Answers and Discussion
Look at the discussion below of the points raised by the Part 1 task. What would you recommend to your students as the most efficient strategies for dealing with this task?
- What did you do in the pause before listening to the text?
There is a pause of 15 seconds before you hear each recording. During this time, you should read the instructions and the multiple-choice questions on the page, thinking about the overall context that was set up in the instructions. You don't have enough time to read all three options for each question and think about them in detail. A better strategy is to focus on the question stem so that you know the focus of each question – in other words, why you are listening and what information is going to be relevant to that.
- How did you use the task to help you with the answers?
The instructions give you information about the topic, context and speakers in the text, e.g. Extract Two ‘an accountant asking an IT consultant for advice about software packages.’ This will help you to make sense of the question stems, e.g. Question 4 ‘According to the consultant, why do producers dislike tailoring software?’ If you have read the instructions, you already know that the accountant is giving advice about software packages, and so you can focus on the key part of the question, which is related to the dislike of producers for tailoring software.
- What was the focus of the questions?
The questions may refer to discrete sections of text, or one of the speakers, for example, in Extract Three, the first part of the text is about an accountant giving advice on the most important source of information about the reputation of an accountancy firm, and the second part is about the type of accountancy firm to approach. But not all Part One tasks follow this pattern. For example, in Extract One, the first question (Q1) focuses on the topic of the piece – the companies most likely to be involved in mergers – whereas the second question (Q2) focuses on the analyst’s opinion of cross-border mergers. Remember that in this part the two questions on each text are likely to have a different focus.
- How did you decide which option to choose?
Extract One (Q2) tests the speaker’s opinion of the prospect of more cross-border mergers. Information in this kind of text is often summarised or paraphrased in the multiple-choice questions through the use of adjectives describing feelings and attitudes, verbs of opinion and reporting verbs. In order to select the correct option in Question 2 you need to listen to the second part of the text which begins ‘The merger and acquisitions departments of Europe’s banking community are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of some major cross-border deals at last.’ The speaker then goes on to say ‘Europe needs some cross-border activity.’ She clearly sees these mergers in a positive light and therefore the other two options (A and B) can be discounted.
- What did you do after the first listening?
There is a pause after the first listening, in which you should check your answers carefully and re-read any questions which you couldn't answer the first time.
- What did you do during the second listening?
As you are listening to the text for the second time, check that your answers are correct and answer any questions you missed in the first listening.