CAE (Advanced Exam) Listening Test 6

Part 4
21 D  22 F  23 B  24 H  25 C

26 F 27 E  28 G  29 A  30 C

Part 4 consists of two tasks. You’ll hear five short extracts in which people are talking about their
experiences of travelling.
Look at task 1. For questions 21–25, choose from the list A–H what advice each speaker gives
about travelling. Now look at task 2. For questions 26–30, choose from the list A–H what mistakes
each speaker has made about travelling.
While you listen you must complete both tasks. In the exam, you have 45 seconds to look at Part 4.

Speaker one
With all my travelling experience I've got packing down to a fine art now, and it's hardly that big a
deal anyway. If you forget something you just buy it at your destination. But on one recent trip I was
running really late and actually found myself on the coach to the airport still trying to fit various
clothes and papers into my luggage. But the one real kick for me about going to new places, and
the thing I'd really recommend, is trying all the stuff that's grown in the region, all the specialities.
I've kept a record of them all, and I'm thinking of writing a recipe book!

Speaker two
This will probably sound obvious, but if you're like me and leave everything to the last minute, then
rolling up your clothes to put them in your bag can be your saving grace. Space is always limited
when you're travelling, but this way you can just cram everything in! Even so, this technique didn't
help me much on one occasion when I saw this locally-made rug I just knew would look fabulous at
home. Sadly, no one pointed out that it wouldn't be easily transportable so I ended up paying loads
of money to bring it back. I probably could've got just the same thing at home.

Speaker three
Nowadays, I travel as much as I can because it's dead easy to tell yourself you're too busy to fit it
in. I remember not joining a two-day trek with friends in South America for that reason. Then
afterwards, I heard how great it'd been, especially the hotel and kicked myself. Apart from anything,
I could've really done with brushing up my Spanish. Anyway, wherever you go, I reckon it's key to
remember that, despite advances in technology making it theoretically easy to get great bargainpriced
tickets, you can often actually get much better deals elsewhere, for example just by picking
up the phone and talking to a real human being!

Speaker four
When you've arrived at the airport just as the final call's being made for your flight, there's nothing
worse than being weighed down by tons of unwanted bits of luggage. My general rule is to take half
the stuff I think I'll need, and twice the money! It's done me proud so far! And it certainly stood me in
good stead when I once got confused over flight booking times and ended up at the airport thinking
I was leaving at midnight. When I finally bothered to look, I found my ticket was actually for the
previous day. That cost me an extra 500 dollars to sort out – an important lesson.

Speaker five
I remember planning what I thought was a quiet beach vacation, and spending ages negotiating the
booking with our travel agent. Then, having arrived and given the hotel address to the taxi driver,
we found ourselves heading downtown into the city. I hadn't bothered researching the lie of the land
so I guess it served me right. But it actually turned out well. We were right near the clubs where
various bands played, and we really got into the local music; even performed at one place, despite
not speaking the language. So I'd recommend doing something like that. It's by far the best way of
getting a true flavour of a place.