Speaking Practice 4

 

The following  section will measure your English Speaking ability in an academic environment. You will need to click on "NEXT" after you are instructed to begin preparing and you should click on "START RECORDING" to record your response when you are  instructed to begin speaking. Then click on "SEND" to save your response. Please type your name where it is required.

 

During the test, you will answer six questions. Two of the questions ask about familiar topics. Four questions ask about short conversations, lectures, and reading passages. You may take notes, and you may use your notes to help you prepare your responses. For each question, you will be given a short time to prepare your response. When the preparation time is up, record yourself answering the question as completely as possible.

Now begin the Speaking section.

 

Talk about a photograph or painting you have seen that was memorable. Explain what you liked or disliked about it.

 

Talk about a photograph or painting you have seen that was memorable. Explain what you liked or disliked about it.

 

 

Some people have one career throughout their lives. Other people do different kinds of work at different points in their lives. Which do you think is better? Explain why 

 

 

 

Now read a letter a  student has written to the university newspaper. You will have 50 seconds to read the letter. Begin reading now.

 

Currently, all of the seminar classes in the history department are three hours long. I would like to propose that history seminars be shortened to two hours. I make this proposal for two reasons. First, most students just cannot concentrate for three hours straight. I myself have taken these three-hour seminars and found them tiring and sometimes boring. Also, when a seminar lasts that long, people stop concentrating and stop learning, so the third hour of a three-hour seminar is a waste of everyone‘s time. Two-hour seminars would be much more efficient.

Now listen to two students discussing the letter.

 

 

The woman expresses his opinion about the proposal that her friend Tim made in his letter to the newspaper. State her opinion about his proposal and explain the reasons she gives for holding that opinion.

 

 

In everyday life, when people speak of memory, they are almost always speaking about what psychologists would call explicit memories. An explicit memory is a conscious or intentional recollection, usually of facts, names, events, or other things that a person can state or declare. There is another kind of memory that is not conscious. Memories of this kind are called implicit memories. An individual can have an experience that he or she cannot consciously recall yet still display reactions that indicate the experience has been somehow recorded in his or her brain.

 

 

Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic from a psychology class.

Using the example of the car advertisement, explain what is meant by implicit memory.

The professor proposes two possible solutions to the woman's problem. Briefly summarize the problem. Then state which solution you would recommend and explain why.

 

Using points and examples from the talk, explain the difference between active and passive attention.