Shadowing Practice: 🔥How the Varroa mite attacks - Đề thi IELTS LISTENING (actual test) kèm đáp án - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Section 3.
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You will hear two researchers comparing their research on different types of bees.
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First, you have some time to look at questions 21 to 25 on page 5.
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Now listen carefully and answer questions 21 to 25.
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Have you had a chance to look at our research on Australian native bees?
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Yes, it's very relevant to my research on European bees.
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What aspect do you think is most relevant?
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Well, as you know, my main research interest is the European honeybee and the problems facing it.
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Yes, I've heard about the Varroa mite, but I don't know much about it.
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Well, it almost wiped out the European honeybee population in North America back in the 1980s.
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Thankfully, we don't have it here in Australia yet.
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It sounds like a nasty little creature.
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It certainly is.
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It's like a little hitchhiker, really it hops onto a bee, then when the bee lands on a flower,
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the mite gets off and waits for another bee to come along.
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And from there, I guess the mite climbs onto another bee?
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Right.
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The mite then hitches a ride back to the hive where the bee lives with the rest of the colony.
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So the mite actually sneaks inside the hive on top of the bee's back?
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That's right.
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And once it's there, it dives into a honeycomb cell and heads straight for the bottom.
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That's where the queen bee's eggs are.
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And the honey?
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Yes, and the mite buries itself deep inside it.
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Ah, I see.
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The mite doesn't eat the honey though, does it?
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Well, no, that's the interesting part.
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It uses the honey to cover its scent so it won't be detected.
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And presumably it lives off the blood of the bees.
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That's right.
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It feeds on the bee larva that hatches out from the egg.
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The mite's reproductive cycle takes place there too while it's living in the cell.
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When that's finished, it leaves.
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It sounds like a clever enemy.
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But why does it have such a devastating effect on bee populations?
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Well, it leaves them debilitated and it also infects them with a virus that spreads amongst the colony.
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If the population dies out here in Australia, it will have a devastating effect on Australian agriculture.
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The worrying thing is that we do need to find a way of increasing our bee population.
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Before you hear the rest of the discussion, you have some time to look at questions 26 to 30 on page 6.
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Now listen and answer questions 26 to 30.
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Well, perhaps we can combine my research on European bees
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and yours on Australian native bees to put together a research proposal
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and find a way of safely increasing the Australian bee population.
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That would be great.
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Let's compare notes.
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OK, then.
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Let's start with the European bumblebee.
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There's been a lot of talk recently about bringing them into this country.
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Yes, but the problem is that the bumblebee has a tendency to carry weeds to nearby farmland.
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They would also compete for nectar with your existing bees.
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You know, there's an Australian native bee, the blue -banded bee, which is good at pollinating without carrying weeds.
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It could be useful to farmers.
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The blue -banded bee?
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I've never heard of that one.
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That's one of the challenges we face because there hasn't been a lot of research on it as yet.
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Well, it's better to use native bees because importing them can be disastrous.
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The Africanised bee is a case in point.
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It was introduced into South America because it was a good honey producer, but what they didn't realise was that it attacks anything that moves.
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Speaking of honey producers, the Australian stingless bee is a good alternative source of honey.
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Oh, I didn't know they produced honey.
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Yes, although they don't produce as much as other bees do.
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The main drawback with the stingless bees is that they're quite sensitive to temperature.
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They just won't fly if it gets below 18 degrees, so they aren't really suited to southern parts of Australia.
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I know how you feel about foreign bees, but I think my favourite bee is a Canadian leafcutter bee.
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It has such a gentle personality, but it's really hard working too and it's got a lot of potential for farmers.
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Why's that?
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Well, I've been asked to help import them to this country to pollinate the lucerne or alfalfa crops.
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At the moment, Australian production is about a third of that in North America, where they have these leafcutter bees.
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That's quite a difference.
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But is it safe to import these bees?
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Well, our research shows that it is, so they've been importing them in very limited numbers.
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They have to be thoroughly checked first before they're released to make sure that they don't have any mites or diseases.
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Well, that's good.
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Yes.
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Of course, the only drawback is that we can't bring in very many at a time,
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so we still don't have enough of them here to really make much difference to our crop yields.
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Yes, it takes time to build up a bee population.
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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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Now turn to section 4.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “🔥How the Varroa mite attacks - Đề thi IELTS LISTENING (actual test) kèm đáp án”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: bee, mite, honey, Australian, population. This video has 84 sentences and 873 words to shadow. The speech runs for 8:09. The speaker talks slowly, about 107 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound. Only 79% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| bee noun | /ˈbiː/ | A flying insect, of the clade Anthophila within the hymenopteran superfamily Apoidea, known for its organised societies (though only a minority have them), for… |
| honey noun | /ˈhʌni/ | A sweet, viscous, gold-colored fluid produced from plant nectar by bees, and often consumed by humans. |
| import noun | /ˈɪm.pɔɹt/ | Something brought in from an exterior source, especially for sale or trade. |
| compare verb | /kəmˈpɛɚ/ | To assess the similarities and differences between two or more things [“to compare X with Y”]. Having made the comparison of X with Y, one might have found it… |
| producer noun | /pɹəˈdjuːsə/ | An individual or organization that creates goods and services. |
| weed noun | /wiːd/ | Any plant unwanted at the place where and at the time when it is growing. |
| leaf noun | /lif/ | The usually green and flat organ that represents the most prominent feature of most vegetative plants. |
| crop noun | /kɹɑp/ | A plant, grown for it, or its fruits or seeds, to be harvested as food, livestock fodder, or fuel or for any other economic purpose. |
| farmer noun | /ˈfɑɹ.mɚ/ | A person who works the land and/or who keeps livestock; anyone engaged in agriculture on a farm. |
| colony noun | /ˈkɔl.ə.ni/ | A geographical area under the remote control of a country; especially to extract resources or exploit labor from that area. |
| hive noun | /haɪv/ | A structure, whether artificial or natural, for housing a swarm of honeybees. |
| proposal noun | /pɹəˈpoʊzəl/ | A scheme or design. |
| carefully adverb | /ˈkɛɹf(ə)li/ | With care; attentively, circumspectly. |
| egg noun | /ɛɡ/ | An approximately spherical or ellipsoidal body produced by birds, insects, reptiles, and other animals, often housing an embryo within a membrane or shell… |
| sensitive adjective | /ˈsɛn.sɪt.ɪv/ | Having the faculty of sensation; pertaining to the senses. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| build up verb | To erect; to construct. |
| come along verb | To accompany. |
| die out verb | To become extinct. |
| get off verb | To move from being on top of (something) to not being on top of it. |
| live off verb | To depend on financially. |
| put together verb | To assemble, construct, build, or formulate. |
| wipe out verb | To destroy (especially, a large number or complete set of people or things); to obliterate. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- What aspect do you think is most relevant?
- The mite doesn't eat the honey though, does it?
- I've never heard of that one.
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 | Have you had · I've heard · There's been |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | won't be detected · was introduced · aren't really suited |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 19 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I've, didn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- Long words — get the stress right: agriculture /ˈæɡ.ɹɪˌkʌl.t͡ʃɚ/, presumably /pɹɪˈzuːməbli/, reproductive /ˌɹiːpɹəˈdʌktɪv/, debilitate /dəˈbɪləteɪt/
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 bee, honey, import.
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.