C2 Listening Practice Test 2

Jack: Jack speaking, Riverside Conference Centre. Grace: Jack, good morning. It's Grace Hollis, from the Teachers' Network. I wonder if you've got a few minutes. I rather think we have a small problem to untangle. Jack: Of course. I think I know where you're going, but please, go ahead. Grace: Our registrations have come in well ahead of forecast. We planned for two hundred and twenty delegates, and we're at three hundred and forty with three weeks to go. The main hall, as I understand it, seats three hundred. Jack: Indeed, and I confess I'd been hoping you wouldn't ask. The honest answer is that the hall can take three hundred and sixty with extra rows, but only if we remove the demonstration area at the back, and that would affect your plans for the workshops. Grace: That's rather the sort of thing I hoped to avoid. Is the lower hall an option? Jack: It's available, but it holds only a hundred and eighty, and it has a low ceiling, which doesn't suit a keynote. What I could do is offer the lower hall as an overflow room with a live video link to the main stage. We have the equipment already, and I'd waive the usual fee for it, given the circumstances. Grace: That's generous. Although I do worry that a screen in another room isn't quite the same as being there. Jack: It isn't, and I wouldn't pretend otherwise. But I'd rather offer you something workable than something that sounds better than it is. Grace: I appreciate the candour. Let me take it to my committee this afternoon and come back to you by five. Jack: Please do. And if it helps, I can hold the lower hall provisionally until then.

Dr. Lee: Ben, I've been through your questionnaire, and I'm afraid it has what I'd call an enthusiasm problem. Almost every question is phrased in such a way that the respondent can only agree with you. Ben: Surely not every one. I did try to keep it neutral. Dr. Lee: Question six asks how much more useful they find the new timetable compared with the old one. You've baked the conclusion into the wording. Anyone who thinks it's less useful has nowhere to go. Ben: I see that now. I suppose I was so attached to my hypothesis that I couldn't see it. Dr. Lee: It's the commonest pitfall in the business, and, to be fair, you're in good company. Where the questionnaire does shine is the layout. It's clean, and nobody will abandon it halfway through, which is more than I can say for most I've seen. Ben: So do I scrap it? Dr. Lee: Scrap is rather strong. Rewrite questions six to nine, then pilot it with ten students from outside your own year group before you go any wider. Their confusion will be more informative than their answers. Ben: Do I have to postpone the main survey? Dr. Lee: Only by a week, I should think, though if the pilot throws up problems, I wouldn't be surprised if it took two. Don't let the deadline bully you into a hasty design. A flawed survey that arrives on time is still a flawed survey. Ben: Understood. Thank you. That was bracing. Dr. Lee: I'm told that's my speciality.

Emma: My guest today started a company making science kits for schools out of a spare bedroom. Henry, I gather the first year wasn't exactly plain sailing. Henry: That's one way of putting it. The first year was a masterclass in doing everything wrong with great confidence. I ordered components for five thousand kits before I'd sold a single one, on the assumption that the product would speak for itself. It didn't. It sat in boxes in the hall, and my flatmate, who was remarkably patient, began referring to them as the other tenants. Emma: So what turned it around? Henry: Oh, a teacher, really. She wrote to me, quite sternly, to say that the kits were clever but that no teacher had forty-five minutes to read the instructions. I'd been designing for people like myself, who enjoy a manual. I rewrote the whole thing around a single page, and orders began to trickle in, then pour. Emma: And looking back, would you do anything differently? Henry: I'd like to claim I'd have been more cautious with money, but I suspect that's hindsight talking. The truth is, I might not have started at all if I'd known how many mistakes were waiting for me. There's a certain kind of ignorance that's quite useful. Emma: Would you advise others to start in the same way? Henry: Not in so many words. I'd say, find out early who you're really making it for, and ask them rather bluntly. Politeness is expensive when you're running out of money.