IELTS Simulation Tests Academic Listening Test 03 (Online Test)

Welcome to the museum. Before we go inside, I'd like to remind you of one or two things. Firstly, you'll be pleased to know that admission is free to all visitors so explore at your leisure and, if you can't take it all in today, you can come back again and again without any charge at all. Opening hours are from 10 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. most days but the museum closes a little later on Thursday and Friday evenings. There are new multimedia guides available in 10 languages—they can be picked up from the desk in the covered courtyard for four pounds fifty and you can have it with you all day—from opening time in the morning until half an hour before closing—but you will need to produce ID—a passport, driver's licence or national identity card are all acceptable. These multimedia guides have audio commentary as well as images and an interactive map for easy navigation. They're simple to operate and you will get a more detailed insight into many of the objects in the various galleries.

As a security measure, apart from your camera and a purse, wallet or small handbag, your other belongings such as large bags, coats and umbrellas will have to be left at the cloakroom. Please note that the museum has recently revised the regulations for the size of bags and parcels that it will accept in its cloakrooms. I think the maximum size is 40 by 40 by 50 centimetres with a maximum weight of 8 kilograms. The only exception to this is prams and pushchairs. There is a charge of one pound per item. The main cloakroom is to the left of the main entrance and there is another one at the north entrance.

It may seem obvious but may I remind you also that you should set your mobile phone to silent or turn it off altogether while you are in the museum and not carry or consume any food or drink in the exhibition halls. If you are hungry, there is an excellent restaurant where you can purchase a light lunch or a full meal. If it's just a hot beverage you want, then I can recommend taking a break at the Gallery Café.

As we enter the museum from the south by going through the main entrance, as I said before, you'll find the cloakroom immediately on your left and on your right is the museum shop. They have an outstanding range of postcards and souvenirs in there and it's well worth a visit but perhaps best left till you're on your way out. Then you'll know exactly what you want. The big room to the right of the entrance behind the shop is the reference library. Straight ahead of you, yes, the huge circular room, is the main reading room. If you decide to go in there, please keep noise to a minimum out of respect for the writers and scholars who use it for their research. The reading room is surrounded by what is known as the Great Court—indeed, it used to be an open courtyard—but you will see that it is now completely covered by a magnificent glass and steel structure.

If you walk around the Great Court in a clockwise direction, on the west side, you'll see the entrance to the long hall of Ancient Egypt which has an amazing collection of Egyptian antiquities. The gallery behind the reading room (directly opposite the entrance) is devoted to China and Southeast Asia. Here you'll see Chinese civilization explored chronologically from the Neolithic period through to the twenty-first century. The restrooms for both men and women are located in the northeast corner of this floor but don't worry; there are others available on the floors above. Another huge gallery extends along the eastern side of the courtyard and this is given over to Greece and Rome—the sculptures in this section are absolutely spellbinding.

Take your time looking at all the exhibits and when you're ready to view what's on the next floor, take the magnificent marble staircase by the entrance.

LECTURER: Good morning. Now, what is it you want to discuss today?

STUDENT: Good morning, Dr Reed. This assignment you've given us is the first psychology experiment I've had to do and I'm not sure where to begin or which steps to take.

LECTURER: Well, conducting your first psychology experiment can be quite a complicated and confusing process but just remember that like other sciences, psychology uses the scientific method and bases its conclusions upon empirical evidence.

STUDENT: What do you mean by "empirical" evidence?

LECTURER: Ah, well, empirical evidence is established by observation rather than theory.

STUDENT: And the scientific method?

LECTURER: Oh, yes, when conducting an experiment you need to follow a few basic steps.

STUDENT: I know the first step is to come up with a research question or problem.

LECTURER: Yes, a question that can be tested.

STUDENT: How do I find an appropriate question?

LECTURER: I would suggest one of three methods. Firstly, you can investigate a commonly held belief or what we call "folk" psychology.

STUDENT: I see. So, I could examine the belief that staying up all night to study for an important exam can adversely affect test performance?

LECTURER: That's right. In that case you would compare the scores of students who stayed up all night with those of students who got a good night's sleep.

STUDENT: I think I could do that.

LECTURER: Well, alternatively, you might want to consider reviewing the literature on psychology. You know, published studies can be a good source of unanswered research questions. I'm sure you've read papers where the authors note the need for further research.

STUDENT: So I would come up with some questions that remain unanswered?

LECTURER: Correct. But there is a third source of ideas: just think about everyday problems and then consider how you could investigate potential solutions.

STUDENT: Okay...perhaps I could study various memorisation strategies to find out which are the most effective.

LECTURER: That's the idea. Next, you need to define the variables—you know, anything that might have an effect on the outcome of your research.

STUDENT: Yes, I remember we learnt about that last week.

LECTURER: Yes. That's right. Then you have to develop a testable hypothesis that predicts how the variables are related.

STUDENT: For example: "Students who are sleep deprived will perform worse in an exam than students who are not sleep deprived"?

LECTURER: Exactly. Once you have developed a hypothesis you must carry out background research.

STUDENT: I can use books, journals, online databases and websites?

LECTURER: Yes, all of those. I covered the reasons for background research in last Friday's lecture, didn't I? What you have to remember at this stage is to take careful notes and generate a bibliography of your sources.

STUDENT: Okay, I've got that...then, I'm ready to develop an experimental design?

LECTURER: Well, again you have a choice. There are three basic designs and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. The pre-experimental design does not include a control group so there is no comparison. What we call a quasi-experimental design does incorporate a control group but there is no randomisation whereas a true experimental design has both control groups and random assignment to groups.

STUDENT: You've also told us about standardisation of procedures—is this where that comes in?—being sure to compare apples to apples...

LECTURER: Absolutely. Going back to your sleep deprivation example...the same exam would have to be given to each participant in the same way at the same time, etcetera.

STUDENT: Got it.

LECTURER: When selecting subjects, you need to consider different techniques. If you were to go through with your sleep deprivation experiment, you would need to ensure that your experimental and control groups were standardised, that is, all third year accounting students, for instance. A simple random sample involves choosing a number of participants from a group of similar people. On the other hand, a different kind of study might involve a stratified random sample where participants are randomly chosen from different subsets of the population.

STUDENT: You mean...subsets with distinctive characteristics...like age, gender, race, socioeconomic status and so on.

LECTURER: Precisely. Then the next step is to actually conduct the experiment and collect the data.

STUDENT: Then I have to analyse the data.

LECTURER: I'll be dealing with the statistical methods for analysing data in next week's lecture.

STUDENT: Oh good. I guess all that's left then is to write up the data?

LECTURER: Yes, communicating your results is important and in the next couple of lectures I'll be covering the format and structure of a psychology paper and tips for writing each section.

STUDENT: Thank you, Dr Reed. I feel much more confident in getting started now. Thank you for taking the time to see me.

Good morning and welcome to our inaugural lecture on Agricultural Economics. Today's topic is the world's production and trade of rice.

As you are all well aware rice is the staple ingredient in the diet of much of the world's population. Its importance as a food cereal in the human diet cannot be underestimated. In fact, it's a close second to wheat—about 560 million metric tons of rice is grown each year compared with about 600 million metric tons of wheat. Coarse grains, such as corn, sorghum, barley, oats, rye, and millet mostly go into animal feed which, by the way, is seen by many as a wasteful and inefficient use of fertile land because around 4 kilos of grain is needed to produce about half a kilo of beef. Some 900 million metric tons of coarse grains are grown annually worldwide and a further 300 million metric tons of grain is produced for the oil in its seeds...Now, I'll return to the subject of rice production...

What do we know about rice production? Well, firstly, rice produces more food energy per hectare than any other cereal grain and almost as much protein per hectare as wheat. Secondly, the production of rice has more than doubled in the last 40 years. How has this increase in production come about? Mainly as a result of improved field yields—the actual land area planted in rice has only risen by about 30%. As you know, rice is primarily grown in flooded fields and therefore cultivation area is restricted by the sort of soil and the availability of water.

Although rice can be grown on dry land—it is essentially after all a type of grass—the yields and quality in this case are much lower and other grasses and weeds can easily overtake the rice. As yet there are no herbicides that can selectively kill other grass types without killing the rice. Much of the world's rice is still grown and cultivated by hand because for mechanized farming the land must be able to be drained and hold heavy equipment.

Of the total rice production, it's no surprise to learn that the greatest proportion by far is grown and consumed in Asia. You will see from the chart that the leading producers of rice are China at around 39% followed by India with a quarter of the total. Indonesia produces almost one tenth and other countries, like Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and Brazil, grow another 25—almost 26—percent of the total.

As I said before, most rice is consumed in the countries where it is grown. That means that very little rice is actually traded and for this reason the market price is very volatile.