Practice English Listening B2 Exercises – Questions and answers

A

1 have dinner, three people

2 have, boyfriend, get pregnant

3 practice philosophy

4 What animal

B

I = interviewer, D = Dominic, H = Heidi, S = Sean, A = Alice

1   Dominic

I     Have you ever been asked a strange question in an interview?

D   Yes, it was my first interview when I was applying to Sarah Lawrence University in New York – where I’m studying now.

I     What was the question?

D   The question was, “If you could have dinner with three people from the past, who would you choose and why?”

I     And what did you answer?

I     It was one of the first questions I was asked, and I said, “I can’t answer this right now. Can I answer at the end?” because I couldn’t think of anyone. So they said “OK,” and then they asked me the question again later, and I said something ridiculous like John Lennon, um, Picasso, and…uh…I can’t even remember who the third person was, it was another sort of artist or musician I think.

I     Do you think it was a good question?

D   Yes, because it made me think – I mean, it wasn’t something I was expecting at all, and all the other ones were more yes / no, direct questions, so this one made me think a little more.

I     And you got in?

D   Yes, I did.

2   Heidi

I    Have you ever been asked a strange question in an interview?

H   Yes, I have. That was many years ago, it was one of my first job interviews, in London, actually, after I moved to London from Germany. It was for a financial department, and the manager who interviewed me, I can’t remember, but I believe he, he must have been German – he asked me, “Do you have a boyfriend?” and “Are you planning to get pregnant?”

I    That’s illegal now, isn’t it?

H   Yes, I know, I believe that was illegal then.

I     And what did you answer?

H   I said no, I didn’t have a boyfriend, and I had no plans to get pregnant any time soon, but at that point, it was pretty clear to me that I did not want to work for that company.

3   Sean

I    Have you ever been asked a strange question in an interview?

S   Yes. I was being interviewed for a job with an advertising agency and the interviewer kept checking information on my résumé and then asking me about it, and he saw that I’d studied philosophy in college, and he said, “Oh, I see that you studied philosophy in college. Do you still practice philosophy?”

I    What did you answer?

S   I said the first thing that came into my head – I said, “Well, I still think a lot.”

I    Was the interviewer impressed?

S   Well, he obviously liked the answer, because I got the job.

4   Alice

I     Have you ever been asked a strange question in an interview?

A   There’s one I can think of, which was when I was being interviewed for a job with a company in Canada.

I     What was it?

A   Well, the interviewer asked me, “What animal would you like to be reincarnated as?”

I     Weird question!

A   Totally.

I     What did you say?

A   So I said a cat because it was the first thing I thought of and because cats have a good life – well, at least in the US they do. And then the interviewer immediately looked embarrassed and said that he’d been told to ask me that question to see how I’d react, but that he thought it was a stupid question.

I     What happened in the end?

A   I didn’t get the job, so maybe the interviewer wasn’t very fond of cats!