IELTS Trainer 1 General Training Listening Test 4 (Online Test)

You will hear a man taking a group of tourists around a museum site. First you have some time to look at questions 11 to 14.

[Pause the recording for 30 seconds.]

Now listen carefully and answer questions 11 to 14.

Guide: Welcome to Brampton Museum. I'm going to tell you a little bit about the museum first and then show you round. As you can see, Brampton is an open-air museum. The first open-air museums were established in Scandinavia towards the end of the 19th century, and the concept soon spread throughout Europe and North America and there are several in Britain, all of which tell the history of a particular part of the country.

Brampton focuses on life during the 19th century. The site was chosen because there were already some historic 19th-century buildings here and others have been dismantled in different parts of the region, and rebuilt on the site. This hadn't been attempted before in these parts so we're very proud of what we have here. All the buildings are filled with furniture, machinery and objects. You may be able to see these in other museums but not in their original settings. What also sets Brampton apart from other museums is that the story of the exhibits is told not by labels but by costumed staff like myself. I look after sheep, cows and hens, which are much the same as those you see on modern farms, but I use traditional methods to care for them. You will also be able to see a blacksmith and a printer, as well as other craftspeople. If you talk to them, you'll be able to find out what life was really like 150 years ago. Our programme of activities during the year has guided walks, an agricultural fair and all the other events you would expect a museum to have, but remember: here you experience them in the real surroundings.

The site is divided into different areas. The main building contains our High Street which is a street of 19th-century shops, offices and some homes. There's a stationer's shop which sells a range of specially selected cards, prints and copies of Victorian stationery, all available for purchase by visitors. Upstairs in the same building, a printer demonstrates the production of posters, business cards and advertising material. Across the street from the stationer's is a clothes shop and there's a baker's where you can watch a demonstration of someone making bread, cakes and pastries. We also have a sweet shop which has old-fashioned sweets for sale.

Vintage trams travel along from one end of the street to the other, carrying visitors on their journey into the past. We will also be visiting the farm and taking a ride on a steam train. Of course the main form of transport in those days was the horse and you can watch horses being exercised in the old stables. This part of Britain was famous for coal-mining and on the site we have part of a mine which opened in 1860 and was worked for over a hundred years, before closing in 1963. Visitors can put on a hard hat and take a guided tour underground to see how coal was worked and to experience the working conditions in the early 1900s.

Before you hear the rest of the talk, you have some time to look at questions 15 to 20.

[Pause the recording for 30 seconds.]

Now listen and answer questions 15 to 20.

Now if you'd like to look at your map, we'll begin our tour. The site is a bit like a circle with the railway going round the edge. You can see where we are now by the entrance and we're going to start by walking to the High Street. We'll go to the crossroads in the middle of the map and go straight on, making our way between two buildings on either side of the path. The larger one is an exhibition centre but it's not open today, unfortunately. The other building is offices. The path leads directly to the High Street building, which is at the opposite side of the site to the entrance. Here you're free to wander around and take a ride up and down on a tram.

We'll then take the path which follows the railway line and crosses it to the farm. If you wish, you can have tea in the farmhouse and there'll be time to look at the animals and the machinery. Then, we cross the railway line again and visit our special attraction which is the coal mine. It's just in front of us here at the entrance. We'll return to the crossroads and walk through a small wooded area to the Manor House. This is one of the original buildings on the site and belonged to a wealthy farmer. You can look round the house and gardens and talk to our guides who can tell you what it was like to live there. We will then follow a path which goes past the pond and will take us to the Railway Station, which is situated between the path and the railway line. Finally we'll take the steam train back around the site, passing alongside the High Street and the Coal Mine back to the entrance. So if you'd like to follow me ...

That is the end of section 2. You now have half a minute to check your answers.

[Pause the recording for 30 seconds.]

Now turn to section 3.

You will hear a conversation between Cressida, a student of journalism, and her tutor, Dr Erskine, about a work placement that she has recently done. First you have some time to look at questions 21 to 26.

[Pause the recording for 30 seconds.]

Now listen carefully and answer questions 21 to 26.

Dr Erskine: Well, Cressida, that was an interesting presentation you gave yesterday on your placement at the TV news centre.

Cressida: Thank you, Dr Erskine, I did work hard on it.

Dr Erskine: Yes and you did entertain the class, they enjoyed your humour, but you informed them too. But I felt there was a bit of a back story – you know, something you weren't telling us? So how was it really?

Cressida: Yeah, well, I learnt a lot, as I said. But I think some of the lessons weren't ones I wanted to share with the whole group. I mean, my expectations about what it would be like were too high. I'd been fantasising a bit about what I'd be doing. I mean, it all worked out OK in the end ... but I got off to a bad start.

Dr Erskine: Yes, I heard something similar from the producer – um, Ainsley Webb – who assessed your performance. He was quite negative about some of the things you did, and your initial attitude, I'm afraid. Would you like to give me your version?

Cressida: I didn't prepare properly is the main thing. On my first morning, I hadn't checked my commuting route properly, and I didn't notice that it says the buses don't start till six. I had to run all the way to the studio, but I was still late, and I looked a mess.

Dr Erskine: Well, better at this stage of your career than later. To be honest, I made the same kind of mistakes when I was your age. But anyway, as I say, I think the presentation yesterday went extremely well, and I will bear that in mind when I grade your work experience overall.

Cressida: Thank you for being so understanding.

Dr Erskine: Right. Now, have you completed your diary of what you did there? Professor Jenkins hasn't received it, he says.

Cressida: Um, yes, I have finished it, but I wanted to just tidy it up a bit. Some of it was written in a bit of a hurry. I'll email it to him this afternoon.

Dr Erskine: OK. But I'm afraid he says this will have to be the last time you submit late. Journalism is all about deadlines and if you can't manage them on your course he can't give you a diploma saying you're competent, can he?

Cressida: Oh. Yes. I'll do it straight after this. I didn't realise.

Dr Erskine: Well, he can be a bit abrupt if he's kept waiting. It's the one thing he really doesn't like. I'm sure everything is going to be fine. You're getting very good grades on your work, so, as long as you remember that.

Cressida: Yes.

Dr Erskine: Now, did you manage OK generally, do you think?

Cressida: Yeah, OK, I think. Well, it took a while to get to grips with all the equipment. Some of it was quite old, not as fast as what we have here in college and at first I kept thinking it was my fault – I wasn't pressing the right buttons, or something. The thing was, none of the TV centre staff asked me if I wanted instructions. If I asked them how to do some particular operation, they were perfectly civil and would show me, and even say thank you for what I did do, but I felt awkward to keep asking.

Before you hear the rest of the conversation, you have some time to look at questions 27 to 30.

[Pause the recording for 30 seconds.]

Now listen and answer questions 27 to 30.

Dr Erskine: Now, um, well, let's just review where you are, your write-up, and what you're going to include going forward to next term. First of all, did you eventually feel you were given enough to do?

Cressida: The first couple of days were manic, the production team was short of staff and I was rushing all over the building taking messages to various people and fetching things. Of course, I didn't know my way around, so I kept ending up in some store room or somewhere instead of the studio I was meant to be in. Or I mistook some important visitor for a colleague, because I didn't know who anyone was. Then after that, things sort-of calmed down, so sometimes I was hanging about until someone decided to give me a chore. But I had a piece of luck at the end of the week because they got a new bit of equipment which was the same as we have in the editing suite here and I knew how to use it, which none of them did. So that gave me a bit of status. Unfortunately it meant I spent the next three days stuck in the editing suite. But by the end, I'd shown I wasn't just a silly student, so then, when the senior reporter needed someone to go out with him when he went to interview a junior minister, I got to go along because he knew I could handle the technical side.

Dr Erskine: Well, that's good.

Cressida: Yes. Well, I know I need to learn from my mistakes. I mean, basically I need to think more about forward planning, but on the other hand I feel much more confident now; I did survive, I didn't ruin anything, I did actually make a contribution, according to the producer. One thing I want to take forward to my final assignment, though, is some reflections on ethics.

Dr Erskine: Yes?

Cressida: I had a bit of an argument with one of the senior presenters. He was editing part of an interview and he just changed something someone said. When I questioned him he just snubbed me. And I mean, this wasn't some public relations expert or government professional spokesperson, it was, like, a member of the public, but he said 'Oh they never remember what they said anyway'.

Dr Erskine: Mm ... you want to develop this into part of your final assignment? It would be a very positive line. I can give you some references.

Cressida: Oh, thanks, that would be great.

That is the end of section 3. You now have half a minute to check your answers.

[Pause the recording for 30 seconds.]

Now turn to section 4.

You will hear a lecturer talking about the history of the electric guitar. First you have some time to look at questions 31 to 40.

[Pause the recording for one minute.]

Now listen carefully and answer questions 31 to 40.

Lecturer: During today's lecture in this series about the history of popular music, I'm going to look at the different stages the electric guitar went through before we ended up with the instrument we know so well today.

The driving force behind the invention of the electric guitar was simply the search for a louder sound. In the late 1890s Orville Gibson, founder of the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Company, designed a guitar with an arched or curved top, as is found on a violin. This made it both stronger and louder than earlier designs but it was still hard to hear amongst other louder instruments.

During the 1920s with the beginnings of big-band music, commercial radio and the rise of the recording industry, the need to increase the volume of the guitar became even more important. Around 1925 John Dopyera came up with a solution. He designed a guitar, known as 'The National Guitar', with a metal body which had metal resonating cones built into the top. It produced a brash tone which became popular with guitarists who played blues but was unsuitable for many other types of music.

Another way of increasing the volume was thought of in the 1930s. The C. F. Martin Company became known for its 'Dreadnought', a large flat-top acoustic guitar that used steel strings instead of the traditional gut ones. It was widely imitated by other makers.

These mechanical fixes helped, but only up to a point. So guitarists began to look at the possibilities offered by the new field of electronic amplification. What guitar players needed was a way to separate the guitar's sound and boost it in isolation from the rest of a band or the surroundings.

Guitar makers and players began experimenting with electrical pickups which are the main means of amplification used today. The first successful one was invented in 1931 by George Beauchamp. He introduced to the market a guitar known as 'The Frying Pan' because the playing area consisted of a small round disk. The guitar was hollow and was made of aluminum and steel. He amplified the sound by using a pair of horseshoe-shaped magnets. It was the first commercially successful electric guitar.

So by the mid-1930s, an entirely new kind of sound was born. Yet along with its benefits, the new technology brought problems. The traditional hollow body of a guitar caused distortion and feedback when combined with electromagnetic pickups. Musicians and manufacturers realised that a new kind of guitar should be designed from scratch with amplification in mind.

In 1935 Adolph Rickenbacker produced a guitar which took his name - 'The Rickenbacker Electro Spanish'. It was the first guitar produced in plastic, which, because of its weight, vibrated less readily than wood. It eliminated the problems of earlier versions which were plagued by acoustic feedback. 'The Electro Spanish' had its own problems, however, because it was very heavy, smaller than other guitars of the period, and was quite awkward to play.

Developments continued and in 1941 Les Paul made a guitar which he called 'The Log', and true to its name, it was totally solid. All previous guitars had been hollow or partly hollow. It looked slightly strange but the next step had been made towards the modern electric guitar.

The first guitar successfully produced in large numbers was made in 1950 by Leo Fender. His Spanish-style electric guitar, known as a 'Fender Broadcaster', had a bolt-on neck, and was initially criticised by competitors as being very simple and lacking in craftsmanship. Yet it was immediately successful and was particularly suited to mass production, spurring other guitar companies to follow Fender's lead.

In 1951 Leo Fender revolutionised the music world yet again when he produced an electric bass guitar. This was the first commercially successful bass model to be played like a guitar. It was easier for players to hit an exact note: that's why it was called 'The Precision'. Although there had already been electric standup basses, this was much more portable. It is now standard in the line-up of any rock band and some historians suggest that entire genres of music, such as reggae and funk, could not exist without it.

In 1952 the Gibson company became Fender's first major competitor when Ted McCarty created 'The Gibson Les Paul' guitar. It was distinctive because it was coloured gold. The reason for this was to disguise the fact that it was made from two different kinds of wood. In 1954 Leo Fender responded to this successful instrument by introducing 'The Fender Stratocaster'. It is easily identified by its double cutaway design and three pickups. This model may be the most influential electric guitar ever produced. The modern guitar as we know it was here to stay.

That is the end of section 4. You now have half a minute to check your answers.

[Pause the recording for 30 seconds.]

That is the end of the listening test. In the IELTS test you would now have 10 minutes to transfer your answers to the Listening Answer sheet.