[00:00.00]Exercise 6
[00:02.98]Part A
[00:05.72]You will hear a talk about picnics.
[00:09.87]As you listen,answer Questions 1--10 by circling True or False.
[00:18.13]You will hear the talk ONLY ONCE.
[00:22.57]You now have 60 seconds to read Questions 1--10.
[00:28.92]My topic today is picnics.
[00:33.28]Please feel free and you may smoke if you wish.
[00:38.74]We will kick off by defining not what a picnic is,but what a picnic is not
[00:47.18]A picnic is not a feast of cold chicken,
[00:52.74]tomato salad,pickles,tongue,ham and white wine
[01:00.19]consumed off a tablecloth in a field or wood.
[01:05.93]Such a meal is only a portable business lunch,
[01:11.29]eaten at a table without legs and thus liable to give you indigestion.
[01:19.05]Anyway,you've forgotten the delicious foods.
[01:24.40]A picnic is not sandwiches.
[01:28.66]Nor is it vacuum-flasks and greaseproof-paper bags
[01:35.50]in a car parked-on a cliff top with the windows up.
[01:41.56]Nor is it portable barbecues,
[01:45.90]collapsible stoolsor storm-proof field ovens.
[01:52.35]What,then,is a picnic?
[01:56.82]The following elements are indispensable:ONE:Children.
[02:04.97]A picnic without children is like roast beef without York shire pudding.
[02:12.81]Children are the whole delight and purpose of a picnic,
[02:18.16]as well as coming in useful for fetching cigarettes.
[02:23.41]TWO:Glorious weather.
[02:28.27]This is vital,for picnics and umbrellas do not go hand in hand.
[02:35.72]Picnics were intended to be eaten under a blue sky,
[02:41.75]THREE:A good site.
[02:46.22]There is a lot more in this than finding a meadow with fine,springy grass
[02:53.27]and its fair ration of buttercups.
[02:57.61]There must be streams to fall in,trees to fall out of,
[03:04.45]hills to roll down,and preferably a mad bull somewhere in the offing.
[03:13.10]This gives picnicking its proper air of adventure.
[03:19.34]FOUR:The right food.
[03:23.99]The following recipe is culled from a lifetime's experience
[03:30.55]and will yield a successful picnic for four people.
[03:37.00]You get four small deep carrier bags
[03:42.85]of the kind that are used by wine merchants to hold one bottle of Scotch
[03:50.11]Into each carrier bag you place these ingredients:
[03:56.36]One banana.One orange.One small portion of processed cheese.
[04:06.02]One handful of assorted biscuits,plain and sweet.
[04:12.47]One packet of chewing gum.One sausage roll.
[04:19.00]One bag of potato crisps.One hard-boiled egg.Some cheese straws.
[04:28.77]A screw-to bottle of fizzy lemonade.
[04:34.52]One gingerbread man.One bun.One bar of chocolate.
[04:43.38]One stick of barley sugar and other items to taste,
[04:50.61]provided that they are not boringly wholesome,
[04:55.76]that they were not left over from yesterday's dinner
[05:01.11]and especially that they are not placed between two slices of bread,
[05:07.96]whether brown or white.
[05:12.01]You hand out the carrier bags to your squad of picnickers and you set off
[05:19.56]You do not worry if the oldest one,
[05:24.21]who has been crazed with hunger ever since finishing breakfast ten minutes ago
[05:31.96]commences to eat his picnic before the car is even-out of the garage.
[05:39.51]You do not worry if the youngest one
[05:44.66]eats his chocolate before he gets to his sausage roll,
[05:50.59]or even if he eats his sausage roll at all.
[05:56.44]You do not worry about your children getting sticky.
[06:02.00]You do not worry about your children feeling sick.
[06:07.46]You do not,in fact,worry about anything.
[06:13.32]You park the car and step out briskly into the countryside.
[06:20.06]You find a suitable spot.You sit down.
[06:26.01]You act as arbitrator
[06:30.87]while your children set up a brisk barter trade in boiled eggs and bananas.
[06:38.81]You eat.Your children begin to eat,
[06:44.77]cease eating in order to catch dragonflies and resume eating.
[06:51.92]You do not warn them against germs or about indigestion.
[06:58.59]You light a cigarette.The sun shines on.You fall asleep.
[07:07.83]All is rustic and peaceful
[07:12.38]except for the occasional magic cries of small picnickers being stung by bees
[07:21.44]When it is time to leave,
[07:25.07]you heave your discarded carrier bags into the nearest litter bin
[07:32.44]and return home without worrying about the washing-ups.
[07:39.00]This picnic will be memorable.
[07:43.65]I promise you,
[07:47.20]You now have twenty seconds to check your answer to question 1-10.
[07:55.85]Question 1-10 according to Part A.
[07:57.91]1.You may smoke during the talk.
[07:59.95]2.The speaker believes picnics always need cold chicken.
[08:02.01]3.The speaker recommends portable barbecues for picnics.
[08:04.05]4.The speaker believes that children are indispensable in a picnic.
[08:06.11]5.The speaker recommends picnickers to bring umbrellas in a picnic.
[08:08.15]6.There should be streams in a good picnic site.
[08:10.21]7.The recipe the speaker recommends includes one orange,one banana and four eggs
[08:12.25]8.The children should eat chocolate before the sausage roll.
[08:14.29]9.Picnickers can be stung by bees.
[08:16.35]10.When the picnickers get home,they'll have to wash the dishes.
[08:18.39]That is the end of Part A.
[08:22.86]Part B
[08:25.99]You will hear several conversations or talks
[08:31.56]and you must answer the questions by choosing A,B,C or D.
[08:40.41]You will hear the recording ONLY ONCE.
[08:44.96]Questions 11--13 are based on the following talk-
[08:51.72]You have 15 seconds to read Questions 11--13.
[08:59.27]There are two main kinds of beer in pubs in the UK.
[09:05.31]One is called mild,and the other is known as bitter.
[09:11.76]Mild is a slightly sweeter brew than bitter;
[09:17.22]and the colour of mild is a deeper shade of brown.
[09:23.07]However;the difference is a result of two different brewing processes,
[09:29.63]or more specifically,
[09:33.18]the result of different ingredients being used in the brewing process.
[09:40.73]In the case of mild,
[09:44.28]the brewing process involves the use of slightly roasted barley,
[09:50.84]whereas with the bitter brew the barley is not roasted.
[09:56.90]Furthermore,when bitter is undergoing preparation
[10:02.83]there is more use of a plant called hops,
[10:07.97]which give it its distinctive bitter taste.
[10:13.22]When bitter is ready for consumption,
[10:17.56]it is a light yellow colour,sometimes becoming a light brown.
[10:23.91]If the barley is more heavily roasted,
[10:28.64]the beer takes on an even deeper shade,
[10:33.47]resulting eventually in a brew which is almost black.
[10:39.14]One important point is that the names of mild and bitter
[10:45.38]do not necessarily indicate the relative strength of these two forms of beer
[10:52.54]The word 'bitter' may sound stronger than the word 'mild'
[10:58.49]but in this case theopposite may be true;
[11:03.54]in other words,
[11:06.59]there are some mild beerswhich are strongerthan bitter beers.
[11:12.94]The preference forone kind over another
[11:18.01]is of course a matter of personalchoice,
[11:23.26]but it is true that more bitter beer is drunk in Britain than mild beer
[11:30.49]The reason for thisis not clear
[11:34.65]It may simply be because more bitter beer is available than mild beer:
[11:41.52]on the other hand,
[11:44.55]it may be because bitter beer may be regarded somehow as a more exciting drink
[11:52.62]than mild beer.
[11:55.86]Certainly it contains more acid,
[12:00.01]which is perhaps why the medical profession
[12:04.87]recommend that if you are going to drink beer regularly,
[12:10.41]you should ask for mild rather than bitter,
[12:15.48]because the lower acid content in the mild beer
[12:21.33]means that it is better for the health.
[12:25.87]This last point may be borne in mind
[12:30.94]whenever somebody raises their glass to you
[12:35.88]and says 'cheers'or 'to your health'.
[12:41.84]You now have 30 seconds to check your answers to Questions 11--13. |