AUDIOSCRIPT
Units 1-4
1 Exercise 1, page 8
St = Stef Sa = Sarah L = Lyndon
St: Hello again. This week on Tech Report, Sarah and
Lyndon are going to be talking about two relatively
new tech solutions. Sarah, let’s start with you.
Sa: Hi, Stef. Well, last weekend, me and some friends went
to a new Asian restaurant that had these great touch
screen menus.
St: There’s nothing new in that, is there? I mean I’ve seen
plenty of menus on tablets in lots of restaurants in
town.
Sa: Well, yes, you’re right of course but this was different.
They were actually part of the table. We used them to
choose and order our meal and they told us how long
it’d be before we had the dishes on the table.
St: Hmm … I worry about the touch screens being in
contact with food. That doesn’t sound like a good idea
to me!
Sa: You’ve got a point, though they seemed pretty well
protected to me. And they made the whole ordering
process so much quicker. I mean that can’t be bad, can
it? I hate having to wait in restaurants! Don’t you?
St: Absolutely! I’m totally with you on that – I hate waiting
too! Maybe they’re not such a bad idea after all!
Lyndon, what about you? What tech wonders have you
seen this week?
L: Well, again, the basic concept is nothing new – virtual
mirrors have been part of online clothes shopping for
some time now, but this was the first time I’d seen one
in a real-life shop.
St: So what’s the difference?
L: Well, the screen is much bigger, just like a normal
mirror. You stand in front of it and you see the whole
length of your body. Then you choose the clothes
you want from a menu on the screen and the ‘mirror’
automatically shows you what they’d look like on you.
St: I can see the point if you’re shopping online, but
when you’re actually in the shop, you can just use the
changing rooms, can’t you?
L: I’m sorry, I really don’t agree with you here. I think they
can be really useful. You can look through the fashions
much more quickly than if you were looking through
the rails, and you can combine them with shoes and
accessories that you might have at home. It gives you a
much better idea.
St: Do you think we’re going to see virtual mirrors in
high street fashion stores any time soon? I can’t see it
happening myself.
L: I agree it’s unlikely to work in busy chain stores but in
smaller, more exclusive boutiques, I think it’ll be a hit.
St: Hmm, I’m afraid I’m not so sure. I definitely prefer the
menus!
Sa: I’ve got to agree with you. They’re more fun!
St: That’s all we have time for this week but we’ll be back
next week with a whole new episode of Tech Report.
And if you like the show, why not consider liking us on
Facebook or telling a friend. Bye for now!
Focus 4 Second Edition Kompendium maturalne I Audioscript   © Pearson Central Europe Sp z o.o. 2022   PHOTOCOPIABLE
2 Exercise 2, page 8
Good Afternoon. As part of our series on the history
of various traditions and customs, today I’d like to
focus on something quite close to my heart – and
that is etiquette, or to put it perhaps a little more
clearly – table manners. What is amazing is how rapidly
trends come and go and our notions of what is or
isn’t acceptable can change like the wind! What was
considered good table manners for one generation
is simply not necessarily the same for their children.
And this is not down to sloppiness or defiance at all.
Having said that, yes, there are some people who take
a perverse delight in being outrageous and flying in the
face of what is expected of them. But generally, I would
say people are social animals and we mostly try to fit
in with our peers. Our basic need is to be accepted,
so adopting different behaviour – for example while
eating – would make us stand out and sometimes
perhaps even result in our being ostracised.
Another point I should like to make is that table
manners are not a recent invention. They are not
something dreamed up by our grandparents or even
our grandparents’ grandparents! Manners of some
kind have existed for a very long time, in fact there are
references going back to the writer Chaucer’s time.
In the 14th century – one of the characters in The
Canterbury Tales talks of not letting any food drop from
her mouth. However, ask anyone how people used
to eat in medieval times, and its odds on that they
would talk about people eating meat with their hands
– greasy fingers – not a big problem then! In fact, it
wasn’t until Renaissance times that paintings show
how eating and drinking became a more sophisticated
affair. Pictures of beautifully fragile Venetian drinking
glasses indicate how impossible it would have been
to handle these roughly. Paintings continue to reveal
how table manners developed in later centuries. There
is a 1740 painting by Chardin, a French artist, in which
two children are being taught to eat properly at a
table, minding their manners. Using fingers has given
way to using cutlery, and sitting on stools, benches
or on floors has been replaced with straight backed
chairs. There are rules to follow. Around this time, other
eating occasions, such as afternoon tea, were being
introduced as opportunities to socialise, rather than
simply to eat. Etiquette developed about how to pour
tea, how to drink tea, without slurping, how to hold a
sandwich or a piece of cake and so on. Initially, these
forms of etiquette were adopted by the upper classes,
but slowly filtered through to the rest of society on
simpler levels.
A hundred years after Chardin’s painting, a journalist
called Mrs Beeton published what became the bible
for cooks and those wanting to use socially acceptable
table etiquette. Whereas today, many of her recipes
and tips are still relevant, her advice on manners
has considerably dated. However, it serves to show
us that manners were important and, at that time,
extremely strict. There were complex rules about the
order of serving guests at the table – starting with the
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gentleman on the left – and what one should or should
not do at the table. For example, dinner guests were
not encouraged to ask for a second serving of soup
or fish, as this might delay the next course for the
other guests. Of course, rules like these have mainly
disappeared, but you might be interested to know that
they do, in fact, live on in the dining halls and rooms of
ancient establishments, such as Oxbridge colleges!
If we look around today, 150 years after Mrs Beeton,
we see that in some ways we have gone backwards.
Always sitting at tables is a thing of the past, we eat
with our fingers. But the notion of ‘proper’ dining
continues in restaurants, with tablecloths, high back
chairs, individual glasses, using the right cutlery for
the right food and so on. It would be interesting to
hazard a guess as to how table manners might change
and develop further, over the next hundred years. Any
thoughts?
Units 1-6
3 Exercise 1, page 14
P = Presenter S = Speaker
P: Now on Art Attack it’s time for our regular feature ‘Two-
minute Histories’. Today’s subject? Performance Poetry.
S: Spoken poetry has its roots in preliterate societies. In
ancient Greece, epic poems like Homer’s Odyssey were
recited to music by a poet-singer. Their poetry spoke
of subjects of love, war and peace, relationships with
the gods and grief and loss. The advent of printing in
the fifteenth century changed the role of the poet from
entertainer to provider of written texts and transformed
many listeners into solitary readers.
The Beat movement was an American literary
movement originating in the 1950s. Beat poets like
Allen Ginsberg brought poetry ‘back to the streets’ with
spoken-word performances.
‘Open mic’ nights, introduced in the 1980s, allowed
unknown poets to perform their own work on stage
and led to the development of ‘poetry slams’, where
competitors were given a time limit to present their
work to a set of judges.
Arising from urban unrest in the US in the 1970s
and 80s, rap and hip-hop led to new ways for non-
traditional poets to showcase their skills.
Performance poetry is one of the most popular forms
of poetry today. Contemporary performance poets are
achieving new levels of prominence thanks to YouTube
and other online media outlets.
4 Exercise 2, page 14
I = Interviewer D = Dave
I: This morning I’m pleased to welcome Dave Judd onto
the programme. Dave is an expert on animal senses
and his recent documentary series on the subject is
quite fascinating. We fully appreciate how busy you
are, so your sparing some time to join us today is great.
Thanks, and good to meet you, Dave.
D: Likewise. I’m a regular listener to the show.
I: Interesting that you start off with the word ‘listener’!
Your speciality is how animals listen, or rather how they
hear, isn’t it?
Focus 4 Second Edition Kompendium maturalne I Audioscript   © Pearson Central Europe Sp z o.o. 2022   PHOTOCOPIABLE
D: You’re absolutely right. I’ve always been intrigued by
how animals they perceive sounds. It all started when I
realised that our dog could hear sounds that I couldn’t.
His ears would twitch, and he’d move to the door, and
a moment later I’d hear my dad’s car turning up the
drive. And a dog’s sensitive hearing is surpassed by
that of the domestic cat. Their ears are tuned to pick
up high frequency sounds over a distance of up to fifty
metres. Noises like a mouse rustling in the grass will
carry straight to them!
I: So, are these sounds always picked up through their
ears, like we do?
D: This is where it gets very interesting. Take the elephant
– you would imagine that with its enormous ears it can
hear sounds over a very wide area. And that is true.
What they can pick up is what we call ‘infrasound’
waves. For example, for us these sounds would be
like a low rumble of thunder. But in addition to this,
elephants can actually ‘hear’ the movement of clouds.
This tells them where rain clouds are gathering and
therefore where to find water.
And it’s not only the way their ear canals are structured
that is responsible for their hearing, they can also use
nerves in their feet to pick up vibrations in the ground
from other elephants pounding the earth a long way
away. It’s a way of letting other elephants know their
location.
I: Incredible. Another animal that always fascinates
people is the bat. It’s anecdotally reported that they
can’t see, but is that really true? Do bats navigate
completely by sound?
D: It is not quite true. Bats do have vision, but it’s limited.
Being nocturnal creatures, they are active in the
darkness, and their eyes are tuned to differentiate
between shades of grey and black, as opposed to
humans and other animals who have colour vision. To
assist in flying they have developed an acute hearing
system, echolocation, which is when the animal
produces a very high frequency sound. This bounces
back to them when it hits objects and they get a picture
– map-like – in their brains of the area and how to avoid
obstacles safely. And similar to elephants, they don’t
depend solely on their ears for hearing – really tiny
hairs on their wings pass on information to their brains
about changes in the air, helping create the perfect
map.
I: Wow! I freely admit that my knowledge about such
things is limited. Something else that you touch on
in your series is noise pollution. We are all fully aware
of how it can affect our lives, but you suggest that it
affects animals too.
D: Oh, big time! It’s a huge topic, but suffice to say that
one of the worst impacts we have had is on sea life,
and in particular on the whale. This is all down to
shipping. It’s been common knowledge for a while now
that whales use special songs, or calls, to communicate
over huge distances. It’s also been believed that
ships’ sonar systems operate on the same frequencies
as those that the whales use, and that this causes
disruption to the whales’ communication, causing
distress and even death. But what has recently come
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to light is that the main culprit is the ships’ motors 6 Exercise 2, page 22
and the sounds of the propellers. In episode 4 of the
‘When I step into the hothouses and see the plants
documentary we closely examine these claims and find
from exotic lands, it seems to me that I am in a dream.’
out what we can do about it.
Looking at these paintings, all of which are at night or
I: One thing I got having watched the programmes,
during a dark storm, that dreamlike quality is very much
Dave, was a very poor impression of humans’ hearing
in evidence. The first one, titled ‘Carnival Evening’,
abilities, compared to the animal world.
shows a strange couple, dressed in flamboyant carnival
D: You’re right. But having said that, we do have superior
costumes, standing in front of a bleak wintry forest.
hearing to a few. Take the poor snake – it’s said to have
In the second one, called ‘The Sleeping Gypsy’, the
to rely on ground vibrations to know if anyone is near it.
gypsy lies peacefully in the moonlight, under the
At least we have ears!
stars, wrapped in a long, pastel-striped tunic, while
the lion approaches curiously, but does not harm her.
Units 1-8 The painting reminds us of the stories from Arabian
5 Exercise 1, page 22 Nights, which had recently been translated into several
European languages.
The idea that you can become rich and famous by
‘Tiger in a Tropical Storm’ was the first of many of
hosting a video blog on YouTube, Facebook or other
Henri Rousseau’s paintings set in the jungle. The lush
social media platforms was once thought to be a total
trees and plants are waving wildly in the storm when,
fantasy. But the everincreasing number of successful
suddenly, a snarling tiger appears from the long
Internet video stars has proved that online success is
grass, where it has been hiding. The jungle setting is
very real indeed. How do these self-made celebrities
something which Rousseau painted again and again,
attract so many views? And how do they make so much
and yet he never actually travelled outside his home
money? Music videos are considered to be generating
country of France.
the biggest audiences on YouTube, Vimeo and other
He was born into a lower middle-class family in the
streaming channels. Some big stars have become
small town of Laval, in northwest France, in 1844. His
famous after posting self-produced music online,
father was a metalworker, who was constantly in debt.
but the most popular music videos are produced by
At seventeen, he left school and began working for a
professionals in support of stars who already have
local lawyer, before joining the army for seven years.
millions of followers. Of course these can be watched
He left the army in 1868 and moved to Paris, where
for free, but big money is made both through selling
he began working as a customs inspector. This is the
downloads of the music itself and through linked
reason why he is often referred to as ‘Le Douanier’, or
advertising.
‘the customs officer’ in French.
Self-made video bloggers are a more interesting
His life was really very ordinary, and yet his art was
phenomenon. These are people who make their own
anything but. It is thought that he got many of his ideas
videos of themselves sharing, for example, make-
from sketching in the city’s botanical gardens, but his
up and fashion tips, or gaming demonstrations. The
style was very much his own. He clearly had a natural
number of vloggers is reported to have been growing
aptitude but he was completely self-taught and picked
rapidly. The ones that have an outstanding personality
up inspiration wherever he could.
and a unique approach can become hugely popular …
The established art world of which Rousseau longed to
and rich as well. It is widely known that some vloggers
become an accepted part, was unable to appreciate
have made millions of dollars by allowing companies
or understand his work. However, he was able to show
to advertise on their site, and also by selling products
his work in annual exhibitions organised by the Société
related to their subject. This kind of fame can even
des Artistes Indépendants. These exhibitions led to his
become a gateway to other forms of success, such as
work being seen by artists such as Pissarro and Signac,
creating a product brand with your own name on it, or
who praised his style.
even gueststarring on TV shows.
1893 was the year when Rousseau retired from his work
Naturally, anything that attracts a lot of public
as a customs officer and met the writer Alfred Jarry,
interest is going to appeal to large companies. Some
who introduced him to Picasso and a number of other
people reckon that vlogging is the new form of mass
leading artists, many of whom admired his work. It
advertising. Companies make money indirectly by
should have been a turning point for his career as an
providing a free service which attracts new customers.
artist, but, while he became better known in his later
Of course the number of commercial video blogs
years, he never made much money from his art.
produced by medical clinics, investment companies
and food producers have given vlogging a less
personal face. But in the end, it’s actually personality
and a unique message that turn humble home-made
videos into the road to wealth and fame.

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