Comprehensive Listening Skills

Hello! My name is Emma. I am twenty-two years old. I live in Bristol, in the west of England.

I work in a café. The café opens at seven o'clock in the morning. I start work at half past seven. I finish at three o'clock in the afternoon.

I live with my flatmate, Lucy. Our flat is small but very nice. The rent is six hundred and fifty pounds a month. We have two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a small kitchen.

Every morning, I wake up at six fifteen. I have a shower and then I eat breakfast. I usually eat toast with butter and a cup of tea. I walk to work. It takes about fifteen minutes.

On Tuesday and Thursday evenings, I go to a gym near my flat. The gym costs thirty pounds a month.

This weekend, I am going to visit my parents. They live in Bath, which is about fifteen miles from Bristol. I am going by train. The train ticket costs nine pounds fifty.

My parents' house has a big garden. My mother loves flowers. My father likes cooking. He always makes a big Sunday lunch. My favourite food is roast chicken.

I want to travel in the future. My dream is to visit Japan. I am saving fifty pounds every month for my trip.

Claire: Good afternoon, the Royal Crescent Hotel, Edinburgh. Claire speaking. How can I help you?

David: Hello, good afternoon. My name is David Harrison. I'd like to make a reservation, please.

Claire: Of course. What dates were you looking at, Mr Harrison?

David: I need a room from the fourteenth to the seventeenth of November. That's three nights.

Claire: Let me check availability for you. The fourteenth to the seventeenth of November — yes, we do have rooms available. Did you want a standard room or a superior room?

David: What's the difference in price?

Claire: A standard double room is one hundred and fifteen pounds per night, and a superior room with a city view is one hundred and forty-five pounds per night. Both prices include breakfast.

David: I'll take the standard double, please. Could I also request a quiet room, away from the street if possible? I have an early start on the fifteenth — I need to be at the conference centre by eight o'clock.

Claire: Absolutely, I'll make a note of that. Can I take a credit card to secure the booking?

David: Yes, of course. The card number is four seven two two, three eight nine one, five five six zero, two four one three. The expiry date is March twenty-twenty-seven.

Claire: Thank you. And the name on the card?

David: David Harrison. H-A-R-R-I-S-O-N.

Claire: Perfect. So to confirm — a standard double room from the fourteenth to the seventeenth of November, three nights at one hundred and fifteen pounds per night, totalling three hundred and forty-five pounds. Check-in is from two pm and check-out is by eleven am. Shall I send a confirmation to your email?

David: Yes please. It's david.harrison at globaltech dot co dot uk.

Claire: Got that. Is there anything else I can help with?

David: Just one thing — is there a car park at the hotel?

Claire: Yes, we have a private car park. It's twelve pounds per night. Would you like me to reserve a space?

David: Yes, please do. Thank you very much.

Presenter: New figures released today by the Office for National Statistics show that the average house price in England and Wales has risen by eleven point three percent over the past twelve months, reaching a new record high of three hundred and twelve thousand pounds in September of this year.

The sharpest rises were recorded in the South East, where prices increased by fourteen percent, and in East Anglia, where the rise stood at thirteen point eight percent. London, by contrast, saw a more modest increase of just six point two percent, as high prices continue to deter buyers.

Speaking to the BBC this morning, Professor Rachel Webb of the London School of Economics said the figures reflected a structural imbalance between supply and demand that had been building since at least two thousand and five.

Professor Webb: What we are seeing is not a bubble in any traditional sense. The underlying problem is that we have been building approximately one hundred and forty thousand homes per year, when the government's own target is three hundred thousand. Until that gap closes, prices will remain elevated. I would not expect any meaningful correction before twenty-twenty-eight at the earliest.

Presenter: The government responded this afternoon, with the Housing Secretary, Jonathan Clarke, announcing a new package of measures designed to accelerate housebuilding. Under the plan, local councils will be required to approve planning applications within twelve weeks or face financial penalties. An additional two point four billion pounds will be allocated to affordable housing programmes over the next three years.

However, critics from the opposition Labour Party argued the measures did not go nearly far enough. Shadow Housing Minister, Sarah Okafor, said the announcement was, quote, a sticking plaster on a broken system, and called for a full independent review of planning law by the first of March next year.

First-time buyers remain the most affected group, with the average age of a first-time buyer now standing at thirty-four — up from twenty-nine in the year two thousand. The average deposit required in London has reached eighty-seven thousand pounds.

Lecturer: This morning I want to turn our attention to the British Broadcasting Corporation — an institution that, I would argue, is not merely a media organisation but a foundational element of British cultural identity.

The BBC was established by Royal Charter on the eighteenth of January, nineteen twenty-seven, though its predecessor — the British Broadcasting Company — had been operating as a commercial entity since the fourteenth of November, nineteen twenty-two. The transition from Company to Corporation was consequential: it marked a deliberate decision by the government of the day, under Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, to remove broadcasting from purely commercial imperatives and place it under a public service mandate.

The architect of this transformation was John Reith — the BBC's first Director-General — who served from nineteen twenty-two to nineteen thirty-eight. Reith's philosophy, which became known as Reithianism, held that broadcasting should simultaneously inform, educate, and entertain — in that order of priority. His ambition was not merely to reflect public taste but, in his own memorable phrase, to give the public something slightly better than it thinks it wants.

The BBC's first television service launched on the second of November, nineteen thirty-six, making it the world's first regular high-definition public television service. The service was suspended during the Second World War, between September nineteen thirty-nine and June nineteen forty-six — a period of six years and nine months — before resuming with the same programme that had been interrupted when transmission ceased.

By the nineteen-sixties, the BBC faced its first serious institutional challenge: the rise of commercial television, which had launched via ITV in September nineteen fifty-five, and the arrival of pirate radio stations in nineteen sixty-four. The response was the launch of BBC Two in April nineteen sixty-four and Radio One in September nineteen sixty-seven — the latter being a direct response to the popularity of offshore pirate stations such as Radio Caroline.

Today, the BBC operates under a ten-year Royal Charter — the most recent of which was renewed in December twenty sixteen and runs until thirty-first December twenty-twenty-seven. It is funded primarily through the licence fee, which currently stands at one hundred and sixty-nine pounds and fifty pence per year for a colour television licence. The BBC employs approximately twenty-two thousand people and reaches an estimated four hundred and fifty million people globally each week through its World Service and digital platforms.