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.
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TRANSCRIPTS
Question 1.
Well most of the time I really enjoy my job. I like travelling to different places and meeting customers, and I don’t mind the irregular hours. I’d hate to be stuck indoors all the time, working
nine to five every day, like the management staff at head office. It’s so much better to be out and about, and even if I have a day or two when people don’t buy much off me. I still feel it’s been worthwhile. If I didn’t do this job, I think I’d like to be a reporter for a magazine, interviewing celebrities and that kind of thing.
Question 2.
Personally, I felt they couldn’t have found a better location for it. If you’re going to look at desert wildlife, then surely central Australia is ideal. And although I know there’ve been some critical remarks about the camera work, overall it didn’t look that bad to me. The only thing I would say is that perhaps we didn’t learn as much as we might have liked about the creatures we were seeing. I don’t think it’s enough just to show us a strange-looking Australian insect and expect everyone to know what it is and what it does.
Question 3.
Woman: Things aren’t going so well, are they?
Man: No, I suppose not. What do you think the problem is?
Woman: It seems to me that whenever something goes wrong, you don’t really learn the right lessons. Instead you just carry on making the same mistakes again and again. And that’s not fair on the other staff here, many of whom are paid a lot less than you.
Man: But I’ve only been here a while. I’m sure that in a few months I’ll have a better idea of what to do.
Woman: We haven’t got months. I’m afraid that unless there’s evidence of real improvement very soon, we’ll have to let you go.
Question 4.
Man: The air’s getting worse and worse, isn’t it? Some mornings you can hardly breathe. And those factories on the edge of town are to blame.
Woman: I’m not sure about that. I mean, it’s bad today, but the wind’s blowing the opposite way. I think it’s more likely to be the traffic. The air would be a lot better if they could limit the number of cars and trucks allowed downtown.
Man: That would certainly help. They should encourage people to move out to the suburbs, too. There are too many living right in the centre, with all their vehicles.
Woman: Um, that’s not really the way I see it. The real problem is people driving in to work every day ...
Question 5.
I’m booked on a flight to Madrid on March the 15th which was supposed to leave at 9.30 in the morning, but I’ve just received an email telling me that the departure time has been changed to 8.45. The problem is that there isn’t a train which will get me from here to the airport early enough for that, so I’d be grateful if you could put me on a later flight. I’ve checked your website and I see you have another one leaving at 11.50, so that would be fine. Actually, it’s better than the original time as I won’t have to get up as early!
Question 6.
Hi. I’m still on the train. It’s running quite a bit late so it’s probably best if I see you there instead of at the cafe. Otherwise we’ll both miss the start of the game. At least if you get there on time you can send me a text message if there’s an early goal. And I’ll text you when I get into the station to give you an idea of when I’m likely to arrive. I’m going to have a coffee in the restaurant car now. See you soon, I hope. Bye!
Question 7.
Interviewer: So what happened after the Olympics?
Woman: Well, it was clear that the new methods were far superior to the way athletes had trained before, so anyone who wanted to win anything had to adopt them.
Interviewer: And was there an immediate effect from this change in training methods, or did it take some time to bring results?
Woman: Actually, at first my performance got worse, with slower times, but the coach had warned me that might happen, and soon there was a steady improvement. And 18 months later I broke the world record!
Question 8.
Looking back on it now, that family holiday wasn’t a great success, really. At least from my point of view. It wasn’t the fact that it rained almost every day that spoiled it - after all, you expect that in the mountains - or the campsite, which I thought wasn’t bad. No, the thing was there was nothing for my younger brother and sister to do there, so they spent most of their time trying to get me to play silly games with them, when all I wanted to do was read and relax a bit. I never got a moment’s peace.
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CORRECT ANSWERS
1C - 2C - 3B - 4B - 5C - 6A - 7B - 8A
