Shadowing Practice: cam15 test1 - Learn English Speaking with Video

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IELTS 15.

Published by Cambridge University Press and Cambridge Assessment English 2020.

This recording is copyright.

Test 1.

This is the IELTS Listening Test.

You will hear a number of different recordings and you will have to answer questions on what you hear.

There will be time for you to read the instructions and questions, and you will have a chance to check your work.

All the recordings will be played once only.

The test is in four parts.

At the end of the test, you will be given ten minutes to transfer your answers to the answer sheet.

Now turn to part one.

Part 1 You will hear a woman phoning a friend to get information about a job agency.

First you have some time to look at questions 1 to 5.

Now listen carefully and answer questions 1 to 5.

Hello, William.

This is Amber.

You said to phone if I wanted to get more information about the job agency you mentioned.

Is now a good time?

Hi, Amber.

Yes, fine.

So, the agency I was talking about is called Bankside.

They're based in Docklands.

I can tell you the address now.

497 Eastside.

OK, thanks.

So, is there anyone in particular I should speak to there?

The agent I always deal with is called Becky Jameson.

Let me write that down.

Becky...

Jameson.

J-A-M-I-E-S-O-N Do you have her direct line?

Yes, it's in my contact somewhere.

Right, here we are.

07866510333. I wouldn't call her until the afternoon if I were you.

She's always really busy in the morning trying to fill last-minute vacancies.

She's really helpful and friendly, so I'm sure it would be worth getting in touch with her for an informal chat.

It's mainly clerical and admin jobs they deal with, isn't it?

That's right.

I know you're hoping to find a full-time job in the media eventually, but Becky mostly recruits temporary staff for the finance sector,

which will look good on your CV and generally pays better too.

Yeah, I'm just a bit worried because I don't have much office experience.

I wouldn't worry.

They'll probably start you as a receptionist or something like that.

So what's important for that kind of job isn't so much having business skills or knowing lots of different computer systems, it's communication that really matters,

so you'd be fine there.

And you'll pick up office skills really quickly on the job.

It's not that complicated.

OK, good.

So how long do people generally need temporary staff for?

It would be great if I could get something lasting at least a month.

That shouldn't be too difficult.

But you're more likely to be offered something for a week at first, which might get extended.

It's unusual to be sent somewhere for just a day or two.

Right.

I've heard the pay isn't too bad.

Better than working in a shop or a restaurant.

Oh, yes, definitely.

The hourly rate is about £10, 11 if you're lucky.

That's pretty good.

I was only expecting to get eight or nine pounds an hour.

Before you hear the rest of the conversation, you have some time to look at questions six to ten.

Now listen and answer questions 6 to 10.

Do you want me to tell you anything about the registration process?

Yes, please.

I know you have to have an interview.

The interview usually takes about an hour and you should arrange that about a week in advance.

I suppose I should dress smartly if it's for office work.

I can probably borrow a suit from Mum.

Good idea.

It's better to look too smart than too casual.

Will I need to bring copies of my exam certificates or anything like that?

No, they don't need to see those, I don't think.

What about my passport?

Oh yes, they will ask to see that.

OK.

I wouldn't get stressed about the interview, though.

It's just a chance for them to build a relationship with you, so they can try and match you to a job which you'll like.

So there are questions about personality that they always ask candidates, fairly basic ones, and they probably won't ask anything too difficult,

like what your plans are for the future.

Oh, hope not.

Anyway, there are lots of benefits to using an agency.

For example, the interview will be useful because they'll give you feedback on your performance so you can improve next time.

And they'll have access to jobs which aren't advertised.

Exactly.

Most temporary jobs aren't advertised.

And I expect finding a temporary job this way takes a lot less time.

It's much easier than ringing up individual companies.

Yes, indeed.

Well, I think I've covered everything.

Thank you.

Part 2 You will hear a woman giving a presentation about a holiday on an island in Britain that her company organizes.

First, you have some time to look at questions 11 to 14.

Now listen carefully and answer questions 11 to 14.

Good morning.

My name's Erica Matthews and I'm the owner of Matthews Island Holidays, a company set up by my parents.

Thank you for coming to this presentation, in which I hope to interest you in what we have to offer.

We're a small family-run company, and we believe in the importance of the personal touch,

so we don't aim to compete with other companies on the number of customers.

What we do is build on our many years' experience, more than almost any other rail holiday company,

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to ensure we provide perfect holidays in a small number of destinations, which we've got to know extremely well.

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I'll start with our six-day Isle of Man holiday.

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This is a fascinating island in the Irish Sea, with Wales to the south, England to the east, Scotland to the north, and Northern Ireland to the west.

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Our holiday starts in Hesham, where your tour manager will meet you, then you'll travel by ferry to the Isle of Man.

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Some people prefer to fly from Luton instead

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and another popular option is to go by train to Liverpool and take a ferry from there.

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You have five nights in the hotel

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and the price covers five breakfasts and dinners and lunch on the three days when there are organised trips.

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Day four is free and most people have lunch in a cafe or restaurant in Douglas.

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The price of a holiday includes the ferry to the Isle of Man, all travel on the island, the hotel and the meals I've mentioned.

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Incidentally, we try to make booking our holidays as simple and fair as possible.

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So, unlike with many companies, the price is the same whether you book six months in advance or at the last minute.

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And there's no supplement for single rooms in hotels.

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If you make a booking then need to change the start date, for example because of illness,

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you're welcome to change to an alternative date or a different tour for a small administrative fee.

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Before you hear the rest of the talk, you have some time to look at questions 15 to 20.

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Now listen and answer questions 15 to 20.

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OK, so what does the holiday consist of?

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Well, on day one, you'll arrive in time for a short introduction by your tour manager, followed by dinner in the hotel.

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The dining room looks out at the river, close to where it flows into the harbour, and there's usually plenty of activity going on.

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On day two, you'll take the coach to the small town of Peel, on the way calling in at the Tinwold exhibition.

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The Isle of Man isn't part of the United Kingdom and it has its own parliament called Tinwold.

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It's claimed that this is the world's oldest parliament that's still functioning and that it dates back to 979.

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However, the earliest surviving reference to it is from 1422, so perhaps it isn't quite as old as it claims.

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Day three, we have a trip to the mountain Snaefell.

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This begins with a leisurely ride along the promenade in Douglas in a horse-drawn tram.

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Then you board an electric train, which takes you to the fishing village of Laxey.

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From there, it's an eight kilometre ride in the Snaefell Mountain Railway to the top.

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Lunch will be in the cafe, giving you spectacular views of the island.

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Day 4 is free for you to explore using the pass which we'll give you,

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so you won't have to pay for travel on local transport or for entrance to the island's heritage sites.

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Or you might just want to take it easy in Douglas and perhaps do a little light shopping.

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The last full day, Day 5, is for some people the highlight of the holiday,

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with a ride on the steam railway from Douglas to Port Erin.

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After some time to explore, a coach will take you to the headland that overlooks the Calf of Man, a small island just off the coast.

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From there, you continue to Castletown, which used to be the capital of the Isle of Man and its medieval castle.

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And on day six, it's back to the ferry, or the airport if you flew to the island, and time to go home.

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Now, I'd like to tell you a bit more.

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That is the end of part two.

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You now have 30 seconds to check your answers to part two.

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Part 3

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You will hear two psychology students discussing the effects of the order in which the children in a family are born.

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First, you have some time to look at questions 21 to 26.

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Now listen carefully and answer questions 21 to 26.

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Ed, how are you getting on with the reading for our presentation next week?

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Well, OK, Ruth, but there's so much of it.

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I know.

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I hadn't realised birth order was such a popular area of research.

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But the stuff on birth order and personality is mostly unreliable.

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From what I've been reading, a lot of the claims about how your position in the family determines certain personality traits

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are just stereotypes with no robust evidence to support them.

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OK, but that's an interesting point.

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We could start by outlining what previous research has shown.

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There are studies going back over a hundred years.

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Yeah, so we could just run through some of the typical traits.

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Like the consensus seems to be that oldest children are generally less well-adjusted

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because they never get over the arrival of a younger sibling.

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Right, but on a positive note, some studies claim that they were thought to be good at nurturing.

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Certainly in the past, when people had large families, they would have been expected to look after the younger ones.

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There isn't such a clear picture for middle children.

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But one trait that a lot of the studies mention is

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that they are easier to get on with than older or younger siblings.

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Hmm, generally eager to please and helpful, although that's certainly not accurate as far as my family goes.

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My middle brother was a nightmare, always causing fights and envious of whatever I had.

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As I said, none of this seems to relate to my own experience.

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I'm the youngest in my family and I don't recognise myself in any of the studies I've read about.

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I'm supposed to have been a sociable and confident child who made friends easily, but I was actually terribly shy.

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Really?

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That's funny.

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There have been hundreds of studies on twins, but mostly about nurture versus nature.

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There was one on personality which said that a twin is likely to be quite shy in social situations,

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because they always have their twin around to depend on for support.

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My cousins were like that when they were small.

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They were only interested in each other and found it hard to engage with other kids.

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They're fine now, though.

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Only children have had a really bad press.

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A lot of studies have branded them as loners, who think the world revolves around them because they've never had to fight for their parents' attention.

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That does seem a bit harsh.

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One category I hadn't considered before was children with much older siblings.

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A couple of studies mention that these children grow up more quickly and are expected to do basic things for themselves, like getting dressed.

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I can see how that might be true.

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Although, I expect they're sometimes the exact opposite playing the baby role and clamouring for special treatment.

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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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What was the problem with most of these studies, do you think?

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I think it was because, in a lot of cases, data was collected from only one sibling per family,

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who rated him or herself and his or her siblings at the same time.

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Some of the old research into the relationship between birth order and academic achievement has been proved to be accurate, though.

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Performances in intelligence tests declined slightly from the eldest child to his or her younger siblings.

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This has been proved in lots of recent studies.

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Yes, although what many of them didn't take into consideration was family size.

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The more siblings there are, the likelier the family is to have a low socioeconomic status, which can also account for differences between siblings in academic performance.

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The oldest boy might be given more opportunities than his younger sisters, for example.

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Exactly.

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But the main reason for the marginally higher academic performance of oldest children is quite surprising, I think.

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it's not only that they benefit intellectually from extra attention at a young age, which is what I would have expected.

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It's that they benefit from being teachers for their younger siblings by verbalising processes.

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Right.

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And this gives them status and confidence, which again contributes, in a small way, to better performance.

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So, would you say sibling rivalry has been a useful thing for you?

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I think so.

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My younger brother was incredibly annoying, and we fought a lot, but I think this has made me a stronger person.

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I know how to defend myself.

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We had some terrible arguments, and I would have died rather than apologise to him.

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But we had to put up with each other, and most of the time we co-existed amicably enough.

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Yes, my situation was pretty similar.

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But I don't think having two older brothers made me any less selfish.

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I was never prepared to let my brothers use any of my stuff.

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That's perfectly normal.

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That is the end of part three.

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You now have 30 seconds to check your answers to part three.

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Part 4 You will hear a student giving a presentation about a type of tree known as the eucalyptus,

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which is common in Australia.

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First, you have some time to look at questions 31 to 40.

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Thank you.

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Now listen carefully and answer questions 31 to 40.

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Today I'm going to talk about the eucalyptus tree.

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This is a very common tree here in Australia, where it's also sometimes called the gum tree.

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First, I'm going to talk about why it's important, then I'm going to describe some problems it faces at present.

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Right, well, the eucalyptus tree is an important tree for lots of reasons.

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For example, it gives shelter to creatures like birds and bats.

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And these and other species also depend on it for food, particularly the nectar from its flowers.

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So, it supports biodiversity.

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It's useful to us humans too,

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because we can kill germs with a disinfectant made from oil extracted from eucalyptus leaves.

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The eucalyptus grows all over Australia, and the trees can live for up to 400 years.

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So, it's alarming that all across the country,

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numbers of eucalyptus are falling because the trees are dying off prematurely.

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So, what are the reasons for this?

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One possible reason is disease.

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As far back as the 1970s, the trees started getting a disease called mundula yellows.

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The tree's leaves would gradually turn yellow, then the tree would die.

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It wasn't until 2004 that they found the cause of the problem was lime,

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or calcium hydroxide to give it its proper chemical name, which was being used in the construction of roads.

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The lime was being washed away into the ground and affecting the roots of the eucalyptus trees nearby.

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What it was doing was preventing the trees from sucking up the iron they needed for healthy growth.

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When this was injected back into the affected trees, they immediately recovered.

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But this problem only affected a relatively small number of trees.

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By 2000, huge numbers of eucalyptus were dying along Australia's east coast of a disease known as bell minor-associated dieback.

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The bell minor is a bird, and the disease seems to be common where there are high populations of bell minors.

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Again, it's the leaves of the trees that are affected.

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What happens is that insects settle on the leaves and eat their way round them, destroying them as they go,

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and at the same time they secrete a solution which has sugar in it.

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The bell miner birds really like this solution, and in order to get as much as possible,

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they keep away other creatures that might try to get it.

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So these birds and insects flourish at the expense of other species,

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and eventually so much damage is done to the leaves that the tree dies.

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But experts say that trees can start looking sick before any sign of bell minor-associated dieback.

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So it looks as if the problem might have another explanation.

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One possibility is that it's to do with the huge bushfires that we have in Australia.

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A theory proposed over 40 years ago by ecologist William Jackson is

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that the frequency of bushfires in a particular region affects the type of vegetation that grows there.

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If there are very frequent bushfires in a region, this encourages grass to grow afterwards,

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Well, if the bushfires are rather less frequent, this results in the growth of eucalyptus forests.

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So why is this?

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Why do fairly frequent bushfires actually support the growth of eucalyptus?

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Well, one reason is that the fire stops the growth of other species which would consume water needed by eucalyptus trees. And there's another reason.

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If these other quick-growing species of bushes and plants are allowed to proliferate,

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they harm the eucalyptus in another way, by affecting the composition of the soil and removing nutrients from it.

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So some bushfires are actually essential for the eucalyptus to survive, as long as they are not too frequent.

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In fact, there's evidence

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that Australia's indigenous people practised regular burning of bushland for thousands of years before the arrival of the Europeans.

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But since Europeans arrived on the continent, the number of bushfires has been strictly controlled.

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Now, scientists believe that this reduced frequency of bushfires to low levels has led to what's known as dry rainforest,

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which seems an odd name as usually we associate tropical rainforest with wet conditions.

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And what's special about this type of rainforest?

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Well, unlike tropical rainforest, which is a rich ecosystem, this type of ecosystem is usually a simple one.

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It has very thick, dense vegetation, but not much variety of species.

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The vegetation provides lots of shade, so one species that does find it ideal is the bell minor bird,

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which builds its nests in the undergrowth there.

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But again, that's not helpful for the eucalyptus tree.

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That is the end of part four.

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You now have one minute to check your answers to part four.

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Thank you.

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That is the end of the listening test.

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In the IELTS test, you would now have 10 minutes to transfer your answers to the answer sheet.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

The speaker keeps coming back to these words: tree, questions, answer, eucalyptus. This video has 275 sentences and 3289 words to shadow. The speech runs for 30:43. The speaker talks slowly, about 107 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound. 85% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
eucalyptus noun	/ˌjuː.kəˈlɪp.təs/	Any of many trees, of genus Eucalyptus, native mainly to Australia.
sibling noun	/ˈsɪb.lɪŋ/	A person who shares a parent; one's brother or sister who one shares a parent with.
bushfire noun		An uncontrolled fire in a wooded or grassy area; a wildfire.
rainforest noun	/ˈɹeɪn.fɔɹ.ɪst/	A forest in a climate with high annual rainfall and no dry season.
ferry noun	/ˈfɛɹi/	A boat or ship used to transport people, smaller vehicles and goods from one port to another, usually on a regular schedule.
trait noun	/tɹeɪt/	An identifying characteristic, habit or trend.
vegetation noun	/ˌvɛd͡ʒəˈteɪʃən/	Plants, taken collectively.
café noun	/ˌkæˈfeɪ/	A coffee shop; an establishment selling coffee and sometimes other non-alcoholic beverages, simple meals or snacks, with a facility to consume them on the…
dieback noun		The browning and death of a plant shoot starting at the tip, due to either disease or climate conditions.
nurture noun	/ˈnɜːɹ.t͡ʃəɹ/	The act of nourishing or nursing; tender care
advertise verb	/ˈædvɚˌtaɪ̯z/	To give (especially public) notice of (something); to announce publicly.
insect noun	/ˈɪn.sɛkt/	An arthropod (in the Insecta class) characterized by six legs, up to four wings, and a chitinous exoskeleton.
ecosystem noun	/ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/	A system formed by an ecological community and its environment that functions as a unit.
lime noun	/laɪm/	Any of several green citrus fruit, somewhat smaller and sharper-tasting than a lemon.
tropical adjective	/ˈtɹɑ.pɪ.kəl/	Of or pertaining to the tropics, the equatorial region between 23 degrees north and 23 degrees south.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

Yes, it's in my contact somewhere.
I've heard the pay isn't too bad.
Do you want me to tell you anything about the registration process?
What about my passport?
I wouldn't get stressed about the interview, though.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	I've heard · I've covered · I've mentioned
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	will be played · will be given · is called
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	status, which can · age, which is · name, which was

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 59 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, isn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: vegetation /ˌvɛd͡ʒəˈteɪʃən/, leisurely /ˈliʒɚli/, flourish /ˈflʊ̈ɹ.ɪʃ/, selfish /ˈsɛlf.ɪʃ/, instruction /ɪnˈstɹʌkʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: eucalyptus /ˌjuː.kəˈlɪp.təs/, vegetation /ˌvɛd͡ʒəˈteɪʃən/, ecosystem /ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/, amicably /ˈæ.mɪ.kə.bli/, biodiversity /ˌbaɪoʊdəˈvɚsəti/

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 eucalyptus, sibling, bushfire.

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.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: cam15 test1 - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?