Shadowing Practice: Battery-powered motorbikes: IELTS LISTENING Vol 3 Test 7 Section 3 - Learn English Speaking with Video
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92 sentences
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Now turn to Section 3.
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Section 3.
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You will hear two engineering students discussing a presentation they are preparing about a battery-powered motorbike.
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First, you have some time to look at questions 21 to 26.
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Thank you.
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Now listen carefully and answer questions 21 to 26.
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Hi, Sarah.
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Shall we make a start on that presentation about our battery-powered motorbike project?
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Yes, let's.
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It'd be nice to do a good job for the university open day.
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I hope the lecturers write that it'll interest people thinking about coming here to study.
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Well, they certainly should.
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And at least it won't be assessed.
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Yes, and I guess we should be proud our project was chosen rather than anything done by others in our class.
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And our project's unusual because people usually think of environmentally friendly vehicles as being relatively slow.
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But our battery-powered motorbike can get up to 165 kilometers an hour, the same as lots of petrol-driven bikes.
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And it has an efficiency of 90 percent, whereas ordinary bikes are far less.
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They waste a huge amount of energy.
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And our bike doesn't need a petrol tank or an exhaust system either.
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So, markedly, the design is more straightforward and it's also lighter.
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Anyway, it's going to be quite a challenge to prepare something interesting and appropriate for all the people who might come.
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Well, time is certainly going to be an issue.
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You mean in terms of how much we have to deal with in only 15 minutes?
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Well, I was thinking more about the fact that the talk's next week, and we have a lot of other stuff on just now.
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Absolutely.
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So, how shall we organize things?
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We could just do a short talk and allow most of the time for questions.
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Well, it'd be good to allow plenty of time for those, but I think we need to present quite a lot, too.
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We could start by showing a couple of minutes from the film of the race it took part in.
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Brilliant!
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I'm sure they'd love that.
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Then we can talk about how we built and tested the motorbike and so on.
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For example, one of us could talk through the project from the initial brief to prototype stage,
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and then the other take it on to testing and development.
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Well, let's deal with that later.
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It might be better to have just you or me doing the talking, but we don't need to decide just yet.
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Okay, so what about the slides for our presentation?
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Shall we work on the text for those now?
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Well, we could just use keywords.
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That'll help structure our talk.
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How about using mainly visuals?
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I took lots of photos as we went along, so it'd be easy to illustrate the progress of the project that way.
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More interesting than diagrams, and slides with lots of text can be boring.
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Okay, right you are.
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So, do you think we should discuss things with the lecturer before going much further?
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We could do that this afternoon.
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Wouldn't it be better to get a first draft done?
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Then we've got something more concrete to discuss with him.
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Sure, but I'd quite like a bit more input before we spend a lot of time preparing something
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that might not be what's needed.
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Okay.
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When did we have a work with Amish in the fourth year?
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His tutor had him doing something similar last summer, so I'm sure he'd give us some useful pointers.
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Great.
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Let's do that after lunch.
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Before you hear the rest of the discussion, you have some time to look at questions 27 to 30.
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Now listen and answer questions 27 to 30.
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Let's think a bit more about how the project went.
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That might give us some ideas.
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Okay.
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Well, first, I'd say that writing the report was hard.
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Yes, I was dreading having to write 80 pages in just a month.
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But actually, it was harder making sure we didn't go over length.
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Anyway, I never imagined we'd deal with it with a day to spare.
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No, it was lucky your sister had time to proofread it.
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She picked up on several careless mistakes, especially in the bibliography.
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Yes, well, she works in publishing, so she's used to checking things.
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I suppose it helped that we kept detailed notebooks throughout the year.
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That was a chore, but worth it.
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Yes, I didn't enjoy keeping mine up to date.
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I actually found it really time-consuming, noting down all the adaptations we made to the design as we went along.
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I hadn't anticipated that.
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Me too.
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And I thought the tutor could have given us a bit more advice at the beginning of the process.
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That's right.
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I like doing the concept sketches.
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For me, that was one of the best bits.
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I've always enjoyed those initial stages of the design process.
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I was relieved that the tutor picked up on that mistake we made in our aerodynamic sketches.
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It would have been disastrous if that hadn't been picked up at an early stage.
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Exactly.
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Finding sponsors took quite some time, of course.
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Yes, but we knew that'd be an issue, and I never expected it to be enjoyable.
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Not like the actual hands-on project work.
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The tutor certainly came into his own at that stage.
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Yes.
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I never expected him to have such useful contacts in industry.
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Good thing for us he did, though.
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Right.
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That is the end of Section 3.
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You now have half a minute to check your answers.
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Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 92 sentences and 917 words to shadow. The speech runs for 7:28. The speaker talks at a steady 123 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| tutor noun | /ˈtjuːtəː/ | One who teaches another (usually called a student, learner, or tutee) in a one-on-one or small-group interaction. |
| presentation noun | /ˌpɹɛzn̩ˈteɪʃn̩/ | The act of presenting, or something presented. |
| slide noun | /ˈslaɪ̯d/ | An item of play equipment that children can climb up and then slide down again. |
| sketch noun | /ˈskɛt͡ʃ/ | A rapidly executed freehand drawing that is not intended as a finished work, often consisting of a multitude of overlapping lines. |
| lecturer noun | /ˈlɛkt͡ʃəɹə/ | A person who gives lectures, especially as a profession. |
| petrol noun | /ˈpɛt.ɹəl/ | A fluid consisting of a mixture of refined petroleum hydrocarbons, primarily consisting of octane, commonly used as a motor fuel. |
| carefully adverb | /ˈkɛɹf(ə)li/ | With care; attentively, circumspectly. |
| unusual adjective | /ʌnˈjuːʒ(u)əl/ | Not usual, out of the ordinary. |
| concrete adjective | /ˌkɑnˈkɹit/ | Real, actual, tangible. |
| ordinary adjective | /ˈɔɹdɪnɛɹi/ | Having regular jurisdiction; now only used in certain phrases. |
| whereas | /(h)wɛɹˈæz/ | In contrast; whilst on the contrary; although. |
| efficiency noun | /ɪˈfɪʃ.ən.si/ | The extent to which a resource is used for the intended purpose. |
| input noun | /ˈɪnpʊt/ | The act or process of putting in; infusion. |
| spare adjective | /spɛɚ/ | Being more than what is necessary, or what must be used or reserved; not wanted, or not used; superfluous. |
| publish verb | /ˈpʌblɪʃ/ | To issue (something, such as printed work) for distribution and/or sale. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| go along verb | To participate, cooperate, or conform. |
| pick up on verb | To notice, observe, learn, or understand, especially something otherwise overlooked. |
| get up to verb | To do something, especially something that is forbidden or improper. |
| go over verb | To look at carefully; to scrutinize; to analyze. |
| note down verb | To write down, especially hurriedly; to make a note of. |
| talk through verb | To tell (someone) step by step how to do something. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 23 contractions and reduced forms, such as it'd, didn't, hadn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: presentation /ˌpɹɛzn̩ˈteɪʃn̩/, unusual /ʌnˈjuːʒ(u)əl/, efficiency /ɪˈfɪʃ.ən.si/, publish /ˈpʌblɪʃ/, adaptation /ˌæd.æpˈteɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: unusual /ʌnˈjuːʒ(u)əl/, ordinary /ˈɔɹdɪnɛɹi/, efficiency /ɪˈfɪʃ.ən.si/, adaptation /ˌæd.æpˈteɪ.ʃən/, bibliography /bɪbliˈɒɡɹəfi/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like tutor, presentation, slide.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.