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SECTION B CONVERSATION
In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and answer the questions that follow. Mark the correct answer to each question on your coloured answer sheet. Questions 1 to 5 are based on a conversation. At the end of the conversation you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the following five questions.
Now listen to the conversation.
W: Hello, Freddie.
M: Hello, Mary. How nice to see you again. How’s everything going?
W: Fine. Busy these days?
M: Yeah. With lots of things to do. Would you like to join me for a drink?
W: Ok, thanks.
M: Any news recently?
W: Oh, well, I read in the local paper the other day that the government is planning to build an airport here, you know that?
M: I’m afraid not.
W: Well, my real objection to this idea of a new airport is, is the whole thing is so wasteful, I mean, we know we are currently in fuel crises, we know that we’ve got to conserve oil and fuel and all the rest of it, and get here the government seems quite deliberately to be encouraging people to, ... to travel, to use and these jets use a hack of a lot of oil, I mean it takes a ton of oil,
a ton of petrol before one of these big jets even takes off.
M: Mm...
W: It seems so completely short-sighted to me. Quite apart from all the ways to the land and so on, I can’t see, I can’t see the rationale behind really wanting an, an airport at all.
M: Well, surely you must have to admit that the existing airport nearby are becoming swarmed. I mean, why should people, uhh...
W: Well, they aren’t being swarmed.
M: Be treated like cattle when there is a chance of... a new airport here.
W: But, but really people shouldn’t be traveling that much, that’s, that’s why most of the journeys, I mean, they swamped because there is far too much unnecessary tourism and so on. It isn’t necessary for people to travel so far or even so often.
M: Well, you take the climate here in this country. Now just before Christmas, there was this dreadful cold spell, there was a tremendous increase in number of people who wanted to leave and spent Christmas and the New Year in a reasonable climate of sun and, and a certain mild climate. And, and in summer, the same situation occurs. It is unbearably hot here and people want to go somewhere cool.
W: Well, yes, I can sympathize with that. But it is still not really necessary to do, well, as it isn’t necessary to, to conserve fuel and it is necessary to, well, not to waste land. I mean land for a new airport could be used for far more important things which would benefit the people here far more. I mean it could be used for farming for instance.
M: True.
W: It could also be used for housing, or it could be used for parks, you know. People then could come and enjoy themselves without having to travel far.
M: But, airports do bring some local advantages. They bring roads, there is obviously extra employment, for instance, new hotels, shops, restaurants will have to be built. This means more jobs for the locals and it is good for local economy.
W: But you ask the people, you ask those who are now living near the airports, for instance, whether,whether they recon that airpotrs bring them advantages, although, all the airports bring in are noise and vast motorways, and the whole area is, is desolated, isn’t it?
M: But the airport infra, ..., infrastructure relies on housing and other facilities for the great number of people who would be employed in the airport, the pilots even, the stewardess, they have to live somewhere near the airport, right?
W: Yeah, but it’s, it’s just so, so damaging to the whole area. I think, airports, from my point of view, the whole concept is outdated, really. Umm, with modern technology, we can make a lot of travel unnecessary, really. For example, it won’t be necessary for businessmen to fly out to a foreign county to talk to somebody. They can just leave it to the telephone in the office, press the button, and say to the person they want to do business with. You see, business deals can be made without having to travel back and forth, right?
M: Yes, you are right. But for a lot of people, personal contact is important. And this means travel, and means quick travel, air travel. And we just need a new airport.
