do what we wanted, although they all had to relate to issues
concerned with development in some way. People did various things .. some were
based on social and cultural topics, like the effect of education on the aspirations of
young people, and some did more physical process-based studies, looking at things
like soil erosion. My group actually looked at issues relating to water, things like
sources such as rivers and wells, and quality and so on. It was a good project to
work on, but, a bit frustrating - we felt we needed a lot more time really.

Katy: Right. Dr Rowe did say something about limiting project scope.

Jack: Yes, he told us that too at the beginning and I can see why now. What else
... well, we had some good trips out as part of the course. We went to a market

35
town a place called Sigor - that was to study distribution and to look at agricultural
production we went to the Wei Wei valley, that's an important agricultural region.

Katy: And what about animals? Did you have a chance to go to a national park?

Jack: Sure, we did a top on the last day, on the way back to the airport at Nairobi.
But actually there was lots of wildlife at the Field Centre vervet monkeys and
baboons and lizards ..

Katy: Mmm. It does sound good.

Jack: It was excellent, I‘d say. In terms of logistics it was very well run, but it was
more than that I mean, it's not the sort of place I‘d ever have got to on my own, and it
was a real eye-opener - it got me really interested in development issues and the
way other people live. I did find it frustrating at the time that we couldn't get as far as
we wanted on the project, but actually I'm going to follow it up in my dissertation, so
it's given me some ideas and data for that as well.

Katy: So you'd say it was worth the extra money?

Jack: Definitely.

Section 4
For my website design project, I decided lo approach Supersave supermarkets,
because I have an evening job at the supermarket, so I already have a slight insight
into their organisational goals and workings.

The field research for my project was in two stages.

First, I had an interview with Mr Dunne, who is in charge of Supersave's customer

care department. I discussed the project with him in order to identify the
supermarket's requirements. Mr Dunne said customers are often unwilling to make a
face-to-face complaint when they've experienced difficulties with a product, or a
member of staff, or anything related to the supermarket. So he said a website which
allowed members of the public to get in touch with the organisation and bring the
problem to their attention in a privatemanner might be very useful, and we agreed
that I’d work on this.

For the second stage of my research, I devised a questionnaire to put to

Supersave customers. I needed to find out about the customers' experiences of
problems, together with their attitudes towards making complaints, both directly and
indirectly. I used a mixture of closed questions such as 'Have you ever experienced
a problem at any Supersave store?' and open questions such as 'What would you
find helpful about a customer complaint website?’

36
I decided to do interviews rather than rely on distribution of the questionnaire, as I
felt this was likely to lead to a higher take-up rate. I visited four Supersave stores,
two in the city centre and two in the outskirts and altogether I interviewed 101
respondents. Then finally, I analysed the results.

I found the results of the questionnaires to be very informative. I found that out of the
total number of customers investigated, 64 percent had at some stage encountered
a problem in a Supersave Store. Out of these people, the vast majority said that they
hadn’t reported the problem to any member of staff they’d just kept it to themselves.
The next thing I tried to find out was why they hadn't complained. Well, about 25
percent of the people I interviewed said the reason was that they couldn't be
bothered, and a slightly smaller percentage said they didn't have enough time, but 55
percent said the reason was that they felt intimidated. I finally asked if they would be
more likely to complain if they didn't have to do it face-to-face, and nearly everyone I
asked said that they would - 95 percent, to be exact.

I then set about designing the website to meet these needs. Once l'd completed the
website, I made another appointment with Mr Dunne, to find out what he thought of
it.

Mr Dunne said he felt that the pages would benefit his organisation by giving
customers a new way of expressing their complaints, and by making it easier to
collect complaints, identify specific places where service and customer care were not
as good as they should be, and act upon them accordingly. Supersave is already a
highly customer-orientated organisation and he thought our website would be an
excellent addition to their customer care effort.

This is all well and good but there still remains the general problem with websites,
that there's a lack of access to on-line computers. Surprisingly, in my survey I found
that 88 percent of those interviewed had access to the Internet, which I felt was quite
high. But this access wasn't always direct for some people it was through their
children and grandchildren and neighbours and so on, rather than being readily
available in their own homes. This could prove to be a major drawback to the site,
but it is still better to have it now to yet the edge over competitors, however slight,
and ii the very near future it is expected that almost everyone will have direct access
to the Internet.

Another thing to consider is that at the moment I can only base our conclusions on
data gathered from a tiny fraction of the supermarket's customer base. In order to get
a better idea of how the site is doing and to see how well l have met my objectives,
the site will need to have been up and running for at least a few months. After this
time, I’ll be possible to see whether or not people are actually using the site, and if
it’s helping to make improvements to their customer service.

It would also be interesting to study the effect of the site on staff at the supermarket.
Morale could be dented, as more complaints come in. Staff may feel they are being
unfairly criticised and that there is no need for another way for customers to
complain. But also, the site could boost morale by making staff come together to
overcome the constructive criticism, and they may gain more job satisfaction by
knowing that they are making a difference to the customer.
37
So, overall, l feel my website has met my objectives, but there is scope for
improvement and expansion. Are there any questions?

PRACTICE TEST 6
Section 1
Council Officer: Environmental Health Department, Paul speaking.

Mrs Shefford: Oh, hello. Erm, wanted to report a vehicle that's been left parked near
where I live - I think it’s been abandoned, I wondered if the council could arrange to
get it towed away Have I got through to the right department?

Council Officer: Yes. you have. If I could just take a few details . your name,
please?

Mrs Shefford: Mrs Shefford.

Council Officer: Thank you

Mrs Shefford: It's not my vehicle, though .. I just thought someone ought to report it

Council Officer: No. that’s fine. What I need to do is take some details first, then we
can decide what to do about the problem.

Mrs Shefford: Oh, I see.

Council Officer: So the next thing l need to know is your address

Mrs Shefford: Right It’s 41 Lower Green Street.

Council Officer: Yes

Mrs Shefford: Barrowdale. And the post code's WH4 5JP.

Council Officer: Fine And if I could just ask for a telephone number ?

Mrs Shefford: It's 01778 552387 I’m out quite a lot, but you can just leave a
message on the answer phone if you need to or I could give you my mobile number?

Council Officer: That’s all right, don’t worry Now. could you tell me a little more
about this vehicle You say it’s been abandoned?

Mrs Shefford: Well, it certainly looks like it.

38
Council Officer: Can you give me an idea of where it is?

Mrs Shefford: Yes. It's near the main road that goes through Barrowdale.

Council Officer: Is that the A69?

Mrs Shefford: Yes. That's right Now. there's the primary school just towards the
end of the village, and then next to that, next to the children's playground, there’s
a field, and it’s in there.

Council Officer: Aah ... I wonder how it got in there?

Mrs Shefford: There's a gate to allow farm machinery in and out l thought
something ought to be done about it - the children from the school might start playing
in the vehicle and lock themselves in or something

Council Officer: Yes, you were quite right to report it. And what type of vehicle
are we talking about here?

Mrs Shefford: It's a van actually. You know, the sort with just a couple of little
windows at the back.

Council Officer: Right You don't happen to know the make and model, do you?

Mrs Shefford: Oh. yes I went and had a look and got all the details. I thought you
might need them I’m surprised the school hasn’t contacted you about it Anyway. I
wrote the details down Er. right, it's a Catala, and the model’s a Flyer 2000.

Council Officer: Is that F-L-Y-E-R?

Mrs Shefford: That’s right.

Council Officer: Very good. And the colour?

Mrs Shefford: Well, it’s not all that easy to see because it’s absolutely filthy. And
actually, it looks as if it’s had a paint job at some stage .. it’s blue, but you can just
see white underneath where it’s been scratched.

Council Officer: Right Well, I'll just make a note of the present colour. And if you
could just tell me the vehicle number. Did you make a note of that?

Mrs Shefford: Oh, yes. It’s S 322 GEC.

Council Officer: OK. And it sounds as if the general condition of the vehicle isn’t
too good, from what you say.

Mrs Shefford: No, it’s pretty poor. It wouldn’t be drivable. It’s got a flat tyre, and
there's a crack in the windscreen I reckon someone just wanted to get rid of it.

39
Council Officer: That's usually the way.

Mrs Shefford: It's been there for nearly a week . no. it must be eight days. I
remember it was a Sunday morning when l noticed it. It wasn't there the day before. I
walk past it most days on the way to the shops I'd have thought the school would
have reported it.

Council Officer: Does the field actually belong to the school?

Mrs Shefford: No, it’s part of Hill Farm Estate.

Council Officer: Right! It just make a note of that. And I don't suppose you have
any information about who might own the vehicle?

Mrs Shefford: No, I’ve no idea. So what will you do now?

Council Officer: Well, we’ll come and have a look, and see if we can trace the
owner. And if we can't, the vehicle will be removed as rapidly as the law permits. It
could be anything up to 20 days.

Mrs Shefford: One thing I should say, I'm quite sure this doesn't belong to
anyone round here I'd definitely recognise it if it was from someone who lived here.

Council Officer: So you don't think it was anyone local. Right, I'd say at a guess
we're looking at a stolen vehicle here.

Mrs Shefford: I did wonder if it might have been. You hear such alot about car
thieves nowadays.

Council Officer: Well, we certain!y will be looking into that possibility. Anyway,
thank you for contacting us, Mrs Shefford, and we'll keep you informed of what
happens.

Mrs Shefford: Right. Thank you very much.

Council Officer: Goodbye.

Mrs Shefford: Goodbye.

Section 2
Right, so here we are in Fairhaven, ano we have a couple of hours to spend in this
historic centre before we carry on to our motel And as you'll know from the itinerary
of our trip, we're visiting Fairhaven because of its historical links with a man called

40
Manjiro Nakahama. So I'll begin by giving you a brief overview of his life, and then
you can explore the town at your leisure.

Well, Manjiro Nakahama, as he was then known, was born in 1827 in a village by the
sea in what is now Tosashimizu in Japan. And like many people in that town, he
became a fisherman when he was just a youngster.

One day in 1841, when he was just 14 years old, he and some others were fishing
tar off the coast of Japan when they were caught in a storm and shipwrecked on a
small deserted island. They had to wait for six months before they were rescued by
an American whale ship that had stopped at the island by chance. Four of the five
Japanese were put ashore in Hawaii, but Manjiro had become friends with
the captain. William Whitfield, who came from the town of Fairhaven, where we are
now, and he chose to remain aboard, and to return with the boat to the USA. So
Manjiro unwittingly became the first Japanese ever to set foot on American soil. He
came back right here to Fairhaven with Whitfield, and stayed with the Whitfield family
who paid for his education here in the town. He studied Mathematics and Geography
as well as shipbuilding and navigation. But he missed his mother, and his own
country, and eventually he went back to Japan where he had a responsible position
as a university teacher and also served an invaluable role as interpreter during the
initiation of relations between Japan and the United States in the middle of the
nineteenth century.

But the most interesting thing is that the links between Tosashimizu and Fairhaven
have remained and grown stronger over the years, in spite of the distance between
them, and in fact the two places now have the official status of sister cities. Both
places are ports, so in fact the inhabitants have a lot in common. There have been a
number of visits by the inhabitants of Tosashimizu, in particular at the time of
the Festival, which is held every two years here in Fairhaven to celebrate the life and
achievements of John Manjiro. It takes place in the fall, arid there's an ever-growing
programme including drumming, singing, martial arts, and stalls selling Japanese
and American food. So if you're going to be in the region around then, it’s really
worth a visit.

Now many of the buildings that Manjiro Nakahama knew in Fairhaven are still
standing today, and so if you'd just like to hand round some copies of this map I'll
suggest the best route to follow to see them. OK, so if you look at the bottom of the
map you can see the Millicent Library, and that's where we are now Now to fellow
the John Manjiro trail, you go out of here along Center Street, and then head up
Main Street until you get to Pilgrim Avenue. Go down there and turn right at the end,
go straight on and just on the corner with Oxford Street you’ll see a two- storey
house This is the Whitfield family house, and this is where Manjiro first stayed when
he came to Fairhaven. It's still a private residence, so please respect the owner's
privacy. OK Now, if you carry on along Oxford Street, then turn left at the end, you'll
come to North Street, and about half-way down there is what's known as Old Oxford
School This was the very same school that Manjiro attended when he lived here It
was considered to be the best school in town because of the quality of the
building unusually, it was built of stone - and the quality of the teaching. Nowadays
it’s usually closed, except on special occasions. Go on to the end of North Street and
turn the corner onto Adams Street, if you follow the road down, back towards the

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library, you go round a couple of sharp bends and on the second of these, you can
see the School Of Navigation which Manjiro also attended. And if you follow the road
on, you'll soon find yourself back here at the library, and I'd suggest you spend some
time looking round that too. if you have any time left.

Right, now, does anyone have any questions ..

Section 3
Dr Hilsden: Right Julia, so from your CV and portfolio, and what you’ve already
told me. you seem to be very much the sort of person we're looking for on the
postgraduate course. So tell me, you finished your Fashion Design course in London
four years ago did you think of carrying straight on and doing a higher degree at the
time?

Julia: Yes but there were financial pressures. So I ended up working in the retail
industry, as you can see from my CV. And actually it was a very useful experience.

Dr Hilsden: Mmm Iri what way?

Julia: Well, I was lucky to get the job with FashionNow - they're a big store, and,
one of my priorities was to get as much experience as possible in different areas, so
that was good because I had the chance to work in lots of different departments. And
having direct contact with the customers meant I was able to see how they reacted
to innovation - to new fashion ideas, because with FashionNow, a designer might
show something in New York or Milan and there'll be something similar in the shop
within weeks. So, that was probably the most useful thing for me.

Dr Hilsden: Right. And so what's made you decide to do a postgraduate course

now?

Julia: Erm . Well, while I enjoyed working at FashionNow and I learned a lot there,
I felt .. well, the way forward would have been to develop my managerial skills rather
than my skills in fashion design, and I'm not sure that's what I want to do.

Dr Hilsden: Mmm, yes.

Julia: When I was doing my degree in London I'd been interested in women's
wear. But know that there’s been a lot of work done in areas like new fabric
construction - and though I'm not intending to go too deeply into the technology I'd
be very interested in looking at how new fabrics could be used in children's wear, so
I'd like the chance to pursue that line.

Dr Hilsden: Yes. Good. And are you at all concerned about what's going to be like
coming back into an academic context after being away from it for several years?

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Julia: No, I'm looking forward to it. But I'm basically more interested in the
application than the theory or at least that's what I've found so far, and I'm hoping the
course will give me the contacts and skills I need eventually to set up my own
enterprise I'm particularly interested by the overseas links that the department has.

Dr Hilsden: Yes, many of our students look overseas or to international companies

for sponsorship of their projects.

Julia: And the facilities here look excellent. I just went to look at the library -
it's really impressive. There's so much room compared with the one at my old
university.

Dr Hilsden: Yes, most students find it's a good place to study. And there are linkups
to other universities, of course, and all the usual electronic sources the staff run an
Information Skills Programme which we recommend all postgraduates do in the first
week or two.Design students find the Special Collections particularly useful.

Julia: Yes.

Dr Hilsden: Then we have a separate Computer Centre, which has its own
academic coordinator, Tim Spender - he's got a background in art design, and the
ethos of the centre is that it's a studio for innovation and creativity, rather than a
computer laboratory.

Julia: Oh, right, i liked the study spaces where students can sit and discuss work
together very useful for joint projects We always had to do that sort of thing in the
cafeteria when l was an undergraduate. And I read in the brochure that there's a
separate resource for photography.

Dr Hilsden: Yes, it's called Photomedia. It's not just for photography, but things
like digital imaging and new media. It's a resource for all our students, not just
fashion design, and we encourage students to work there producing work that
crosses disciplinary boundaries. It's well used in fact, it's doubled in size since it was
set up three years ago. And we also have an offshoot from that which is called Time
Based Media - this is for students who want to develop their ideas in the area of the
moving image or sound. That's in a new building that was specially built for it just last
year, but there are plans to expand it as the present facilities are overstretched
already.

Julia: Right.

Dr Hilsden: Now. is there anything you'd like to ask about the course itself?

Julia: Erm, ... I know it’s a combination of taught modules and a specialist project,
but how does assessment lit in?

Dr Hilsden: Well, as you'd expect on a course of this nature, it's an ongoing

process. The degree course has four stages, and there are what we call progress

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reviews at the end of each of the first three. Then the final assessment is based on
your project. You have to produce a report which is a critical reflection on your work.

Julia: And is there some sort of fashion show?

Dr Hilsden: There's an exhibition. The projects aren't all focused on clothes as

such, some are more experimental, so that seems more appropriate. We ask
representatives of fashion companies along, and it's usually well attended.

Julia: Right. And another thing I wanted to ask .

Section 4
You will hear a lecturer talking about the importance of laughter.

Good afternoon, everybody .. and in our second talk on social psychology i want to
look at the role of laughter in our lives - something that usually gets everyone smiling
from the start.

So first of all, I'll start by looking at the actual nature of laughter. Well, when
someone laughs you've got movement of the muscles of the face and the chest, and
you've got sound formed when the air’s forced out of the body as part of this
process, so we’re talking about a physical activity. But obviously other things are
involved as well and this is where it gets more complicated. Laughing isn’t something
that you normally decide to do. so it’s not voluntary behaviour, like ordinary speech.
Instead it’s regulated by our instincts rather like the singing of a bird, or the roaring of
a lion. And once you start to laugh, it can be quite hard to stop that's not always
under your conscious control either.

But why do we laugh? Because we find something funny, most of us would say. But
in fact it appears that laughter has little to do with jokes or funny stories only about
10 percent of laughter is caused by things like that. One suggestion is that human
laughter may have originally started out as a shared response to signal relief at the
passing of danger. And it's true that even these days, laughter’s rarely an activity
carried out by an individual on his or her own. In fact, people are 30 times more likely
to laugh when they're with other people than when they're completely alone.
Laughter still seems to be a kind of social signal, it occurs when people are in a
group and they're comfortable with one another And it seems likely that laughter can
result in the creation of bonds between the people in the group.

And it's precisely because of this social aspect of laughter that people like public
speakers and politicians often try to get their audience to laugh it encourages their
listeners to trust them and to connect with them. But this kind of thing - controlling
the laughter of a group, that is indicates that there's a link between laughter
and power, and this is supported by several studies that indicate that bosses use
humour more than their employees. And research has also shown that female
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listeners are likely to laugh much more if the speaker is male, so it appears that there
are gender issues associated with how much we laugh

I should also point out that laughter can he used as a negativesignal as well as a
positive one. I think we've all probably seen evidence of a group using laughter to
exclude someone ... to emphasise that they are not accepted. So it's not always a
positive type of behaviour, either. So what all this goes to show is that laughter is a
very, very complex issue.

It does appear however that laughter has definite benefits. If we look first at the
psychological aspects, we know that people often tend to store negative emotions,
such as anger, sadness and fear, rather than expressing them, and il seems that
laughter provides a harmless way for the release of those emotions. But there are
also clear physical effects that have been monitored too. For example, laughter is
good aerobic exercise - it speeds up heart rate and respiration, and raises blood
pressure; one researcher suggests that 100 laughs a day is the equivalent of 10
minutes' jogging.

Laughter also helps prevent the stress that so many people suffer from today, which
results from the faster pace of life and all that goes with il It does this by reducing the
levels of hormones in the blood which are caused by stress. And, in addition, it is
known to increase the levels of chemicals that protect the body from infection or pain
and so it helps to boost the immune system. One interesting study showed that
people who had had surgical operations asked for fewer pain killers if they'd been
viewing comic films. In fact, research has even shown that the quality of dreams can
be positively affected by laughter - a good laugh 10 minutes before going to sleep
can prevent you from having bad dreams and give a much more pleasant and
restorative night's sleep, So. there's now little argument that finding things funny and
enjoying a good laugh is extremely beneficial to us all.

What we need to consider now are the ways in which laughter can be used as a
treatment for people who...

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