This is the new Cambridge First Certificate in English Listening test, 2016.
Practicing on these Cambridge FCE Listening tests helps raise your score in the Cambridge English First exams. These tests are also very good to exercise English listening skills.
Correct answers & audio transcript are posted below.
This video is in the series of NEW Cambridge First Certificate in English exam preparation:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp39kaAVtLBSDL3HMhv1aTXV4SCOc9_8s
SUBSCRIBE with us for the latest tests and support !
=======
TRANSCRIPTS
Introducer: We have with us today the psychologist Simon Calvin
who has recently created quite a stir with some rather unlikely claims about Astrology. Simon, are you indeed claiming that our lives are ruled by the stars?
Simon: No, not at all. I would not for one minute say that all of our
lives are affected by the movements of stars in the heavens. My research really concerns things that are far more down to earth. But, before I start, I should just say that by no means do the majority of people in general totally disbelieve the value of astrology. An incredible 62% of British adults say that their stars are of some interest to them although only 3.5% would use them to choose a husband or wife, and only 2.9% of people would refer to them in making business decisions.
But anyway, coming back to what I said before, I'm not so interested in the stars themselves, as I am in the time of year somebody is born. Psychologists now widely agree that both early life experiences and time of birth are a great influence on the development of a person's character. Of course, this does not make the whole of a person's character, but rather the foundation or base on which later changes are made. However, these later changes in character are not connected with the person's time of birth. So the question is, then, after all these personality changes have happened, can we look at an adult and see any of this foundation or base as part of their psychological make-up? The technique I have been using to do just this is a very simple one, but I believe, very effective. I have simply made a statistical comparison between people's choice of career and their zodiac
sign. Where somebody has made a strong choice in favour of a
particular kind of career, I believe that this indicates something very important in their character. If you look at a particular profession, say entertainers for example, and find that more than 15% of them were born in a certain short period of the year, it suggests that their choice of that profession is in some way connected with their birth at that particular time of the year. And this is, in fact, the case. An astonishing 20% of artists and entertainers were born in the period between the 12th of July and the 20th of August. This, in fact, is the most positive connection we have found so far. But there have been others although they have been less obvious. We looked at keen sports players participating more than five times a week and found a sizable number were born in the winter months of January and February.
Another group of people we looked at were frequent travellers,
who we discovered were more likely to have been born in early spring while accountants, bankers, executives and people generally in financial professions more frequently have birthdays in the late spring.
Now, so far, we haven't found any professions containing large percentages of one particular star sign, which is a little disappointing, but this is, no doubt, because our modern technological world has removed us further and further from the effects of nature. If, as was the case in the past, many people lived closer to nature, we could be seeing percentages as high as 40 or 50 or even more. This of course would mean that we would have ...
=========
CORRECT ANSWERS
9. British adults
10. business decisions
11. character
12. foundation/base
13. choice of career
14. artists and entertainers
15. less obvious
16. winter
17. disappointing
18. effects of nature
