Practice English Listening B2 Exercises – Would you get out alive?

1   The river went faster and faster, they got into rapids and then hit a rock. Kevin swam to land but Yossi was swept away.

2   He found their backpack with a lot of important and useful things in it, especially the map.

3   Kevin – desperate, responsible for what had happened to Yossi. Yossi – optimistic, sure he would find Kevin.

4   Yossi woke up and found a jaguar looking at him, but he managed to scare it away (by setting fire to insect repellent with a cigarette lighter).

5   Because he found a footprint which he thought was Kevin’s, but eventually he realized it was his own. He had been walking around in a circle.

6   He had been looking for Yossi. He had floated down the river on a log, and had been rescued by two Bolivian hunters.

7   Because the hunters only went to that part of the rainforest once a year.

8   He asked the Bolivian Army to look for Yossi.

9   Because although they flew over the rainforest, they couldn’t see anything.

10   He paid a local man to take him up the river.

11   For nearly three weeks.

12   He thought it was a bee, but in fact it was the engine of the boat Kevin was in.

1 2

Yossi and Kevin soon realized that going by river was a big mistake. The river got faster and faster, and soon they were in rapids. The raft was swept down the river at an incredible speed until it hit a rock. Kevin managed to swim to land, but Yossi was swept away by the rapids. But Yossi didn’t drown. He came up to the surface several kilometres downriver. By an incredible piece of luck he found their backpack floating in the river. The backpack contained a little food, insect repellent, a lighter, and most important of all… the map. The two friends were now separated by a canyon and six or seven kilometres of jungle.

3 4

Kevin was feeling desperate. He didn’t know if Yossi was alive or dead, but he started walking downriver to look for him. He felt responsible for what had happened to his friend. Yossi, however, was feeling very optimistic. He was sure that Kevin would look for him so he started walking upriver calling his friend’s name. But nobody answered. At night Yossi tried to sleep but he felt terrified. The jungle was full of noises. Suddenly he woke up because he heard a branch breaking. He turned on his flash light. There was a jaguar staring at him… Yossi was trembling with fear but then he remembered something that he once saw in a film. He used the cigarette lighter to set fire to insect repellent spray and he managed to scare the jaguar away.

5

After five days alone, Yossi was exhausted and starving. Suddenly, as he was walking, he saw a footprint on the trail – it was a hiking boot. It had to be Kevin’s footprint! He followed the trail until he discovered another footprint. But then he realized, to his horror, that it was the same footprint and that it wasn’t Kevin’s. It was his own. He had been walking around in a circle. Suddenly Yossi realized that he would never find Kevin. He felt sure that Kevin must be dead. Yossi felt depressed and on the point of giving up.

6 7

But Kevin wasn’t dead. He was still looking for Yossi. But after nearly a week he was weak and exhausted from lack of food and lack of sleep. He decided that it was time to forget Yossi and try to save himself. He had just enough strength left to hold onto a log and let himself float down the river. Kevin was incredibly lucky – he was rescued by two Bolivian hunters in a canoe. The men only hunted in that part of the rainforest once a year, so if they had been there a short time earlier or later, they would never have seen Kevin. They took him back to the town of San José and he spent two days recovering.

8 9 10

As soon as Kevin felt well enough, he went to a Bolivian Army base and asked them to look for Yossi. The army were sure that Yossi must be dead, but in the end Kevin persuaded them to take him up in a plane and fly over the part of the rainforest where Yossi could be. It was a hopeless search. The plane had to fly too high and the forest was too dense. They couldn’t see anything at all. Kevin felt terribly guilty. He was convinced that it was all his fault that Yossi was going to die in the jungle. Kevin’s last hope was to pay a local man with a boat to take him up the river to look for his friend.

11 12

By now, Yossi had been on his own in the jungle for nearly three weeks. He hadn’t eaten for days. He was starving, exhausted and slowly losing his mind. It was evening. He lay down by the side of the river ready for another night alone in the jungle. Suddenly he heard the sound of a bee buzzing in his ear. He thought a bee had got inside his mosquito net. When he opened his eyes he saw that the buzzing noise wasn’t a bee… It was a boat. Yossi was too weak to shout, but Kevin had already seen him.

It was a one in a million chance but Yossi was saved. When Yossi had recovered, he and Kevin flew to the city of La Paz, and they went directly to the hotel where they had agreed to meet Marcus and Karl. But Marcus and Karl were not there. The two men had never arrived back in the town of Apolo. The Bolivian army organized a search of the rainforest, but Marcus and Karl were never seen again.