IELTS Practice Test 12

Transcript (on the real test you hear this once)

You will hear two students, Hannah and Tariq, talking to their tutor, Professor Mulcahy, about a community study for their sociology course.

Professor Mulcahy: Hello, Hannah, Tariq. You’ve both been out to the Fernhill Repair Café now?

Hannah: Three Saturdays running, yes.

Professor Mulcahy: Good. Your proposal said you’d measure how much waste the café prevents. Is that still the plan?

Tariq: It was, but once we got there we realised nobody weighs anything, so there’s no way to measure it. We’ve switched to why people come — what actually motivates them. Waste is just background now.

Professor Mulcahy: Not the volunteers’ training? You mentioned that once.

Hannah: That’s another group’s project. What surprised us was who turns up. We expected mostly retired people, but the biggest group by far was people in their twenties and thirties. The older visitors do tend to stay longer, chatting, and lots of people were regulars — but we’d expected that.

Professor Mulcahy: And their reasons for coming?

Hannah: Saving money came up much less than we’d thought; most of the things people bring are cheap to replace. A couple of people brought something that had belonged to a parent, but that was rare. The two reasons we heard again and again were wanting to learn to fix things themselves, and the company — having a chat while they wait.

Tariq: A few mentioned the environment, but usually only after we’d prompted them, so we haven’t counted those.

Professor Mulcahy: Sensible. How many repairs actually succeed?

Tariq: The café’s own records say about sixty per cent, but that includes items where people were only given advice. If you count only things that left the hall working, it’s nearer forty-five per cent.

Professor Mulcahy: Use the lower figure and explain why. Did the type of item matter?

Hannah: Very much. Small electrical things — lamps, toasters, kettles — were by far the largest share. People assume they need special parts, but most faults were just a loose connection.

Tariq: Clothing was quickest; the sewing table turns most things round in ten minutes. Bikes, we expected loads, but we hardly saw any — there’s a bike workshop just down the road. And furniture often has to come back the following week, because the glue needs to set overnight.

Professor Mulcahy: Did you record the interviews?

Tariq: We took notes. Some people didn’t want to be recorded. Should we go back and record a few?

Professor Mulcahy: No need — you’d be talking to different people anyway. But are your notes quotations or summaries?

Hannah: Mostly summaries.

Professor Mulcahy: Then you can still use them, but label them clearly as paraphrases, not as people’s own words.

Hannah: OK. We also interviewed the organiser, Moira. She said what the café really depends on is volunteers, especially ones with electrical skills. Money isn’t the big issue — they get a small grant from the council.

Tariq: The real headache is storage. They meet in a church hall and have to pack everything away each week, and items waiting for spare parts have nowhere to go. Moira thinks more publicity might solve it — not to attract visitors, they’ve plenty, but to find a local business with a spare room.

Professor Mulcahy: Now, limitations. What will you say?

Tariq: We only went on Saturdays, and the café opens on Wednesday evenings too — the crowd might be quite different. We wondered about the weather, but it’s indoors, so that makes no difference.

Hannah: And we only spoke to people who stayed. Anyone who dropped something off and left, we missed.

Professor Mulcahy: And forty-one interviews? For a study like this, that’s plenty. Did Moira choose who you spoke to?

Hannah: No, we approached people ourselves.

Professor Mulcahy: Fine. So what’s next?

Hannah: I was going to email Moira again about the repair figures, but Tariq’s already done that, and the coding of the notes is finished. So I’ll start drafting the section on motivations.

Professor Mulcahy: Good. There’s a nice piece on community gardens you might enjoy, but it’s not really your topic. The one to read first is an article on tool libraries — places where people borrow tools instead of buying them. Similar ideas about sharing and skills.