It's important establish cues on your question paper before the IELTS recording starts playing. In this lesson, we talk about the importance of (1) having a phonetical expectation of unknown question words and (2) underlining words that could appear in the listening itself.
We're talking about this exercise here: http://ieltsnetwork.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=890
For more videos like this one, visit: http://www.ieltsielts.com
Here is a transcript of what is heard in the recording:
The aurora borealis is one of nature's great spectacles. Better known as the Northern Lights, this natural phenomenon is generally visible only in the most northerly locations. It's southern cousin, the aurora australis is likewise only visible in the southern stretches of latitude. Much more than just lights, the aurora borealis is a beautiful, complex and sometimes dangerous interaction of powerful forces.
The dance of lights we see on Earth is, surprisingly, the byproduct of an extremely violent and explosive set of events a hundred million miles away. The surface of the sun is an eruptive environment. Solar flares explode on a regular basis. These solar flares release large amounts of energy producing a geomagnetic storm. This storm hurdles towards other bodies in the solar system, including the Earth with spectacular results.
Although visually stunning, the aurora borealis has the potential to significantly disrupt human activities. Its large release of electromagnetic energy makes communication satellites that circle the Earth extremely vulnerable to damage. Fortunately for us, the Earth has a trick up its sleeve that protects us from all but the most severe geomagnetic storms. The Earth's magnetic field draws the electromagnetic forces to the northern and southern poles in the same way a dipole magnet will draw metal shavings to each of its ends. Once there, the upper limits of the Earth's atmosphere begins to ionize due to electromagnetic forces from the Sun's geomagnetic storm. It's this violent ionization that produces the colours visible in the northern sky.
So, the next time you look at the aurora consider for a moment the forces that are at play to create such a stunning visual.
