Part 1 · Short extracts

Narrator: Extract Two. You hear two people talking about a community garden where they both volunteer.

Woman: So what brought you here in the first place, Sam? You don't strike me as a natural gardener.

Man: Ha, no – I can barely keep a cactus alive. My doctor told me to get out of the house more after I retired, and I think she had a gym in mind. But I walked past here one morning, saw everyone chatting over the vegetable beds, and thought, well, that looks a lot friendlier than a treadmill. The tomatoes are a bonus.

Woman: They're certainly a bonus this year. Have you heard about the council wanting to put a car park on the far end of the site?

Man: I have. There's a petition going round, isn't there?

Woman: There is, and I've signed it, but I'm not as up in arms about it as some people. The land at that end floods every winter – we've never grown anything decent there. If the council agreed to put in proper drainage for the rest of the garden as part of the deal, I could live with it.

Narrator: Extract Three. You hear two university students discussing feedback on a group project.

Woman: Have you read Dr Patel's comments yet?

Man: Twice. The first time I was a bit indignant, to be honest. All that about our argument being 'buried under the data' – I thought, that's a bit rich, she's the one who told us to include more evidence.

Woman: And the second time?

Man: The second time I had to admit she had a point. We've got so many charts in there that you lose the thread. It's not that the evidence is wrong; it's that we never stop to say what it shows.

Woman: So what do we do? Cut half the charts?

Man: I'd rather not throw away all that work. What if we keep them, but move most of them to an appendix, and write a proper paragraph after each section pulling it all together?

Woman: That makes sense. And we should probably run it past Dr Patel before the deadline, rather than guess again.

Man: Agreed. I'll email her tonight.

Narrator: You will hear three different extracts. For questions 1–6, choose the answer (A, B or C) which fits best according to what you hear. There are two questions for each extract.

Narrator: Extract One. You hear two colleagues talking about a history podcast they both listen to.

Man: Did you catch the latest episode of Past Imperfect? The one about the printing press?

Woman: I did, on the train this morning. I have to say, I've become a bit of a devotee. I know she's not an academic historian – she's said herself she only studied it at school – but there's something about the way she tells a story. You can hear how much she's enjoying it, and it's infectious.

Man: Mm, she certainly doesn't hold back. Though I thought this week she got a bit carried away. The idea that one invention single-handedly caused the Reformation, the scientific revolution and goodness knows what else…

Woman: Oh, I know. I was practically shouting at my phone. It's far more tangled than that, and she usually acknowledges that sort of thing.

Man: Exactly. Normally she'd have brought someone in to push back a bit. It felt rushed, somehow, even though it was the usual length.

Woman: Maybe she was up against a deadline.