Upper Intermediate Unit 4 Audio Script
UNIT 4 Recording 1
1 A woman was feeling tired because she had been working all day.
2 … thousands of starfish which had been washed onto the beach.
3 Two old men were staying in the same hospital room.
4 He had been put in the bed right next to the window.
UNIT 4 Recording 2
I = Interviewer L = Larry Smith
I: In the 1920s, Ernest Hemingway bet ten dollars that he could write a complete story in just six words. He wrote, ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn.’ He won the bet. An American online magazine has now used that to inspire its readers to write their life story in six words and they’ve been overwhelmed by the thousands who took up the challenge. They’ve published the best in a book which they’ve given the title of one of the submissions: ‘Not quite what I was planning.’ I asked the editor, Larry Smith, what made him think of the idea.
L: Well, on the site, Smith Magazine , we tell stories in all sorts of different ways. Our whole idea behind the site is that story-telling should be egalitarian, you know, democratic. Everyone has a story, we say that over and over. That’s our tag line. But in telling different types of stories since we launched a couple of years ago, we found that you had to give people parameters. So playing off the great literary legend, the Hemingway story, we thought, ‘Let’s ask our readers their six-word life story, a memoir’ and see what happened. We really didn’t know what would happen.
I: And what did happen?
L: It was incredible. In a couple of months we got fifteen thousand entries and I was just blown away. Funny, poignant – I really believe that everyone has a story and most of us aren’t going to write for the Guardian but I was just so inspired by how serious and intense folks took the six-word memoir challenge.
I: OK, but before we look at the examples. It’s one thing … because the Hemingway is a story but it’s not a story of a life. That seems to be a bit of a challenge to fit that in six words.
L: Well, it’s interesting because some folks clearly tried to tell a whole story of a life in six words, and you can tell, and other times they’re telling a moment in their life, right at this moment, something that they’re feeling right now. Or perhaps something that’s been an evergreen, a thread throughout their lives.
I: Give us some examples.
L: ‘Wasn’t born a redhead. Fixed that.’ This woman took life under control. Whether she just always felt that her soul was a redheaded soul or simply at some point in life she was going to make a switch. She could have quit her job. She changed her hair colour.
I: But a lot of them are … they’re quite sad or there’s a sense of regret or disappointment in a lot of them.
L: I didn’t expect that. I thought people would come back with a lot of funny things, some playful things, plays on words … but those are really interesting reality. People really told us, ‘It’s tough out there.’ ‘Found true love. Married someone else.’ ‘Never should have bought that ring.’
UNIT 4 Recording 3
A I wish I could do it all again.
B If only I weren’t so anxious.
C I wish I’d been born twenty years later.
D If only I hadn't given up on my dreams.
E I should have stayed where I was happy.
F I shouldn't have become a doctor.
UNIT 4 Recording 4
A = Amy B = Barbara C = Carl
C: So, Amy, when’s your flight?
A: Tomorrow at one. It’s twelve hours so I need a good book. Any ideas? Barbara?
B: Well, I’ve just finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and …
C: Didn’t they make a film of that? B: Yeah, apparently it’s really good.
A: I haven’t read it. It’s a sort of thriller, isn’t it?
B: Yeah, it’s a kind of mixture between a thriller and a detective story, set in Sweden. I thought it was great. I mean I’m a big fan of detective novels anyway but what I really liked about it was the main character, the girl.
C: … with the dragon tattoo?
B: Yeah. She’s really edgy, strange, kind of brilliant but really messed up at the same time.
C: I’m not that keen on detective novels and the modern ones are usually too violent for me, so I don’t think I’d like it.
A: Well, it’s definitely a possibility. What would you recommend then?
C: What about Life of Pi ? Have either of you read it?
A: No.
B: I started it but I just couldn’t get into it ...
C: It’s brilliant. It’s about this Indian kid who’s stuck on a boat in the middle of the ocean with a dangerous tiger, and a zebra and some other animals
A: Sounds very strange.
C: No, it’s actually all about courage and survival. It’d be really good for a long plane journey – you won’t be able to put it down for the whole twelve hours, it’s so exciting, you’ll just want to know what’s going to happen next.
A: Uh huh.
C: But you didn’t finish it?
B: No, actually, to be honest, I couldn’t stand it, and I gave up after about a quarter of the way through. I suppose I’m not really into fantasy and
C: It’s not really fantasy, it’s er, what do they call it, magic realism.
B: Whatever, I just couldn’t get into it. Amy, why not try one of the classics? You know, something like Pride and Prejudice ? Do you like Jane Austen?
A: I dunno, I mean, I’ve seen the movie and the TV adaptation and I liked them, but I dunno, she’s not exactly an easy read.
B: Oh, you should try it. I’ve read it about, what, ten times and it has to be the most romantic story ever written ... The thing I love about it is the writing, the English that she’s used is so beautiful.
A: I know what you mean but it just seems a bit, well, a bit serious for a plane journey.
C: Yeah, I agree. I love it too, but maybe not for a plane journey.
A: Actually, you know what? I might try the first one you said, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. What’s the overall story? You know, without giving too much away?
B: Well, it’s about ...
UNIT 4 Recording 5
1 I’m a big fan of detective novels.
2 What I really liked about it was the main character.
3 I’m not that keen on detective novels.
4 I just couldn’t get into it.
5 I couldn’t stand it.
6 I’m not really into fantasy.
7 The thing I love about it is the writing.
UNIT 4 Recording 6
It’s about a Swedish journalist, Mikael Blomkvist who is hired by a retired businessman who wants him to investigate the disappearance of a favourite niece about forty years previously. The only clues he finds come from old photos and newspaper clippings of the day she disappeared. Blomkvist is helped by Lisbeth Salander, the ‘girl with the dragon tattoo’, a mysterious young woman who wears punk clothes and who is a genius with computers. As the two of them uncover the shocking truth, they put their own lives in increasing danger.
UNIT 4 Recording 7
Fawlty Towers I absolutely love Fawlty Towers, I’ve seen this hundreds of times and it’s my absolute favourite. It always makes me laugh – in fact, it makes me cry with laughter sometimes … can’t get enough of it. And the main character, Basil Fawlty, played by John Cleese, is absolutely brilliant. It’s like a lesson in comic acting; the more bad things that happen to this man the more we laugh. My favourite scene is the scene with Mrs Richardson and Basil Fawlty. And, it’s very, very cleverly done. Mrs Richardson wears a hearing aid and Basil Fawlty hates Mrs Richardson – she’s a terrible grumpy old complaining customer who he really doesn’t like. So he comes into the room and he mimes at her – so he moves his mouth but he doesn’t make any sound – so that Mrs Richardson turns up her hearing aid so that she can hear him. And then he mimes again and he moves his mouth again not making any sound so she can’t understand why she can’t hear him, so she turns up her hearing aid again. And then once he’s sure that her hearing aid is on full volume he shouts at her, ‘Mrs Richardson!’ – of course which deafens her and, it’s, it’s, it’s very, very funny and it’s amazing because he gets his own back on her ‘cos she’s been awful to him so, he, you know, he kind of wins in the end but, –
Oh it’s just brilliant. If you’ve never seen it you really should see it. There were very few episodes made. I think there were only –only ever one series, maybe eight episodes … something like that … I’m not entirely sure about that, but not very many made and, they’re – they’re really, really fantastic. Every one is absolutely priceless.
PHOTOCOPIABLE © 2011 Pearson Longman
hakerek91