IELTS Simulation Tests Academic Listening Test 06 (Online Test)

Prevention is better than cure! You all know that, don't you? Have you been looking for some help and guidance for maintaining your health? Well, today I want to tell you all about a new health programme called BeWell—BeWell Online actually. This is an interactive website packed with resources to assist you in achieving your health goals.

On this website you'll find up-to-date health information you can trust. It has a register which includes a quick online check to assess your health and keep track of your progress. What do you want to do? Lose weight? Give up smoking? Manage your blood glucose levels or just improve your overall fitness? Use the simple online assessment tool and receive a personalised report on your current state of health. This is what we call your Wellness Register. After you've completed this, you'll be ready to move on.

Now, the Active Health Agenda is where our team of experts has created a series of interactive, 8-week programmes for some of the most common health goals. These are aimed at differing ages and lifestyles and include healthy eating and workout plans, plans for losing weight, stress management, longevity (or how to age gracefully by maintaining your health) and express workouts for those of you who never have enough time.

If you join up to BeWell Online, you'll not only be able to use a whole suite of interactive tools and calculators but you'll also have unlimited access to an extensive library of health articles, delicious, simple recipes and illustrated exercise descriptions.

Let's look first at the Active Sport component. This gives you individual attention—in fact, it's a virtual personal trainer. Sports science and fitness experts have developed programmes that will enable you to take on a specific sporting challenge or fitness goal adapted to your particular ambition and skill level. Detailed daily warm-ups and workout plans and weekly training schedules will help you prepare for any upcoming event of your choice. Marathons, triathlons, open water swims, cycling or fun runs are just some of the events you could enter with confidence when you've completed an Active Sport programme.

BeWell Online also features an Active Care project. This caters for individuals who want to address specific health needs. The four courses in most demand are: Stop Smoking, which will give you strategies, email support and reliable tools and resources to help you quit smoking forever. Then there is Glucose Management, a self-care programme designed for people with high blood sugar, which will help you manage your condition and improve your overall health. Obviously, Heart Health has a large following—it's basically all about lifestyle modification where you will take a course of action with the aim of improving your cardiovascular health. Those of you who suffer from neck and/or back pain will benefit from the Back Care programme—but we're talking about minor troubles here—anything major should be attended to by a qualified physician in person.

So, what are you waiting for? Register today at BeWell4Life.com.

Okay, I can hear some of you saying that you don't have enough willpower to go through with our online programme. Well, just for people like you, we offer BeWell Coaching. What is it? It's a telephone-based service that will give you the extra support, motivation and techniques that will provide the impetus for you to bring about permanent changes. Who runs it? The course is delivered by experienced health coaches as well as qualified exercise physiologists, dieticians and nurses. Who can use it? Well, this service is really for those of you who have serious health concerns like diabetes, arthritis or high blood pressure. I know there are many of you out there who could benefit from this. How does it work? Your health coach will provide assistance as you develop a plan and maintain regular contact over a period of six months to help you stay on track. You'll also get access to a phone in service for extra support if you need it and you'll be provided with health information specifically targeted at your individual problem.

Now, what could be better than that?

CLARE: Hi, Grant. What sort of competition do you think we should organise?

GRANT: Well, Clare, the Open Day Committee was pretty clear on that—it must be something with youth appeal.

CLARE: That makes sense—after all, most of the visitors will have just left high school.

GRANT: Yeah, so I was thinking—technology.

CLARE: Do you mean something which uses the latest technology—like an iPod?

GRANT: Something like that but a bit more expensive maybe.

CLARE: What about the latest iPhone? I'm saving up for one right now.

GRANT: Let's make it an iPad—I wish I'd had a tablet computer when I started university.

CLARE: Yeah...that's a great idea. That should get a lot of our younger visitors interested.

GRANT: Right...let's go with that then.

CLARE: Fine. We could go into town now and buy it. I saw great deals advertised at the Rick Smith store.

GRANT: Oh, I don't think we'll have to worry about that. A university purchase order will probably be arranged through the Resources and Supplies Section.

CLARE: Well, that's settled then. What about the competition—is it going to be a game of skill or a guessing game or something else?

GRANT: What do you think would work best?

CLARE: Good question. I don't think it should be anything too hard or anything that will make the visitors look silly—some of them have such fragile egos.

GRANT: True. So...something that anyone can do?—Nothing competitive—no skill or intelligence involved?

CLARE: That's right. But the main thing is that the contestants have a lot of fun.

GRANT: How do we do that?

CLARE: Well, I was thinking of a popular TV series: science fiction or science fantasy—I don't actually know the difference.

GRANT: Go on.

CLARE: It's a series where in every episode the main characters step through a portal into another world or another era.

GRANT: What's a portal?

CLARE: It's like a gateway or entrance to something...

GRANT: Okay, I get it—they'll be stepping into the new world of tertiary learning—so somehow we encourage people to step through this 'portal'—then what?

CLARE: They get their photo taken.

GRANT: Is that all?

CLARE: Not exactly—let me think.

GRANT: I can't see how that's a competition...unless we pick the best photograph...but there's not much excitement or involvement in that for the participants!

CLARE: Mmm. Wait. We don't decide on the winner...I mean no one person does...we get them, the public, to do it.

GRANT: How?

CLARE: Put all the photos on Facebook—and the one with the most votes wins.

GRANT: I agree...good idea. But there's just one more thing I'm not clear about—how do we get hold of a portal?

CLARE: I was thinking graduates of the Engineering Department could construct it as part of their contribution to Open Day.

GRANT: How do visitors enter the competition on Open Day?

CLARE: Well, firstly, they have to make their way to the 'portal photo booth' on campus.

GRANT: Okay—a bit like a treasure hunt to start with.

CLARE: Yes, and then they get their photo taken stepping through the portal.

GRANT: And they'll have to write down their details—you know, name, phone number, email...No, hang on... let's keep it simple—just name and email address should do.

CLARE: Then after, say, the thirtieth of July, people can visit the university Facebook page and vote for their favourite photo.

GRANT: So the photo with the most votes wins.

CLARE: Yes, I think that should generate quite a bit of interest.

GRANT: What about a cut-off date?

CLARE: Of course...maybe, uh...the most popular photo as of 5 pm on the tenth of August will collect the iPad.

GRANT: And the winner will be notified by email.

CLARE: And...the winning photo will be enlarged and published in full colour on the university Facebook page.

Welcome to this lecture on Agriculture and the Environment. I hope it is enough to make some of you decide on a career in the field of agricultural science. As you all know, food is a basic human need and producing enough of it is the single greatest challenge facing the modern world.

Developing nations have rapidly expanding populations so agriculture should be central to any development agenda for those countries. What's more, 75% of people in the developing world are dependant, directly or indirectly, on agriculture for their livelihood. And, for many low-income countries, it's the most important sector of the economy accounting for 50% of GDP and sometimes it's the primary, if not only, source of foreign currency.

Now, of course, when I talk about 'agriculture', I am using the term to encompass more than just growing food crops. Of course livestock farming, fishing and forestry are included.

In order to combat wide-scale food shortages agricultural research programmes are underway in many areas. Using science is one way to increase productivity; but, a word of warning: agriculture must also be sustainable. Let's look at approaches that are not sustainable. Firstly, overgrazing and intensive cropping are two ancient but destructive practices that lead to loss of soil fertility. Secondly, the modern idea of liberal application of chemical pesticides and herbicides has had disastrous consequences for the health of the land, ranging from the pollution of water sources to the destruction of wildlife.

These practices have ignored the mechanisms that sustain ecological communities. Ignorance has led to the destruction of the very biodiversity that is essential for sustainable food production. However, introducing new agricultural techniques, especially things like genetic engineering, can be difficult because many people remain suspicious of the fact that plants have had their genetic material modified by scientists.

Biotechnology has also led to the dubious practice of bio-prospecting, or as some prefer to call it, bio-piracy. Foreign multinational companies have been accused of illegally obtaining samples of indigenous plants of other countries in order to get their hands on genetic material to improve the quality or yield of their own crops.

We must put aside the controversy surrounding the field of agricultural biotechnology in order to concentrate on the biggest threat to food production on this planet...which is...? Yes, climate change. The effects of global warming so far have been to shrink the food supply thereby pushing up prices and making, even the most basic necessities, unaffordable.

As I see it, the international community must address this, and other challenges to agricultural production, with urgency. Concrete scientific and technological achievements need to be presented for farmers to evaluate and learn to use but, apart from that, governments need to address the complex issues of policy development if the world's hungry are to be fed.

Environmental policies need to be put in place to protect ecosystems and correct soil degradation where possible. Countries cannot continue to exploit natural resources whilst ignoring the consequences. In fact, I'd like to see teams of agriculture and environment experts making up a global network which would monitor the world's farming systems. Different farming systems should be studied not only with a view to analyzing the environmental effects, but the social and economic effects as well. The studies would be carried out with a view to stemming pollution and erosion and promoting safe, cost-effective practices that will guarantee a secure food supply in the future.

Monitoring sites would need to be set up all across the world and data collected in a systematic way. Of course, building the online infrastructure for such a project would cost millions of dollars and there would be ongoing costs involved with the monitoring system but the information gathered would go a long way towards solving the problem of feeding the masses and ensuring millions of people don't face a hungry future.