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Practice dictation & shadowing on the Cambridge IELTS 10 Academic Listening Part 3 Test 2.
Cambridge IELTS 10 Academic Listening Test 2 Part 3
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Speaker 1 (1)
Right, well, for our presentation shall I start with the early life of Thor Heyerdahl?
Speaker 2 (2)
Sure. Why don't you begin with describing the type of boy he was, especially his passion for collecting things?
Speaker 1 (3)
That's right. He had his own little museum.
Speaker 1 (4)
And I think it's unusual for children to develop their own values and not join in their parents' hobbies.
Speaker 1 (5)
I'm thinking of how Heyerdahl wouldn't go hunting with his dad, for example.
Speaker 2 (6)
Yeah. He preferred to learn about nature by listening to his mother read to him.
Speaker 2 (7)
And quite early on, he knew he wanted to become an explorer when he grew up.
Speaker 2 (8)
That came from his camping trips he went on in Norway, I think.
Speaker 1 (9)
No. It was climbing that he spent his time on as a young man.
Speaker 2 (10)
Oh, right. After university, he married a classmate, and together, they decided to experience living on a small island to find out how harsh weather conditions shaped people's lifestyles.
Speaker 1 (11)
As part of their preparation, before they left home, they learned basic survival skills, like building a shelter.
Speaker 1 (12)
I guess they needed that knowledge in order to live wild in a remote location with few inhabitants cut off by the sea, which is what they were aiming to do.
Speaker 2 (13)
An important part of your talk should be the radical theory Heyerdahl formed from examining mysterious ancient carvings that he happened to find on the island.
Speaker 2 (14)
I think you should finish with that.
Speaker 1 (15)
Okay.
Speaker 2 (16)
Alright, Victor. So after your part, I'll talk about Thor Heyerdahl's adult life, continuing from the theory he had about Polynesian migration.
Speaker 2 (17)
Up until that time, of course, academics had believed that humans first migrated to the islands in Polynesia from Asia, in the west.
Speaker 1 (18)
Yes. They thought that travel from the east was impossible because of the huge empty stretch of ocean that lies between the islands and the nearest inhabited land.
Speaker 2 (19)
Yes. But Heyerdahl spent ages studying the cloud movements, ocean currents, and wind patterns to find if it was actually possible.
Speaker 2 (20)
And another argument was that there was no tradition of large ship-building in the communities lying to the east of Polynesia.
Speaker 2 (21)
But Heyerdahl knew they made lots of coastal voyages in locally built canoes.
Speaker 1 (22)
Yes. Or sailing on rafts, as was shown by the long voyage that Heyerdahl did next.
Speaker 1 (23)
It was an incredibly risky journey to undertake.
Speaker 1 (24)
Sometimes I wonder if he did that trip for private reasons, you know, to show others that he could have spectacular adventures.
Speaker 1 (25)
What do you think, Olivia?
Speaker 2 (26)
Well, I think it was more a matter of simply trying out his idea, to see if migration from the east was possible.
Speaker 1 (27)
Yes. That's probably it.
Speaker 1 (28)
And the poor guy suffered a bit at that time because the war forced him to stop his work for some years.
Speaker 2 (29)
Yes. When he got started again and planned his epic voyage, do you think it was important to him that he achieve it before anyone else did?
Speaker 1 (30)
Um, I haven't read anywhere that that was his motivation.
Speaker 1 (31)
The most important factor seems to have been that he used only ancient techniques and local materials to build his raft.
Speaker 2 (32)
Yes. I wonder how fast it went.
Speaker 1 (33)
Well, it took them 97 days from South America to the Pacific Islands.
Speaker 2 (34)
And after that, Heyerdahl went to Easter Island, didn't he?
Speaker 2 (35)
We should mention the purpose of that trip.
Speaker 2 (36)
I think he sailed there in a boat made out of reeds.
Speaker 1 (37)
No. That was later on in Egypt, Olivia.
Speaker 2 (38)
Oh, yes. That's right.
Speaker 1 (39)
But what he wanted to do was talk to the local people about their old stone carvings, and then make one himself to learn more about the process.
Speaker 2 (40)
I see. Well, what a great life.
Speaker 2 (41)
Even though many of his theories have been disproven, he certainly left a lasting impression on many disciplines, didn't he?
Speaker 2 (42)
To my mind, he was the first person to establish what modern academics call practical archaeology.
Speaker 2 (43)
I mean, that they try to recreate something from the past today, like he did with his raft trip.
Speaker 2 (44)
It's unfortunate that his ideas about where Polynesians originated from have been completely discredited.
Speaker 1 (45)
Yes. Right. Well, I'll prepare a PowerPoint slide at the end that acknowledges our sources.
Speaker 1 (46)
I mainly used The Life and Work of Thor Heyerdahl by William Oliver.
Speaker 1 (47)
I thought the research methods he used were very sound, although I must say I found the overall tone somewhat old-fashioned.
Speaker 1 (48)
I think they need to do a new revised edition.
Speaker 2 (49)
Yeah. I agree. What about the subject matter?
Speaker 2 (50)
I found it really challenging.
Speaker 1 (51)
Well, it's a complex issue.
Speaker 2 (52)
I thought the book had lots of good points. What...