Road to IELTS Academic Listening Test 4 (Online Test)

Doreen: Hello everyone. I'm Doreen, the receptionist at the Daisy Childcare Centre. Thank you all for coming to our open evening. I’ll just show you round, and tell you a bit about the place. First of all, I will have to ask you to leave your sneakers and sandals etc. here on the shoe rack just inside the main door. You know how the young ones love crawling around the floor, so our policy is — no street footwear inside.

As you can see, our facility is very open-plan. There are lots of different activity areas, and we like to have pretty good visibility throughout the centre. This central area to the left is where we all gather for stories, songs and some games. That's why the big circular carpet is there — everyone comes to sit there two or three times a day.

I can see some of you looking at our TV. Some parents worry that we might just dump the kids there to watch rubbish all day, but of course that’s not the case! In fact, we only use it occasionally … for example, we use it if we have a story on a DVD, and then we get the kids to do a bit of acting based on that. That bookcase there beside the TV gets a lot of use, though. Some of the older kids choose to sit and read or look at picture books in their free time, but we never allow them unsupervised TV.

If you look along the wall on the far side of the little gate leading into the main room, you can see our kitchen play area. It has lots of utensils, pots and pans and that cupboard closer to the corner is the dress-up cupboard. That’s a very popular area, with the boys as well as the girls. You’d be surprised how much the boys get into acting and make believe.

Now, over here opposite the gate and behind the big lunch table are the sinks and the painting area, and then the doors to the outside. To the right of those outside doors you can see hooks and little cubbyholes on the wall for coats, bags and outdoor shoes. The children can keep slippers in there, but most of them run around indoors in their socks or bare feet.

If you can bear it, I think we should pop out into the cold for a moment to have a look round outdoors. We’ll just stay under the verandah. The sandpit is over there at the far left of the outside area, and that box next to it is storage space for buckets and spades, and lots of trucks and diggers to push round or even ride on. The slide beside that is popular, and so are the three climbing walls over by the fence. Some parents think that’s a bit adventurous for pre-schoolers, but the older ones love them. The ground is covered with bark so it's not a harsh surface when they do fall. The ordinary swings and a tyre swing are here in front where we can keep an eye on everyone, and then the chickens are way over on the far right, so they can have a bit of peace and quiet occasionally!

Ok, so let’s go back inside and I can talk about our rules and policies.

Before you hear the rest of the talk, you have some time to look at questions 18 to 20.

Now listen and answer questions 18 to 20.

As you probably already know, the government sets limits on adult/child ratios, but we try to improve on those wherever we can. There are different ratios for under and over 2 year olds. For the under twos, the rules are one adult to four children, and we basically stick to that except that we have an extra, roving staff member with no allocated children who helps out wherever there’s a need. The older kids have a one to 8 ratio, and again, we try to have an extra staff member on site. All of our staff are fully qualified, but we do have trainees from the local polytech at certain times of the year.

We do have pretty strict rules about pickup times here. It’s a real problem if parents are late and we end up with far too many kids for the number of staff, so we ask you to be very punctual about collecting your children. We have had to ask a couple of consistently late parents to leave, but of course this is only a last resort.

We have quite a long waiting list here, especially for the over twos, but you’re welcome to put your name down. The average lead time is usually about 9 months, but sometimes we get unexpected vacancies, for example, maybe a family has to move to another city for work or something so their child is withdrawn. This means, if you’re lucky, your child could be admitted in three months or so.

Now, are there any questions …

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

Now turn to section 3.

Jones: Hello Mark. What can I do for you?

Mark: Oh, hi Professor Jones. I’ve come to ask you a big favour.

Jones: Let me guess, Mark, you want more time for your essay assignment. You’re the third student I’ve seen today, all with the same request! It beats me why a few people leave their planning to the last minute and then think they can come at a day’s notice and get a reprieve. It’s really not fair to all the students who are well planned and organised is it?

Mark: Yes, you’re right, and I’m really sorry I need to ask. I’ve never asked for an extension before.

Jones: So, Mark, why should I grant you an extension when I said no to everyone else today?

Mark: Well, Professor Jones, I really do have a valid reason. It‘s not just the usual, like I have a cold, and I have a certificate from my doctor, or my computer crashed and I lost all my data. I wouldn’t bother you with those old excuses. You see, my twin brother was planning to get married next weekend, but last week his girlfriend told him the wedding was off and he landed on my doorstep. He was really upset. I couldn’t just tell him to go away because I was busy. And of course I would have had three assignments due this week, and all my study plans just went out the window.

Jones: I see. So, why didn’t you come to see me a week ago when your brother first turned up?

Mark: Because I was hoping I would still be able to get it done, but I just can’t manage it. Well, actually I have written the required number of words, more or less, but frankly, I feel it’s terrible. I don’t want to let myself down by handing it in as it is at the moment, and I really don’t want to drop my grade point average by getting a low mark on this assignment.

Jones: Well, the course handbook states very clearly that at least 5 days’ notice is required for any extension, except in emergencies. Those rules were designed to make it fair for everyone you see. You’re supposed to submit a request on the proper form…. and you can send it by email. And you also need to make an appointment and discuss your request in person, as you have done now. Your problem does come very squarely under the ‘family issues’ category, so you probably would have got some extra time if you’d done that. I’m not really inclined to grant this request now, you know.

Mark: Yes, I know I’ve really messed up. I suppose I’ll just have to hand it in as it is, and take a lower grade.

Before you hear the rest of the conversation, you have some time to look at questions 26 to 30.

Now listen and answer questions 26 to 30.

Jones: Well, at least you’ve made a start, which is more than can be said for your other colleagues today. Have you got what you’ve done so far? Come on, we’ll look through it together and I’ll see if I can make a few suggestions for a quick fix, how about that?

Mark: Oh, thank you, yes here it is on my laptop.

Jones: Well, let’s see. Let’s start with the bibliography … Yes, you’ve consulted most of the sources I suggested, but you don’t have any references of your own, and that was part of the task, wasn’t it? You need at least three references of your own, see?

Mark: Yes, I know. I did find one more, McDonald and Ferris 2014.

Jones: OK, that’s a good one, I suggest you look at their reference list, too, and chase up a couple more from there. You should be able to find everything you need in the online library databases, especially Languageline.

Mark: Yes, OK. So, what about the essay structure, and the argument? Are they OK, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Jones: Well, you just seem to jump straight in to your first point here. I’m not sure where your essay is going. Where’s the introduction?

Mark: Oh right … I always leave the introduction till the end and write it after I’ve finished the rest of the essay. That way, it ties in to what I’ve already written … Well, that’s what we were taught in the study skills course, anyway.

Jones: Yes, and you’re quite right. So, tell me about your ideas. What’s your main argument?

Mark: Well, I’m not really sure. I think I understand the 3 opposing theories OK, but I don’t really have a strong opinion about which one is correct. I was more thinking of explaining them all as clearly as I can, and then giving the evidence for each one. I don’t think there is a clear-cut right or wrong, well, that’s my opinion anyway. Do we need to say that one is better than the other two?

Jones: No, you don’t, and what you are planning to do is often the best way to go about it. Well, I’ve been skimming through what you’ve written while we’ve been talking, and one thing you definitely must do before you submit this assignment is to edit it for grammar and spelling mistakes. There are a lot of errors here, just simple things that are easy to fix. But still, I can see you’ve done the basic work, and I do sympathise with your brother, it must be very difficult for him. So, I’ll give you one extra day on this essay.

Mark: Oh, thank you Professor Jones, thank you! I’ll hand it in before 5pm on Wednesday, then.

Jones: Yes, that’s the final deadline. Goodbye now!

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

Now turn to section 4.

Lecturer: Hello everyone. The topic of today’s management lecture is “Managing Creativity in Your Business”, and believe me, this is one of the toughest tasks that any manager has to face. How do you lead and control the staff whose job it is to create new business and product ideas for you? They are the ones full of creativity and imagination, so they need to have a lot of freedom – after all they are the people who are paid to come up with new ideas! Controlling staff who are at the forefront of innovation will be one of your most challenging tasks. After all, creativity implies freedom of thought and action.

Management styles used to be different, especially in manufacturing. In the factory, staff would be told what to do and how to do it – with a watchful eye kept on them. In that setting, standardisation was important for efficiency and product quality. Work could be exceptionally boring and there was no place for individuality. Now, of course, robots have taken over many of the exacting, repetitive tasks. Nowadays, we employ far more people to generate business than to manufacture products. It’s very competitive out there. Innovation – that’s what our modern consumer craves.

Successful companies have got the message – we need lots of new ideas, and now we employ bright young minds to come up with them. However, these ideas have to be implemented to make a change to our profits! So we have to find staff with entrepreneurial flair, and be ready to listen to them and support them to follow through on their ideas. We need to supervise without stemming the flow of ideas, or sending the brightest minds to work for the opposition. Creative people won’t welcome us always looking over their shoulder and checking up on what they’re doing.

One of the most common ways that management handles this problem of keeping people working along company lines, is by establishing achievement targets, like money earned, products developed, or clients gained. These targets are a useful guideline, but they have a downside. Young enthusiastic staff will be very keen to meet these targets, and some of them might potentially use illegal means or behave unethically in order to meet requirements — for example, by offering bribes to gain sales, or making their sales numbers or earnings look higher than they are, or even threatening or criticising other staff to get a job completed. Achievement targets are often linked directly to performance bonuses, and this can make a bad situation worse. So, as you can see, the standard management techniques can create inherent problems both for the individual and for the company.

More recent theorists suggest new tactics for managers. Robert Simons, writing in the Harvard Business Review, has added some new concepts to the thorny problem of encouraging creativity while maintaining a viable business. He suggests three other control levers to assist in getting positive creative contributions from the workforce. Remember – this is the point – we want creativity, wild, vibrant creativity to compete in the marketplace – yet we must be careful to keep people on track, sticking to our core business and maintaining the company’s reputation.

The first of his levers is getting the workers actively involved in the central ethos of the business. One of the most common ways to do this is to create a mission statement, but along with that, many businesses have some kind of motto, which summarises their key idea; for example, ‘the most durable tools in the world’ or perhaps ‘the customer comes first’. Whatever it is, you’ll want your bright minds to believe it and act on it, so Robert Simons suggests that it should be developed with staff input – letting them feel like part of the operation. After all, their jobs depend on it!

A second lever was once described by Charles Christenson, Professor at Harvard Business School, as “the power of negative thinking”. You can’t continually instruct your creative minds in what they should do. They are meant to be inventing, leading, not following, and telling them what to do is counter-productive. But you can tell them what not to do; which potential products are not related to the company’s objectives, or which strategies or behaviours are unacceptable. This is a tactical ploy to maintain the company’s integrity. It’s absolutely vital to establish boundaries to assist in controlling innovation without suppressing it.

The third lever is basically sitting down with your crew to share ideas about the business. As manager, your duty is to stay abreast of the external factors such as: Who’s competing in your market? How well is the company doing this month, and are you losing or gaining money? Is there some new product seducing your customers?

This lever is called ‘interactive control’. This means you talk to your innovators, and communicate honestly and clearly about your perceptions of what’s happening in the market. You encourage them to share their ideas, and make plans together for the future.

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

That is the end of the listening test.