TELC B2/ 1

Listening Comprehension

Once you have started the recording, let it run until you hear the words: That is the end of
Listening Comprehension. Thank you for listening. All the pauses are on the recording.
You should not stop the recording during the test.

Listening Comprehension (part1)

You will hear five news items. You will hear each item only once.

Decide which headline a–f goes with each news item.

Mark your answers on the answer sheet.

Now you will have 45 seconds to read the headlines.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

a) Illegal pot smoking

b) Black lung virus
c) New way of smoking
d) Paid to smoke pot
e) Drivers don’t care
f) Smoking ban continues
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Listening comprehension (part2)

You will hear a report. First you will have one minute to read the introduction and the
items. Then you will hear the report. You will hear the report twice.

Decide if the statement for each of the items is true (+) or not true (–) and mark your
answers on your answer sheet.

Now you will have one minute to read the items.

6) More than 38 states are above the 25 percent obesity rate.

7) 70 percent of the American people have problems with their kilos.
8) Obesity has been increased in the past years.
9) Alex could not put his food in the cupboard.
10) Alex thinks that people are idiots.
11) Plates has been too little for decades.
12) According to the report people consume mindlessly.
13) Nowadays a normal American man has a 35 inch waist.
14) A normal American woman used to have a 30 inch waist.
15) In general women have put on weight over the past few years.
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Listening comprehension (part3)

You will hear parts of a short text. After each part you have to decide which is the
correct answer (a, b or c) and mark your answers on the answer sheet.
You will hear the text only once. First you will have 45 seconds to read the questions.

16) The speaker says that a lot of people…

a. take jobs they don’t really love.
b. apply for jobs they would love later.
c. love their jobs.

17) According to the speaker, airline business is…

a. better than nothing
b. the worst business
c. okay if you like it.

18)According to the speaker, a lot of people become successful…

a. if they love their job.
b. because they change jobs.
c. because their family is behind them.

19) The workplace of the speaker was…

a. in Wall street.
b. at a golf course.
c. not mentioned.

20) The speaker’s friend got the position, because…

a. he was the best.
b. he was the only candidate.
c. they liked him.
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Solution key

1.d
2.c
3.e
4.f
5.b
6.f
7.t
8.t
9.f
10.f
11.f
12.t
13.f
14.t
15.t
16.a
17.c
18.b
19.c
20.b
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News Items
PART 1

Not only is this legal, it pays the bills.

-So you get paid to smoke pot, right about it?
-I got paid to some pot; you’re right about it, yeah.
His penname is William Breath and he is one of the first medical marijuana-critics in the country. We
can’t show you his face because his job depends on staying anonymous just like a restaurant –critic.
-You can be high during your job.
-And my boss knows it.
A decade after medical marijuana was legalized in Colorado it’s estimated about 2 percent of the
states population - more than one hundred thousands people have applied for medical marijuana
licenses.
Thank you there.
According to one Harvard economist roughly 18 billion dollars are spent on pot every year in the US.
...
2.
Right now smokers can’t light up in public places in Fort wing, but a new cigarette is changing that.
Here is channel 15 Eliza Ivans is sitting here now to explain.
-We are talking about electronic cigarettes. They don’t have any tobacco in them like traditional
cigarettes do so they are legal even with smoking-bans and that’s making a lots of people change
from smoking packs to smoking high tech.
3.
We are now just weeks from a ban on lighting up in public places, but there’re still doubts about
exactly which public places will be affected. Pubs, clubs and bars for instance – yes, smoking is going
to be banned there. What about the office? There too, if you want to light up you’ll have to go
outside. But what about a cab of a lorry? That’s OK, isn’t it? Actually no. It’s classed as a workplace
too. A problem for some lorry-drivers as our transport-correspondent Peter P. has been finding out
many are likely simply to ignore the rules.
4.
Finally a habit of public smoking in confined spaces. The last ten years the number of smoking bans
worldwide has exploded – New York, London, Paris – they’ve all snuffed out the habit. Now Germany
is joining the ban-wagon. From today a fine’s being forced on any bar, restaurant or rebel smoker
ignoring the new law. Just here more reports on Berlin on how businesses uprising for the change.
5.
One and a half million have been infected, tens of thousands more fall ill every day, more than 300
people, many of them with no previous health problems are dead.
There is a high population density in internal migration in the Ukraine and this creates a great risk for
a country.
The rapid spread of disease has given rights to rumours, finger-pointing and conspiracy theories.
Doctors in Western-Ukraine have done post-mortems where the lungs of the victims were said to be
as black as charcoal. Comparing the symptoms to the Spanish-flue which worth ten-millions in 1918.
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PART 2

Go back now to some other items on the news tonight. Some serious news are stands out today on
Americas growing weight problem. A new report out-shows adult obesity rate increased in 28 out of
the 50 states in the last year. Overall 38 states now have adult obesity rates above 25 percent.
We’ve put more on the findings including how your state ranks on our website that is nightly dot
nsnbc dot com.
Now do your health and a look at one reason why 70 percent of American, 70 percent are
overweight - cheap food, a lots of and it is everywhere. In our be well be healthy report tonight at
NBC ‘s Tom Costello asks when was the last time you took a good hard look at your dinner plate?
America’s love affair with the palate and all thet pleases it has grown and grown over the past 50
years, within our tummies, back-sides and it turns out - our dinner-plate. Alex P.’s eureka moment
for his book to Nine Inch Diet came when he bought a 1940s house and couldn’t get his new plates
into the old kitchen cabinets.
-And I just thought – you know- who – what kind of idiot makes cabinets that don’t fit in a normal
size plate? And that’s stalked into my head for a second that I thought no idiot does that- the size of
our plate must have changed.
In fact they’ve grown 3-4 inches – from 9 inches in the 1960s to 12 inches today making room for 38
percent more food.
- Eating 100 extra calories a day is resulting in a mathematical weight gain of 10 pounds by the end
of the year.
Colonel Professor Brian V. calls it mindless eating – eating with our eyes not our appetites. 2 eggs
and 2 pieces of bacon on a small plate look like a lot of food. But on a bigger plate there is room for
more.
-So 3 eggs, 3 pieces of bacon 50 percent more.
-Exactly. But in your mind it’s a full plate of food is just a full plate of food.
50 years old Melanie M. - she didn’t know when to stop:
-In my adult lifetime restaurant portions have gotten huge.
Her weight surged to 180, she is now on 165 hoping to get to 130. And she is not alone. In 1960 the
average American male had 35 inch waist – women average 30 inches; 50 years later men have
added nearly 5 inches now 39.7 – women have added 7 inches. And with the inches come the
pounds. Since 1960 men have gone from 166 to 195 pounds on average; women have gone from 140
to 165.

PART 3

1. If I were going to give career advice to somebody it would be that you have to love it, you
have to really want it and you have to love what you’re doing. There are so many people who
are forced through family pressure or something, into doing something that they don’t
believe in, they don’t like. You’ve got to go after the kind of a job you like.

2. You may love the airline business – the airline business is a terrible business, but you
probably do better within the airline business if you love it, then you’ll be in a better business
in the airline business if you don’t. See, you have to go into something that you like.

3. There are many stories of people who became successful later in their life by doing other
things and they got out of something that they didn’t like. And one of them is a friend of
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mine. He was a failure on Wall Street, his family was very important and big on Wall Street,
but he wasn’t cut out for this, he wasn’t tough enough for it and probably he wasn’t smart
enough for it and he was a failure on Wall Street.

4. All of his life, he was just born to be on Wall Street but it didn’t work out that way, so he
stayed and he didn’t do particularly well, but he stayed and stayed and I used to tell him just
go out and do something else.

5. And then what happened is at his golf-course they made him the head of the greens
community. They were re-doing all of the fairways all of the grains and they did it really
because they were feeling sorry for him and no one else wanted the job. And he did a
spectacular job. He was there at 5 o’clock in the morning with the contractors he worked
really hard; he wouldn’t get home till later in the evening. He loved what he was doing. And I
told him you will go out to build golf-courses, this is what you’re good at and he laughed at.
He said that I said I could never do that I have to be on Wall Street, I am expected to be on
Wall Street, I have to be on Wall Street. I said yeah, but you are not happy and you are not
good at it. He said it doesn’t matter I am expected to be there. Well he went back he was
miserable and ultimately about five years ago he developed a golf-course building business
where he renovates and builds golf-courses. He is doing a spectacular job. It couldn’t be
better, he couldn’t be happier. So for the first time in his life he is doing well and the first
time in his life he is happy.