Prof. Trad. Gianna Guastella
C1 LISTENING PART 4 – EXPLAINED
In Part 4, you’ll hear five short recordings, all about the same general topic. The whole thing
lasts 3-4 minutes, with each speaker talking for around 30 seconds. These are meant to sound
like natural, everyday speech, and you’ll hear a mix of accents and styles.
You’ve got two tasks to answer and each one focuses on something diEerent. For both, you’ll
pick answers from the same list of eight options. Don’t stress— you’ll hear the recordings
twice, and you can tackle the questions in any order that works for you.
WARNING: the information for task 1 may not appear first. You must always think that the
information for the tasks could appear in either order (i.e. the information for task 1 could
come first in some questions, but not in others).
Strategies
💡Underline what you are supposed to listen to in the task
All five speakers are connected by a shared theme, so keep that in mind as you listen. You’ll
hear the full set of recordings, and then they’ll play again.
💡Listen for the main idea
Focus on the main idea, not tiny details. Even if you don’t catch every word, try to pick up on
the speaker’s overall point, attitude, or opinion.
💡Know how you work best
Approach the task in the way that feels better for you. You can either do all the questions from
part 1 first and then turn to part 2 when you listen to the track again, or you may focus on both
tasks directly from the very beginning. Whatever suits you, really!
💡DISTRACTORS
We know they’re there for you to make mistakes. Be careful, as they won’t relate to the task.
💡KEEP AN OPEN MIND
You’ll notice that the task has sentences or clauses that are too general or abstract. The whole
point of the exercise is trying to match those to more specific examples from the track, and
ANYTHING and everything can happen when this is done. We’ll see more about this in a
second.
Prof. Trad. Gianna Guastella
The importance of keeping an open mind
As we said before, this exercise is all about matching abstract statements from the task to
more concrete examples from the track. Because of this, we must always keep an open mind.
Let’s analyse this example.
In this task we listen to five people talking about recording memories. Here’s what we must do
in the second task.
Now, when we think about “technical challenges” in this context we may think about issues
with technological devices. These issues may include, for instance, not being able to post
something, not understanding how something works and so on. However, let’s see what the
track says.
As we can see, the use of “technical” in the way the track puts it is something that not many
students would think of. The use of the word in this case is related to another meaning, which
is “related to practical skills used in a particular activity”.
So, moral of the story. KEEP AN OPEN MIND. What you think the options refer to, may not
always be the case.
Prof. Trad. Gianna Guastella
Let’s do a Listening Part 4 together. Play the track, do it and then check your answers against
the key and the justifications.
Prof. Trad. Gianna Guastella
Prof. Trad. Gianna Guastella
Prof. Trad. Gianna Guastella
Answers explained
Task 1: what helped the speaker to succeed.
No.
1
Explanation
G is the correct answer because the speaker talks about how persistent he had to
be, and how being so helped him eventually, as he is “never short of work”. So, we
can say that being patient is what helped the person become successful.
D is a distractor because many students would link “self-conscious” to
“conscientious”, which are two very diEerent adjectives. “Self-conscious” means
“being nervous about others think of you”, whereas “conscientious” means
“putting a lot of eEort into your work”.
E is a distractor because the speaker never says that they love music, but rather
that they have a talent for singing and that they trained in music, which is
completely diEerent from “loving” it.
H is also a distractor. Although we have no part which says this is incorrect, the
whole idea is diEerent from “a constant wish to improve skills”. Overall, the speaker
is saying that although there were issues, he was always persistent, which is
diEerent from “a constant wish to improve skills”.
2
B is the correct answer because the speaker says that in general, they feel happy
not to play it safe and that they thrive on working in drama that pushes the
boundaries. (Thrive on = enjoy something or be successful at something, especially
something others wouldn’t like). Also, the idea of “pushing the boundaries” tells us
that their projects are not conventional, i.e. these projects involve, at least to some
extent taking risks, and they say this is their biggest asset (i.e. the most valuable
thing they have)
C is a distractor because “other people” are just mentioned. The speaker says they
enjoy meeting new people, not that they understand people and that this helped
them be successful.
H is a distractor because although we could relate “I was fully committed to my
studies” and “a constant wish to improve skills”, this isn’t mentioned in connection
with the question, as they never say this is what made them succeed (something
that was mentioned before, when the person said that “challenging the accepted
norms is probably my biggest asset”).
Prof. Trad. Gianna Guastella
3
D is the correct answer, as the person says they’re not self-conscious at all because
they don’t care whether they look silly, and that this quality was useful.
F is a distractor because many students would link “outgoing” and “an ability to
attract people”, but they’re not the same. “Outgoing” means sociable, and although
it’s true that outgoing people tend to attract others, it’s not always a sine qua non
condition. Many unsociable people are charming too.
4
F is the correct answer because it’s clear that the person attracts others, as they
describe themselves as having a “magnetic personality”. Moreover, it’s this
personality that helped them obtain a role and oEers have been rolling ever since
(meaning that it was this quality what made the person succeed)
5
H is the correct answer because the person says they are devoted to developing
what they do (i.e. they constantly want to improve their skills)
A is a distractor for two reasons. Firstly, “shy” and “calm” are not the same.
Secondly, because when we go on reading the person says that they are very
intense about their work (i.e. not calm at all)
E is a distractor because the person doesn’t say they love music. They say that they
want to do more musicals, but that’s it.
Task 2: what each speaker regrets about the past.
No.
6
Explanation
G is the correct answer because the speaker says they were always determined to
obtain better parts than the rest, something that they don’t feel comfortable
thinking about now (i.e. we can say that they regret doing this)
7
F is the correct answer because they said no to an oEer that turned out to be
successful, and they say, “if only I could rewrite history” (i.e. they are regretting
saying “no”). Grammatically, we use I wish/ if only to express regret.
H is a distractor because they did have fun when they were studying to become an
actor, but they don’t regret it (they never said they did) and in fact they say that they
were committed to their studies, so having fun wasn’t everything they did.
8
F is the correct answer because the person says, “I should’ve made more of my
degree, but I got in with a crowd of mates and lived life to the full”. Again,
grammatically, the use of “should’ve” expresses regret (because we use “should’ve
+ PP” to express regret or criticism)
Prof. Trad. Gianna Guastella
A is a distractor because the person says they prefer theatre to film, but they
studied both (because they did a music and drama degree) so we cannot say they
studied the wrong subject.
E is also a distractor because the problem wasn’t the people he mixed with. Of
course they were probably unambitious, but clearly so was he, and they never say
they regret mixing with them!
9
A is the correct answer because the person clearly studied the wrong subject. They
had started studying to become a lawyer, but they soon realized this was a mistake.
B is a distractor, because even if the person realized they’d made a mistake quickly,
they never said that the decision to study law was made quickly.
G is a distractor because even if the word “competing” is mentioned, the person
says that this is something that they don’t like and never did.
10
C is the correct answer because the person says, “I wish I’d been a bit more
accepting of other colleagues”. Again, here we use the expression “I wish” to talk
about a past wish or regret.