Listening Activity

Name:
Code:
Course:
English group:

Did you know that some of the products or services that we have today
were at some point invented by accident? Listen to audio 1 (Chocolate
chip cookies), audio 2 (Penicillin), audio 3 (Coca-Cola®) and complete
the exercises in the word document. 

1. Complete the blank spaces with the verbs you hear in the audio.

CHOCOLATE PENICILLIN COCA-COLA®

CHIP COOKIES

Nearly one In 1928, Alexander John Pemberton a.

hundred years ago, Fleming a. ______ ______ to make a cure
a lady a. ______ bacteria in Petri dishes. for headaches when he
Ruth Wakefield b. Bacteria are tiny living b. ______ Coca-Cola®.
______ cookies things – some of them For eight years it c.
when she c. make people ill. One of ______ only d. ______
______ of cooking the dishes accidentally in chemist shops. But it
chocolate. Cooking b. ______ some mould e. ______ so popular
chocolate melts in it. He c. ______ that that it f. ______ in
and d. ______ the the bacteria d. ______ bottles and g. ______
cookies all brown close to the mould. The available everywhere.
and chocolatey. mould is now used as a It eventually h. ______
She e. ______ and medicine, e.  ______ the best-selling fizzy
f. ______ a ‘penicillin’. It can kill drink in the world. The
different type of bacteria. You may have recipe is still a closely
chocolate instead, taken some if you’ve guarded secret, but
g. ______ ‘semi- ever been poorly with you can always i.
 sweet’ chocolate. an infection. You f. ______ your own fizzy
But it h. ______. ______ actually make drinks if you j. ______
Mrs Wakefield i. penicillin yourself, but to experiment a little.
______ you can investigate the ( /10)
accidentally j. growth of bacteria and
______ the moulds in Petri dishes.
chocolate chip ( /6)
cookie! She k.
______ the recipe
to Nestlé in
exchange for a
lifetime supply of
chocolate chips.
( /10)

2. Based on the previous activity, answer the following questions:

Try to answer the questions with what you understood from each
of the texts, do not copy and paste sections from them. ( /5)
 
1. What was Ruth Wakefield doing when she invented the chocolate
chip cookies?

2. How did Alexander Fleming invent penicillin?

3. What was Coca-Cola® originally used for?

4. From the previous three accidental discoveries, which one

surprised you the most? Why?

5. When you were a child, what was a “discovery” you made without
other people telling you about it? 
(Think of the first time you learned how to tie your shoelaces, think of
the first time you learned to use a sharpener, etc. or inventions you
thought were revolutionary and necessary for you or other people)