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Practice dictation & shadowing on the Cambridge IELTS 18 Academic Listening Part 3 Test 2.
Cambridge IELTS 18 Academic Listening Test 2 Part 3
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Total Correct Answers:
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Speaker 2 (1)
So Michelle, shall we make a start on our presentation?
Speaker 2 (2)
We haven't got that much time left.
Speaker 1 (3)
No, Adam, but at least we've done all the background reading.
Speaker 1 (4)
I found it really interesting. I'd never even heard of the Laki eruption before this.
Speaker 2 (5)
Me neither. I suppose 1783 is a long time ago.
Speaker 1 (6)
But it was a huge eruption and it had such devastating consequences.
Speaker 2 (7)
I know. It was great there were so many primary sources to look at.
Speaker 2 (8)
It really gives you a sense of how catastrophic the volcano was.
Speaker 2 (9)
People were really trying to make sense of the science for the first time.
Speaker 1 (10)
That's right. But what I found more significant was how it impacted directly and indirectly on political events, as well as having massive social and economic consequences.
Speaker 2 (11)
I know. That should be the main focus of our presentation.
Speaker 1 (12)
The observations made by people at the time were interesting, weren't they?
Speaker 1 (13)
I mean, they all gave a pretty consistent account of what happened, even if they didn't always use the same terminology.
Speaker 2 (14)
Yeah. I was surprised there were so many weather stations established by that time.
Speaker 2 (15)
So, you know, you can see how the weather changed often by the hour.
Speaker 1 (16)
Right. Writers at the time talked about the Laki haze to describe the volcanic fog that spread across Europe.
Speaker 1 (17)
They all realised that this wasn't the sort of fog they were used to.
Speaker 1 (18)
And of course, this was in pre-industrial times, so they hadn't experienced sulphur smelling fog before.
Speaker 2 (19)
No, that's true.
Speaker 1 (20)
Reports from the period blamed the haze for an increase in headaches, respiratory issues and asthma attacks.
Speaker 1 (21)
And they all describe how it covered the sun and made it look a strange red colour.
Speaker 2 (22)
Must have been very weird.
Speaker 1 (23)
It's interesting that Benjamin Franklin wrote about the haze.
Speaker 1 (24)
Did you read that? He was the American ambassador in Paris at the time.
Speaker 2 (25)
Yeah. At first, no one realised that the haze was caused by the volcanic eruption in Iceland.
Speaker 1 (26)
It was Benjamin Franklin who realised that before anyone else.
Speaker 2 (27)
He's often credited with that, apparently, but a French naturalist beat him to it.
Speaker 2 (28)
I can't remember his name. I'd have to look it up.
Speaker 2 (29)
Then other naturalists had the same idea - all independently of each other.
Speaker 1 (30)
Oh, right. We should talk about the immediate impact of the eruption, which was obviously enormous, especially in Iceland where so many people died.
Speaker 2 (31)
You'd expect that, and the fact that the volcanic ash drifted so swiftly, but not that the effects would go on for so long.
Speaker 2 (32)
Or that two years after the eruption, strange weather events were being reported as far away as North America and North Africa.
Speaker 1 (33)
No. I found all that hard to believe too.
Speaker 1 (34)
It must have been terrible, and there was nothing anyone could do about it, even if they knew the ash cloud was coming in their direction.
Speaker 1 (35)
We should run through some of the terrible consequences of the eruption experienced in different countries.
Speaker 1 (36)
There's quite a varied range.
Speaker 2 (37)
Starting with Iceland, where the impact on farming was devastating.
Speaker 1 (38)
One of the most dramatic things there was the effect on livestock as they grazed in the fields.
Speaker 1 (39)
They were poisoned because they ate vegetation that had been contaminated with fluorine as a result of the volcanic fallout.
Speaker 2 (40)
That was horrible. In Egypt, the bizarre weather patterns led to a severe drought and as a result, the Nile didn't flood, which meant the crops all failed.
Speaker 1 (41)
It's so far from where the eruption happened, and yet the famine there led to more people dying than any other country.
Speaker 1 (42)
It was worse than the plague.
Speaker 2 (43)
OK. Then in the UK, the mortality rate went up a lot, presumably from respiratory illnesses.
Speaker 2 (44)
According to one report, it was about double the usual number and included an unusually high percentage of people under the age of 25.
Speaker 1 (45)
I think people will be surprised to hear that the weather in the USA was badly affected too.
Speaker 1 (46)
George Washington even makes a note in his diary that they were snowbound until March in Virginia.
Speaker 1 (47)
That was before he became president.
Speaker 2 (48)
Yes, and there was ice floating down the Mississippi, which was unprecedented.
Speaker 1 (49)
Astonishing really. Anyway..
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