IELTS Listening Practice Test | 2026-02-05

**Two friends discussing mall walking:**
Woman: Hey Yanos, have you seen this notice here?
Man: What's that?
Woman: Join our mall walking program. Get fit for free. Now, I like the sound of that. I can't afford to keep up my gym membership this term. It's too expensive.
Man: I know what you mean, but what exactly is mall walking? Sounds a bit boring to me.
Woman: Hold on. Okay, it may sound boring, but it might be a great opportunity to take exercise. Think about it. A climate controlled environment where you can take exercise without having to worry about the wind or the rain.
Man: Wind and rain. Have you actually looked at the weather outside? It's snow and ice out there. I only came into the mall to keep warm.
Woman: Well, it is winter and we are in Canada after all. So, just think by mall walking we can exercise indoors instead of outdoors. Great. And another thing, we won't have to worry about the traffic. Just think, no busy roads to cross and no rush hours to think about. Come on, it's worth a try.
Man: You're still not exactly selling it to me. Imagine walking past the same stores and they're not even open. So, what's the point of that?
Woman: Oh, come on, Yanos. Just think about it as an opportunity to window shop and keep an eye out for bargains. And what about all the amazing decorations and displays we can take a look at? I think it sounds like fun.
Man: Did you say fun? Walking on a hard surface like concrete. Give me grass any day. Much more comfortable on the feet. And there's another thing. In a mall, you're always close to restrooms and water. Come to that. What could be better than that?
Woman: I think I know the answer to that one. Exercising in a gym is a whole lot better.
Man: Well, anyway, we can get more details at the information kiosk. So, do you want to come with me or not?
Woman: Uh, I'll give it a miss. I'm off to the gym to make the most of my membership before it runs out.
**At the information kiosk:**
Woman: Hello. I'd like more information about the mall walking program.
Man: Great. We're always looking for new members. Can I just ask you how you found out about the program?
Woman: Oh, uh, on the notice board on the first floor.
Man: Oh, that's great. Most of our new members come through the website or through friends. Good to know people still read the notice board here in the mall.
Woman: Yes, I guess so.
Man: Now, let me give you some details. The program runs weekdays, Monday through Friday, and it's an early start. Wait for it. Walkers meet at 7:00 a.m.
Woman: 7:00 a.m. That is pretty early, but come to think of it, my lectures start at 9 most mornings, so I would be able to make it back to the campus in plenty of time.
Man: Great. Actually, most members go straight on to work or college after their walk. So, you're not alone. Now, our members meet here on the ground floor.
Woman: Here at the information kiosk?
Man: No, just over there at the food court.
Woman: Oh, the food court. Okay.
Man: Yes. Just follow the smell of coffee. Normally about 10 to 15 people show up for each walk, but numbers can vary.
Woman: So up to 15 in a group. That's an ideal number. Glad it's not 50. And how long do the walks last?
Man: You can expect to walk for 1 hour, but some groups do less, half an hour or so, and a few groups even do up to an hour and a half. So it's best to check when you arrive. Which day were you thinking of starting?
Woman: Well, next Monday would work for me. Morning lectures have been cancelled, so I would have plenty of time.
Man: Monday the 4th of February.
Woman: Yes, that's right.
Man: Okay, so let's get your details. Can you give me your full name?
Woman: Ana Karchovskaya.
Man: Can you spell your surname, please?
Woman: Yes. K A R C H E V S K A Y A.
Man: And your address?
Woman: Apartment 12, 2 Burlington Street.
Man: And a contact telephone number?
Woman: 07576345003.
Man: I'll just read that back. 0757 634 5003.
Woman: Yes.
Man: Oh, by the way, new members receive a free gift when they join, and it's a much better gift than last year. We gave people badges, but they tended to lose them. And more recently, we provided visors instead, but they weren't very popular. So, this year we're giving new members t-shirts.
Woman: That's great. What color?
Man: Yellow. I've got plenty in stock, so you can collect yours on Monday.
Woman: Thanks a lot.
---

Josie: Hi Al. Sorry to interrupt you when you're having your lunch, but I wanted to ask you a favor.
Al: Oh, sure. No problem. Sit down, Josie. I've finished anyway. What do you need?
Josie: Well, I was wondering if I could ask you about the experiments we were talking about in the seminar the other day with Dr. Robinson. I'm doing my teaching practice on Thursday and Friday, and I'm a bit concerned about it. I wasn't entirely sure I understood them completely. If I don't understand them, then the pupils don't have any chance.
Al: You mean the ones to determine the speed of sound?
Josie: Yes, that's right. Well, I think I understood the first one, but the second one was more complicated.
Al: Yes, that's true. Well, let's check what you thought of the first one. The one that you'll have to take the kids outside for.
Josie: Okay, let me see. Well, you need to get two groups to stand exactly 200 metres apart on the playing fields and one has a bell or a loudspeaker or some other loud sound source and a flag and the other group has a stopwatch.
Al: Yes, although it doesn't have to be 200 metres. It's just that it makes the experiment easier the more distance between them. It depends on the space available, right? And the idea is that one group raises the flag at exactly the same moment as they make a noise, and the other group starts the stopwatch when they see the flag and stops it when they hear the noise.
Josie: That's it. And then you get them to do a simple calculation of velocity equals time divided by distance.
Al: Mmm, it's a bit low tech and it's not very accurate, but they should be able to get within about 20% of the actual figure if they're reasonably careful.
Josie: Okay. So I understand that. It's the other one. The one with the tube I was having a few problems with. Can you just talk me through that and tell me exactly what I have to explain to the pupils?
Al: Okay. Well, the thing to remember is that sound is a wave and waves have both frequency and wavelength. You should start them off with exploring waves in water and that'll introduce a few key concepts. Sound waves aren't exactly the same because they're compression waves, but it's more or less the same principle, at least for pupils at this level.
Josie: I've got some ideas for that. So, they understand wavelength and frequency, and then we move on to the experiment. For that we need uh let me just have a look at my notes. A long tube, a tuning fork, and a large barrel of water. Now, what do they do with those and what's the point of it?
Al: It's fairly simple, really. You'll just have to remember that velocity equals wavelength times frequency.
Josie: Ah, yes, that's the key, isn't it?
Al: Yes. The tuning fork is manufactured to produce a sound of a given frequency. So that just leaves you one thing to measure. The pupils hit the tuning fork so that it makes a sound and hold it toward the end of the long open tube. That makes the air vibrate. They should slowly move the tube up and down. They'll find that in some positions it gets louder. That's because of resonance.
Josie: What's that again?
Al: It's when there are a whole number of waves in the column of air in the tube. It makes it louder. They then measure the length of the column of air and they can work out the wavelength from that.
Josie: And that's more accurate than the other experiment.
Al: Well, it is. If the pupils take an average using different tuning forks, it should be much more accurate.
Josie: Thanks, Al. That's clear to me now. I can't think of any more problems.
Al: Just make sure that the pupils keep good records. You need to tell them how important that is. Any mistakes with the maths can be corrected later, but you don't want them to have to go back and get the data again. You probably wouldn't have time for that anyway.
Josie: Good advice. Yes. I just hope it goes well in the classroom now.
Al: Good luck.
---

Tutor: So the task I gave you both was to choose an article about a small-scale research project.
Leela: Yes.
Tutor: You were then required to try to reproduce the research procedures in your own context i.e. try it out for yourselves.
Jake: Yeah. And that's what we've done.
Tutor: Great. So, I'd like you to tell me a bit about the article and why you chose it.
Leela: Well, the article's written by two university lecturers who had started using crosswords to help their students revise terminology for exams.
Jake: And the crosswords were designed and set on computers. And we selected the article because well it seemed an accessible topic even though we weren't familiar with the technique. You know using it to design crosswords for higher education.
Tutor: That's a good reason. So these lecturers wanted to see how well this innovation was received by their students.
Leela: Yes.
Tutor: So, how did you go about reproducing the research?
Leela: Well, we drew up a list of terms from one of our own modules and designed a crossword for revising these terms. Then we asked our classmates to try out the crossword and give us feedback. You know, their opinions on how they felt about using the technique.
Tutor: Was it easy to find participants?
Jake: It wasn't easy at first, but then we convinced them that by taking part in the research, they were actually benefiting themselves by preparing for an exam, which is coming up later this term, and it worked.
Tutor: Good. So, how did you find out what the students thought about doing the crosswords?
Leela: A questionnaire. The original article used a two-page long questionnaire. There were lots of excellent questions on it, but the whole section on difficulties using it is now obsolete. Old-fashioned even even though it had only been written a couple of years ago.
Jake: So, you designed a shorter version.
Leela: Yeah. Then we sent it to the 40 students by email and got 28 replies. I was taken aback by the fact that everybody we talked to thought this was a good return. I mean, the responses were well written. You know, people had taken a lot of care, but I was really disappointed with the low numbers.
Tutor: Yes, an important lesson to learn for an apprentice researcher.
Leela: Yeah.
Tutor: So what results did you get?
Leela: Well, basically the responses were extremely positive. The students said that doing the crossword on a computer helped them really focus on the work in hand and not be distracted, which is something that commonly happens with other ways of doing revision.
Jake: Yeah, that was really clear. But something that struck me was that having fun hardly featured in their responses, nor did anything to do with spelling of hard words, which I thought would be an obvious benefit.
Leela: No. Respondents also said that doing the crossword hadn't really increased their general motivation to study, but that it had highlighted the gaps in their memory, so they knew what further work was necessary.
Tutor: Right. So, how did your findings tally with those of the original researchers?
Jake: There were lots of similarities, but there were probably two main differences. We found that more males than females liked the technique, whereas the original study found the reverse.
Leela: Also, our respondents said they wouldn't mind doing a crossword as a final official exam. Whereas in the original study, students said they would hate doing it even if it meant having a shorter test.
Jake: But of course, both sets of respondents said they'd be interested in doing more crosswords for informal purposes, revision, and so forth.
Tutor: Right? So let's have a think about the whole project and what you've learned from doing it.
Leela: Well, it was very time-consuming.
Jake: Yeah. And I don't think we managed that aspect very well.
Leela: It could have been worse. I mean, we didn't have a lot of data, so we didn't have to spend ages processing it. And of course, we'd already done a course on numerical data processing, so there wasn't much new there.
Jake: Yeah, that's true. Anyway, I think we designed our questions well. So that they gave us manageable data.
Leela: Yeah, it really helped having the original study to guide us as it were and that helped us to see what a good research instrument is, what a good questionnaire should be like.
Jake: Absolutely. We got a lot from that. But when we were writing up the project, I'm not sure whether we'll know how to acknowledge the work of the original study, you know, our referencing.
Leela: No, that's something we'll both have to work on in the future. Actually, that part's been great. Finding ways to share and support another person.
Jake: That's the real plus from the project, learning ways to do that.
Tutor: Well, it's obviously been very successful.
---

Good morning everyone. Let's make a start. Now, over the last few weeks, we've looked at some key areas in the travel and tourism module. We've already charted the origins and development of tourism, and we've also looked at the negative effects of tourism on both local communities and the environment. So in this lecture we're going to focus on ways in which tourists can actually benefit local people and natural areas if they travel responsibly. And this kind of travel is known as ecotourism.
Now there's no one definition of ecotourism. In fact it can be interpreted in a number of different ways. This means it represents different things to different people. And sometimes people misunderstand ecotourism altogether. They think of it as just spending time in nature or natural areas. However, the truth is far more complex. In essence, it aims to minimize the negative impacts of tourism that we looked at earlier on in the course - problems such as litter and water pollution, crime and so on - and at the same time to encourage travelers to have a positive impact on the places they visit.
Now there are many other words to describe a similar idea to ecotourism. In fact, the terms alternative tourism, sustainable tourism, or responsible tourism are often used to mean the same thing. But in fact, although the main ideas behind them are similar, there are small differences. And let's briefly look at these now.
Alternative tourism is any kind of tourism that is not mass tourism. And by mass tourism, we mean hundreds, if not thousands of people going on, for example, their two weeks a year beach holidays or traditional sightseeing tours. Alternative tourism includes travel such as backpacking and adventure holidays. And the term alternative also includes ecotourism which is what we are mainly focusing on today.
Now what about sustainable tourism? Sustainable tourism has the same ideals as ecotourism but it isn't limited to natural areas. So you can have a sustainable tourist experience in a city or a town.
And then we have responsible tourism. What does that mean exactly? Now basically this involves acting responsibly and respectfully as a guest when we travel overseas. And what do we mean by respectful? Well, being respectful might involve asking permission to take photographs or go into someone's home, observing some of the customs of the local community such as dress, or making an effort to learn the language.
Now, ecotourism can be passive or active. So, what do we mean by passive tourism? Well, let's think of some specific examples. A passive tourist might buy their holiday package from a company that donate part of their profits to local charities. Or a passive tourist might book environmentally friendly accommodation. This means choosing to stay in a hotel which may use solar power as a source of energy or changes sheets and towels for their guests less frequently.
Now active ecotourism is a way for people to enjoy everything that nature has to offer and at the same time enable them to leave a positive mark on the environment. Now this kind of ecotourist is sometimes referred to as a voluntourist. That's a combination of volunteer and tourist. You get the idea.
Now voluntourists prefer to experience a new place in an active way. And this doesn't mean sitting in a tourist bus or listening to a pre-recorded guide. Basically, they want to physically connect with the place they're visiting, and this includes connecting with humans and animals.
Now, their approach to travel can make a real difference and can really benefit the places and the communities they choose to visit. Voluntourists often help local people construct and repair buildings, or it could mean being willing to help a community with nature conservation.
So let's think of some specific examples of this kind of work in action. Now voluntourists have helped local communities to plant hundreds of trees and installed identifying signs in the rainforests of Costa Rica. They've also helped with sustainable food production in Cuba and in Jamaica. They've been involved in the cleaning up of local rivers and in Thailand they've worked on building ecologically sustainable reforested habitats.
Now some of the work that voluntourists do also involves looking after endangered animals like the giant panda project in Japan or the animal sanctuary project in Ecuador. Now, this work doesn't just involve interacting with wildlife, but involves educating local people about the need to protect wildlife.
Now, before we explore wildlife tourism in more detail, does anyone have any questions?