Practice English Listening B2 Exercises – Telling a joke

b

Er … So this woman gets on a bus for the start of a long journey from Paris to London. She soon finds out that the man she’s sitting next to is a talker – he just won’t shut up. And she just wants to sleep for the whole journey so she’s a bit disappointed. The guy keeps asking her questions and then, to make matters worse, he turns to her and asks her if she’d like to play a game. She says ‘No, thank you’ as politely as she can and closes her eyes to go to sleep, hoping he’ll get the message.

2

a £20    b £2

3

a F   b T   c T   d T   e T   f T   g T   h T   i F

4

a shut up   b make matters worse

c get the message   d couldn’t care less

e comes to the conclusion   f all keen

g a piece of cake   h weeping

i flabbergasted   j put me out of my misery

WOMAN:   … to make matters worse he turns to her and asks her if she’d like to play a game. She says ‘No, thank you’ as politely as she can and closes her eyes to go to sleep, hoping he’ll get the message.

But the man is not put off easily and he insists, saying that the game will be fun and that it’s very easy. Even though she couldn’t care less, he tells her the rules. ‘I’ll ask you a question and if you don’t know the answer you have to pay me £5 and then you’ll ask me a question and if I don’t know the answer I have to pay you £5.’

The woman can’t believe her bad luck. This is the last thing she wants to do, so again she says that she’s not interested and turns away from him to try to get to sleep. The man is getting more and more frustrated and desperate to play by this time, so he decides to change the rules to see if that will tempt her. ‘OK,’ he says, ‘if you don’t know the answer you only have to pay me £1 and if I don’t know the answer, I’ll pay you £20.’

So, the woman analyses the situation and comes to the conclusion that the only way to get some sleep is to play this ridiculous game, so she finally agrees to the game. So as you can imagine, the man is all keen when he asks the first question: ‘How far is it around the earth?’. The woman doesn’t say a word – she just reaches into her handbag, takes out £1 and gives it to the man.

So now it’s the woman’s turn. She looks him right in the eyes and says, ‘What’s green in the morning, blue in the afternoon and red in the evening?’. The man looks shocked. He thought this was going to be a piece of cake for him – what could this woman possibly know that he doesn’t know? He gets on his mobile phone and calls all his friends, gets on the Internet using his phone and searches every reference he can, but still can’t get the answer. He sends e-mails to famous professors, but no one knows the answer.

Finally, after a couple of hours he wakes the woman (who’s been sleeping soundly all this time) and admits to being beaten. ‘I don’t know the answer!’ he whispers, weeping with despair. ‘Here’s your £20’. Without a word, the woman takes the money and puts it in her bag and goes straight back to sleep. So, the man is completely flabbergasted and through his tears he wakes her and begs for the answer. ‘Please put me out of my misery,’ he pleads, ‘what’s the answer?’ The woman reaches into her bag and gives him a pound.