Practice English Listening B2 Exercises – Do you believe it?

A

Part 1

1   Positive – Sally’s office was more normal than she expected and Sally looked kind and sincere.

2   Are you married? And Do you have any children?

3   Because she mentions two things which don’t mean anything to Jane, i.e. the name Caroline and Australia.

Part 2

1 T (She grew up there.)

2 F (He is someone she already knows.)

3 T (She’s 1m 90.)

4 F (It is his brain that will attract her.)

5 F (She can’t think of anyone who fits she description.)

Part 3

1 a   2 b   3 b

B

She thinks Sally is good at judging people’s character but doesn’t have any special abilities. However, since she saw Sally, she has met a professor who has invited her to go to Australia – two things which Sally predicted.

A

Part 1

J = Jane, S = Sally

J    When I arrived I was shown into Sally’s office – which was much more normal than I’d expected. Sally looks like a kind and sincere woman. She says that she inherited from her grandmother the ability to ‘see’ the past and future of other people. First she asked me a few basic questions – was I married, did I have children and so on. However, her next questions rather surprised me …

S   Who’s Caroline?

J    I’m afraid I don’t know. I don’t know anybody called Caroline.

S   Well, somebody called Caroline is going to have a powerful and positive effect on your finances. Australia is very important in your life.

J    Is it? I’ve never been to Australia.

S   Well, you’ll be going there very soon.

Part 2

S   Another place which is very important in your life is Ireland.

J    Yes, that’s true. Ireland does play a big role in my life. In fact, I grew up there.

S   Ireland is a place where you will find answers to a lot of your problems. Look for the Irish connection. I am very very optimistic that an Irish man is going to be ‘the one for you’.

J    Ah, very interesting! What does he look like?

S   He’s very tall.

J    That’s good – I’m 1 metre 90 myself.

S   And he’s highly intelligent; in fact it’s his brain that will really attract you to him. He is a distinguished public figure – perhaps a professor?

J    So when am I going to meet him?

S   Actually, you already know him. It’s just you don’t think of him in that way.

J    I immediately started thinking about all the people I know, but, to be honest, I couldn’t think of anyone who fitted the description.

Part 3

J    I decided to ask Sally some questions myself. What about my health?

S   Let’s see, your mother suffer from headaches, doesn’t she?

J    Yes she does, actually. She gets bad headaches.

S   Well, you’ll need to watch out for headaches, and so will your mother, because hers are going to get worse. But in general, you’re a healthy woman, and you’ll have a long life without any major illnesses, but you must never be tempted to have plastic surgery – if you do, it will go horribly wrong.

J    So far it had all been quite positive, but I wasn’t really convinced. It was only when she started talking about my children that I really started listening.

S   Your son Conor is very like you. He’s good with language and he may end up working with words, maybe a poet or a songwriter.

J    In fact he does like words and writing, and last week he won a poetry prize at school.

S   But your daughter Clara is more like your ex-husband. She’s not good with words at all.

J    It’s true! They’re both dyslexic. This was beginning to make me wonder…

B

J    I left Sally’s office feeling very positive. Sally gave me a recording of our conversation on a CD, because she said I needed to listen to everything she had told me a few times. When I got home I put on the CD. When I listened again, I realized that for every thing that Sally got right, she got several things wrong. I came to the conclusion then that Sally doesn’t have any paranormal abilities. She is just very good at judging people’s character and makes good guesses about their lives from the information she gets from you. But strangely enough, recently I’ve been seeing a lot more of an old friend of mine who is a professor. He’s not Irish, but he has just invited me to join him on a lecture tour … of Australia.