Linguaskill Listening: test de práctica 1

Transcripción: Man: My guest today is Nadia Rahman, who set up a community radio station in her town three years ago. Nadia, how did it all start?
Woman: Well, I'd been working in a bank for ten years and I was getting a bit restless. I'd always loved radio – I used to record my own shows on cassette as a kid – but I never thought of it as a career. Then the town's only local newspaper closed, and suddenly there was nowhere to find out what was going on. That's really what pushed me.
Man: Was it difficult to get started?
Woman: The technical side was easier than I expected. You can broadcast online with very little equipment these days. The hard part was the licence to broadcast on FM, which took almost a year of paperwork. Luckily, a retired engineer in the town offered to help with the application, otherwise I think I'd have given up.
Man: Who presents the programmes?
Woman: All volunteers. We've got about forty now, aged from fifteen to eighty-two. Some of them had never spoken in public before. What I love is watching people's confidence grow. One of our presenters was so shy at first that she wrote down every single word. Now she does a two-hour live show every Saturday without any notes.
Man: How do you pay for it all?
Woman: That's the constant challenge. We get a small grant from the council, and local businesses pay for adverts, but that's not enough on its own. So twice a year we hold a big fundraising concert, which brings in more than everything else combined.
Man: And what's next for the station?
Woman: We'd like to do more for young people. At the moment, most of our listeners are over forty. So we're working with the secondary school to train students to make their own programmes. If it works, they could be running the station one day.
Man: Nadia, thank you.

Transcripción: Man: People imagine translators spend all day working on novels, but most of my work is technical – instruction manuals, contracts, that kind of thing. It's not glamorous, but it pays the bills. What I find hardest isn't the language itself, it's the deadlines. Clients often send me a hundred pages on a Friday afternoon and want them back on Monday. I've learned to say no more often, but when you work for yourself, it's hard to turn work down.

Transcripción: Man: Thanks for coming, everyone. I'm Tom, and I'll be leading today's tree-planting session. We'll be working on the hillside just above the car park, where a fire destroyed most of the woodland two summers ago. Our aim today is to plant around five hundred young oak trees. They're the best choice here because they cope well with dry summers. Before we start, please make sure you've got gloves – there are spare pairs in the blue van if you forgot yours. We'll work in teams of four: one person digs, one plants, and the other two put a plastic tube around each tree. Those tubes are really important, because otherwise deer eat the young leaves. We'll stop for lunch at one o'clock – soup and sandwiches are provided by the local bakery – and we'll finish at about four. Oh, and one last thing: if you'd like to come back and see how the trees are doing, we're organising a guided walk next April.

Transcripción: Speaker 1.
I'd been at the same company for eight years, and I enjoyed the work. The salary was fine, too. But the office moved to the other side of the city, and suddenly I was spending three hours a day in traffic. When a similar job came up at a firm ten minutes' walk from my flat, I applied straight away, even though the pay was slightly lower.
Speaker 2.
People thought I was crazy to leave accounting – it was secure and well paid. But I'd been designing websites for friends in my spare time, and I realised that was what I actually looked forward to. Now I work for a small design studio. I earn less, but I spend my days coming up with ideas instead of checking numbers.
Speaker 3.
I didn't mind the long hours, and I was learning a lot. The problem was my boss. He'd change his mind about a project every week and then blame us when we missed deadlines. When a former colleague told me her team needed someone and that her manager was really supportive, I didn't think twice.
Speaker 4.
I'd worked in a call centre since leaving university, sitting in front of a screen all day. I wasn't unhappy with the money or the people, but I felt trapped indoors. So I retrained as a gardener. My back aches sometimes, and I'm out in all weathers, but I wouldn't swap it for anything.
Speaker 5.
To be honest, it was all about the salary. I loved my old job and my colleagues, and I knew I'd miss them. But we'd just had our second child, and my partner had gone part-time, so we needed more coming in. The new company offered me thirty per cent more, which made the decision for me.

Transcripción: Speaker 1.
I signed up because I'd been asked to give presentations at work and I always got really nervous. There were only eight of us, and we had to stand up and talk every single week, which was terrifying at first. The teacher was kind, but honestly, what made the difference was the others in the group – we'd go for a drink afterwards and share tips, and I'm still in touch with most of them.
Speaker 2.
I'd always wanted to take better pictures on holiday, so I joined an evening class. We went out with our cameras every week, but to be honest I didn't learn much just from taking photos. What really helped was when the tutor sat down with each of us and went through our pictures one by one, telling us exactly what worked and what didn't.
Speaker 3.
After a friend collapsed at a party last year and nobody knew what to do, I decided I needed to learn. The course lasted two days. There was a thick handbook, which I haven't opened since, I'm afraid. What stays with me is practising on the dummies – doing it with your own hands is the only way you remember it when it matters.