IELTS Listening Practice Test | 2026-02-02

**Narrator:** Now look at part one. Part one, you will hear Joanne describing her home city of Darwin in Australia to a man called Rob who hopes to go there. First, you have some time to look at questions 1 to five. Now we shall begin. You should answer the questions as you listen because you will not hear the recording a second time. Listen carefully and answer questions 1 to 5.
**Rob:** Joanne?
**Joanne:** Hi. You must be Rob. Nice to meet you. So, I hear you're planning to visit Australia.
**Rob:** Yeah. And I really wanted to talk to you because I was thinking of spending some time in Darwin and my sister told me you're from there.
**Joanne:** That's right. So tell me about it.
**Rob:** Well, where shall I start? Well, Darwin's in what they call the top end because it's right up at the northern end of Australia and it's quite different from the rest of Australia in terms of cultural influences. In fact, it's nearer to Jakarta in Indonesia than it is to Sydney. So you get a very strong Asian influence there. That means we get lots of tourists. People from other parts of Australia are attracted by this sort of international cosmopolitan image. And as well as that, we've got the same laidback atmosphere you get all over Australia, probably more so, if anything, because of the climate. But what a lot of the tourists don't realize until they get there, is that the city's also got a very young population. The average age is just 29 and this makes the whole place very buzzy. Some people think that there might not be that much going on as far as art and music and dancing and so on are concerned because it's so remote. I mean we don't really get things like theater and opera in the same way as cities down in the south like Sydney for example because of the transport expenses. But in fact what happens is that we just do it ourselves. Lots of people play music, classical as well as pop. And there are things like artists groups and writers groups and dance classes. Everyone does something. We don't just sit and watch other people.
**Rob:** You said it's very international.
**Joanne:** Yeah. They say there's over 70 different nationalities in Darwin. For instance, there's been a Chinese population there for over a hundred years. We've even got a Chinese temple. It was built way back in 1887, but um when a very bad storm, a cyclone in fact, hit Darwin in the 1970s, it was almost completely destroyed. The only parts of the temple that survived were part of the altars and the stone lions, but after the storm, they reconstructed it using modern materials. It's still used as a religious center today, but it's open to tourists, too, and it's definitely worth going to see it. Oh, and as far as getting around goes, you'll see places that advertise bicycles for hire, but I wouldn't recommend it. A lot of the year, it's just so hot and humid. Some tourists think it'll be fine because there's not much in the way of hills and the traffic is quite light compared with some places, but believe me, you're better off with public transport. It's fine and not expensive. Or you can hire a car, but it's not really worth it.
**Rob:** What's the swimming like?
**Joanne:** Well, there are some good beaches, but the trouble is that there's this nasty creature called the box jellyfish, and if it stings you, you're in bad trouble. So, you have to be very careful most of the year, especially in the winter months. You can wear a Lycra suit to cover your arms and legs, but I wouldn't like to risk it even so, personally. And there are the saltwater crocodiles, too. I mean, I don't want to put you off. There are protected swimming areas netted off where you'll be safe from jellyfish and crocs. Or there are the public swimming pools. They're fine, of course.
**Narrator:** Before you hear the rest of the conversation, you have some time to look at questions 6 to 10. Now listen and answer questions 6 to 10.
**Rob:** So which places would you specially recommend?
**Joanne:** Well, one of the most popular attractions is called Aquascene. What happens is every day at high tide, hundreds of fish come in from the sea. All different sorts, including some really big deep sea fish. And some of them will even take food from your hand. It's right in the middle of town at the end of the esplanard. It's not free. I think you have to pay about $5, but it's definitely something you have to experience. Then, of course, Darwin has a great range of food. Being such a cosmopolitan place, and if you don't have lots to spend, the best place to go is to Smith Street M where they have stool selling stuff to eat. There's all sorts of different things, including Southeast Asian dishes, which I really like. You'd think there'd be plenty of fresh fish in Darwin as it's on the coast, but in fact, because of the climate, it mostly gets frozen straight away, but you can get fresh fish in the restaurants on Cullen Bay Marina. It's a nice place to go for a special meal, and they have some good shops in that area, too. What else? Well, there's the Botanic Garden. It's over 100 years old, and there's lots to see. an orchid farm, rainforest, a collection of palm trees, uh a wetlands area. You can easily spend an afternoon there. That's at Fanny Bay, a couple of kilometers out to the north. Then if you've got any energy left in the evening, the place to go is Mitchell Street. That's where it all happens as far as clubs and music and things are concerned. You'll bump into lots of my friends there. Talking of friends, why don't I give you some email addresses? I'm sure they wouldn't mind if you...
**Narrator:** That is the end of part one. You now have half a minute to check your answers.
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**Narrator:** Now turn to part two. Part two. You will hear a university administrator telling a group of new students about the central campus buildings and the facilities they provide. First, you have some time to look at questions 11 to 16. Now listen carefully and answer questions 11 to 16.
**Administrator:** Welcome everyone to the Brandon Complex, the geographical and we could say spiritual heart of this university. This is basically where everyone eats too. As you can see by looking around, there are many different cuisines here. Chinese, Indian, and Middle Eastern, plus the usual fair of a local type, all in that corner over there. We have many shops here, too. But the biggest is Wilson's right there, providing clothing and hardware. That's next to all the restaurants. Now, on the opposite side of Wilson's, we have three shops. The one in the corner there closest to the restaurants is for DVDs. Yes, the DVDs are cheap and affordable, and you can also rent DVD players as well. Moving on, in the corner directly opposite Wilson's is the student union office. Incidentally, you are all encouraged to join the student union as a student union card gives you many benefits, including discounts on basically everything you can buy here at the Brandon Complex. Outside this complex on the other side of the road, you can just see it from here, in fact, is a building that we call by the rather unusual name the H building. Next to this, on the other side of some trees along the main road, is the engineering institute, but that doesn't have anything to do with the Brandon complex. One last thing is that just outside this door near us here, you can see a grassy oval patch. Well, that's the playing field for what we simply call the fitness room, which is alongside. So, you can put on some calories here at the restaurants and then burn them off at the fitness room afterwards. Oh, I forgot to mention this shop right here in the middle beside the student union. It's the bookshop and as you can see, it's always busy, always popular. You can buy newspapers, magazines, and stationary there, plus a few clothing items as well, just as you can at Wilson's. Why don't you go and take a look right now?
**Narrator:** Before you hear the rest of the talk, you have some time to look at questions 17 to 20. Now listen and answer questions 17 to 20.
**Administrator:** Now I'd like to tell you a bit more about one of the buildings here, namely the H building. Despite its bland name, you might be interested in what goes on there. It is our main recreational center with halls, offices, and space available for a variety of activities, mostly for those who want to get fit. For example, if you're interested in yoga, you're in luck since 4 days a week there are free yoga classes. They have several levels, so if you're a beginner, you'd have to start with that. You can check the schedules on the wall there. Yoga used to be at night, but now it's in the mornings, but not on Wednesdays. Along those same lines, there's aerobic dancing in the afternoon. This shares the same room as the badminton games, which are on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The aerobics are on the alternate days, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. And it's not restricted at all. Everyone is welcome to join, although the instructor may divide you up of course according to ability. And just to show how diverse the H building is, there's even some spiritual solace available there inside the multi-enominational prayer center with individual booths and a variety of holy scriptures and texts available to read from all the major religions of the world. that's open all day over the weekend, but not at nighttime when the rooms are for private booking. Finally, for those of you of a cerebral nature, the University Chess Club operates at night. That's open from 8:00 p.m. every uh is it Wednesday or Monday? No, sorry, Friday. And I think it closes at about 11:30 p.m. So, there's something for everyone in the H building.
**Narrator:** That is the end of part two. You now have half a minute to check your answers.
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**Narrator:** Now it turns to part three. Part three. You will now hear a radio talk on agricultural regulations. First you have some time to look at questions 21 to 25. Now listen carefully and answer questions 21 to 25.
**Speaker:** Could there be clearer proof of the arrogance and indifference of those who are supposed to keep our food safe than the muzzling of John Verrell? Agriculture is a business. True. and businesses have to make money. But this shows how ministers and officials put the profits of the agriculture business before the well-being of the British people. Mr. Verrell, a pharmaceutical chemist, was appointed to represent consumers on one of the many committees that advised the government on food safety. When he tried to do his job though and wanted to warn ministers of a danger to children's health, he was refused permission to do so. The danger comes from hormones given to cattle in the USA and some other countries to make them grow faster. They speed up the animals development to maturity, thus making meat production more profitable. There have long been fears that the hormones have horrendous effects on the people who eat them, causing diseases as serious as cancer. Once these hormones were used on British cattle, too. But over 20 years ago, they were banned in Europe for being too dangerous. Indeed, so concerned is the European Union that it banned imports of hormone-fed beef years ago, much to the fury of the US government, which wants to sell it all over the world. Several years ago, the USA and Canada asked the World Trade Organization to declare the ban illegal and to punish Europe for failing to lift it. The WTO, with its long record of refusing to let environmental or safety concerns interfere with trade, agreed, imposing fines of more than $120 million a year on the EU for its refusal to back down. The British government now backs the Americans, claiming that there is no proof that hormone-fed beef does any harm. This is where Mr. Verrell comes in. He is very angry with the government, especially as their claim comes out just after a Danish study shows that growth hormones are 200 times more dangerous than was previously thought. Worried by these findings, Mr. Verrell spoke to government representatives who did nothing.
**Narrator:** Before you hear the rest of the talk, you have some time to look at questions 26 to 30. Now listen and answer questions 26 to 30.
**Speaker:** Not only that, but they have not been testing beef which is imported, which by law they are required to do. This directly affects the British public as about 40% of the beef British people eat comes from abroad, supposedly from countries like Brazil, which does not allow the use of growth hormones. Brazilian beef is stocked by some British supermarkets and widely used in catering. Yet, when a Brazilian farm was recently visited by EU inspectors, a large stockpile of this banned substance was found. This is not the first food scandal we have had in our country. Take the present concern over a well-known chocolate company. Several months ago, the company found out that its sweets were contaminated with a rare form of salmonella, but they did nothing about it, leaving their sweets in the shops to be bought by the unsuspecting public. It was not until 5 months later when several children had suffered food poisoning that the chocolate bars were removed from the shelves. It makes you wonder how many other dangerous foods have been allowed onto our plates.
**Narrator:** That is the end of part three. You now have half a minute to check your answers.
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**Narrator:** Now turn to section four. You will hear a woman giving a talk at a popular science convention. She is describing research into artificial gills designed to enable humans to breathe underwater. Now you have some time to look at questions 31 to 40. Now listen and answer questions 31 to 40.
**Speaker:** In my talk today, I'll be exploring the idea of artificial gills. I'll start by introducing the concept, giving some background and so forth and then I'll go on to explain the technological applications including a short very simple experiment I conducted. Starting with the background, as everyone knows, all living creatures need oxygen to live. Mammals take in oxygen from the atmosphere by using their lungs. And fishes take oxygen from water by means of their gills, which of course in most fishes are located either side of their head. But human beings have always dreamt of being able to swim underwater like the fishes, breathing without the help of oxygen tanks. I don't know whether any of you have done any scuba diving, but it's a real pain having to use all that equipment. You need special training, and it's generally agreed that tanks are too heavy and big to enable most people to move and work comfortably underwater. So, scientists are trying a different tack. Rather than humans carrying an oxygen supply as they go underwater, wouldn't it be possible to extract oxygen in situ, that is directly from the water while swimming? In the 1960s, the famous underwater explorer Jacqu Kustoau, for example, predicted that one day surgery could be used to equip humans with gills. He believed our lungs could be bypassed and we would learn to live underwater just as naturally as we live on land. But of course, most of us would prefer not to go to such extremes. I've been looking at some fairly simple technologies developed to extract oxygen from water. Ways to produce a simple, practical artificial gill enabling humans to live and breathe in water without harm. Now, how scientists and inventors went about this was to look at the way different animals handled this. Fairly obviously, they looked at the way fishes breathe, but also how they move down and float up to the surface using inflatable sacks called swim bladders. Scientists also looked at animals without gills, which use bubbles of air underwater, notably beetles. These insects contrive to stay underwater for long periods by breathing from this bubble which they hold under their wing cases. By looking at these animal adaptations, inventors began to come up with their own artificial gills. Now, making a crude gill is actually rather easy, more straightforward. You take a watertight box which is made of a material which is permeable to gas. That is it allows it to pass through inwards and outwards. You then fill this with air, fix it to the divers's face and go down underwater. But a crucial factor is that the diver has to keep the water moving so that water high in oxygen is always in contact with the gill. So he can't really stay still. And to maximize this contact, it's necessary for your gill to have a big surface area. Different gill designers have addressed this problem in different ways, but many choose to use a network or lattice arrangement of tiny tubes as part of their artificial gills. Then the diver is able to breathe in and out. Oxygen from the water passes through the outer walls of the gill and carbon dioxide is expelled. In a nutshell, that's how the artificial gill works. So, having read about these simple gill mechanisms, I decided to create my own. I followed the procedure I've just described, and it worked pretty well. When I tried it out in the swimming pool, I lasted underwater for nearly 40 minutes. However, I've read about other people breathing through their gill for several hours. So, the basic idea works well, but the real limitation is that these simple gills don't work as the diver descends to any great depth because the pressure builds and a whole different set of problems are caused by that. Research is being done into how these problems might be overcome, but that's another story which has to be a subject of another talk. Despite this serious limitation, many people have high hopes for the artificial gill and they think it might have applications beyond simply enabling an individual to stay underwater for a length of time. For example, the same technology might be used to provide oxygen for submarines, enabling them to stay submerged for months on end without resorting to potentially dangerous technologies such as nuclear power. Another idea is to use oxygen derived from the water as energy for fuel cells. These could power machinery underwater such as robotic devices. So in my view, this is an area of technology with great potential. Now if anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer. Yes. Um lady at the end of part four.
**Narrator:** You now have half a minute to check your answers. Heat. Heat.