Unit 8: Exercise 1

Read the information. Then look at the example of a table-completion task,

which you might find in Section 1 of the IELTS Listening test.

What can you tell from studying it? Choose the correct options.

In table-completion tasks, the information is always read from left to right. The table always
has a heading, giving you information about what it is about.

ONLINE MEALS SERVICE

Meal Comments Cost
Options
Meals for Every week, two of the meals will contain (0) £160.50 per week
two …fish… .
Customers will receive the ingredients they
ordered on a (1) ………… .
Family There will always be some (2) ………… with £ (4) ………… per
meals each meal. week
The (3) ………… for each meal is designed
especially for young adults to use.
Luxury There are dishes from different countries. £233.50 per week
meals Some meals may be too (5) ………… for the
children.

You will probably hear information about going to restaurants/what people can eat at
home.

1. For question 3, you will need something that can be used in connection with a meal.
It probably is/probably isn’t an item of food.
2. You will probably need to write a number in the Comments/ Cost column.
3. Question 5 probably refers to something negative/ positive.
4. You need to write a noun or a number for all the questions, except question 1/5 .

Unit 8: Exercise 2
Read the information. Then look again at the example of a table-completion
task.

Complete the chart with the words in the box which could possibly fit in each
gap.
It’s important to know what type of word can complete the table. The words must make
sense, and fit grammatically. Before you listen, read through the table and think about the
type of word you might hear for each gap. If the gap has a currency symbol before it, you will
need to listen for a number. If the gap has the word some before it, you will need to listen for
a plural, countable noun, or an uncountable noun.

However, as you listen, you may hear more than one word or number which could fit in each
gap. You will need to decide which word is best.

ONLINE MEALS SERVICE

Meal Comments Cost
Options
Meals for Every week, two of the meals will contain (0) £160.50 per week
two …fish… .
Customers will receive the ingredients they
ordered on a (1) ………… .
Family There will always be some (2) ………… with £ (4) ………… per
meals each meal. week
The (3) ………… for each meal is designed
especially for young adults to use.
Luxury There are dishes from different countries. £233.50 per week
meals Some meals may be too (5) ………… for the
children.

Recipe 219.50 spicy 192.75 bread salty sweet Saturday

equipment salad cutlery fruit Monday Friday 26.75

1 2 3

4 5
Unit 8: Exercise 3
Listen and complete the table.

Write ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

 Before listening, make sure you have an idea of what the context is, and what
information is needed to complete the table.
 Underline any key words in the table (e.g. receive, young adults, use, etc.).
 Listen and follow the table from left to right. Listen for the key words, and try to fill
in the gaps.
 After listening, check what you wrote. Did you write only one word or a number in
each gap? Make sure your spelling is correct, too.

ONLINE MEALS SERVICE

Meal Comments Cost
Options
Meals for Every week, two of the meals will contain (0) £160.50 per week
two …fish… .
Customers will receive the ingredients they
ordered on a (1) ………… .
Family There will always be some (2) ………… with £ (4) ………… per
meals each meal. week
The (3) ………… for each meal is designed
especially for young adults to use.
Luxury There are dishes from different countries. £233.50 per week
meals Some meals may be too (5) ………… for the
children.

Presenter: You will hear a conversation between an employee at a company

called Fresh Ideas, and a woman calling for information.

Employee: Hello. Online Meals Service.

Caller: Hello. You deliver meals to people’s homes, right? My friend

recommended you. play.MP3

Employee: Well, not quite. You place your order online for the meals you want,
and then we provide everything you need to make them.

Caller: Great. Could you tell me about the different meal options?
Employee: Sure, we do Meals for Two. So that’s all your evening meals, Monday
to Sunday. And, for two of them, it’ll be fish that you’re cooking with.

Caller: OK. When do you deliver the meals?

Employee: How it works is that you order online by Wednesday, then early on a
Friday, our delivery truck will come to your home. We do it on a Friday, rather
than a Monday, so you get fresher ingredients on the weekends.

Caller: And how much is that?

Employee: For the Meals for Two option, that’s £160.50 per week. Then we do a
Family Meals option, which is suitable for two adults and up to three children.

Caller: I see. What do you include in each meal?

Employee: I can send you some menus to look at. Sometimes we include bread,
but not always, and sometimes we offer different desserts. However, what we
never do without is some kind of fruit. We want our meals to be varied, but
nutritious.

Caller: Good.

Employee: And for teenagers, we try to get them involved in cooking, so for
every meal, we put together a simple recipe. So you have everything you need,
except cooking equipment, which we assume you already have.

Caller: Nice idea. I’d really like to get my kids interested in cooking. So, in terms
of cost, my friend told me she was paying £192.75 each week.

Employee: That’s what it is, yes. It was £219.50, until we found some different
suppliers, and so we were able to reduce the price by £26.75.

Caller: Great!

Employee: There’s one more option. Luxury Meals.

Caller: How is that different to the Family Meals option?

Employee: Well, it consists of dishes from various countries – so you might have
a meal from Mexico one day, and something from Thailand or India on another.

Caller: Wow, that would certainly make dinnertime less boring, although I
suspect my children might find it rather spicy, and wouldn’t eat it. Aren’t these
meals more expensive?

Employee: Well, they’re £233.50 a week, which for five people, I think is good
value for money.
 1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Unit 8: Exercise 4
Read the information. Then listen to extracts from the conversation again.

Complete the extracts with the words you hear.

In table-completion tasks, you might hear people contrasting different information. It’s
important to recognise when and how speakers do this, so you can choose the information
you really need.

1. Caller: Hello. You deliver meals to people’s homes, right? My friend

recommended you.

Employee: Well, _____________ _____________ . You place your order

online for the meals you want, and then we provide everything you need to
make them

2. Caller: OK. When do you deliver the meals?

Employee: How it works is that you order online by Wednesday, then early
on a Friday, our delivery truck will come to your home. We do it on a
Friday,______________ _______________ a Monday, so you get fresher
ingredients on the weekends.

3. Employee: Sometimes we include bread, but not always, and sometimes play.MP3
we offer different desserts. ________________ , what we never do without is
some kind of fruit.

4. Employee: And for teenagers, we try to get them involved in cooking, so

for every meal, we put together a simple recipe. So you have everything you
need, ________________ cooking equipment, which we assume you already
have.

5. Caller: So, in terms of cost, my friend told me she was paying £192.75
each week.

Employee: That’s what it is, yes. It _____________ £219.50,

______________ we found some different suppliers, and so we were able to
reduce the price by £26.75.

6. Caller: Wow, that would certainly make dinnertime less boring,

________________ I suspect my children might find it rather spicy, and
wouldn’t eat it. Aren’t these meals more expensive?

Unit 8: Exercise 5
Read the information. Then look at the underlined information in the summary,
and decide what you need to listen for.

Complete the questions. Use the words in the box.

If you have to fill gaps in sentences or in a summary, it can help if you think what question you need
to ask yourself in order to find the missing information. Remember, though, that the speaker might
not use the same words as in the summary.

Setting up and running an online meals company

Before Victoria Andrews set up the Fresh Ideas company, she did some research to find
out who her (1) …………… might be.

Then, she had to find a cheap way to advertise her online meals
service and used (2) …………… to do this.

Although she thinks advertising was important at the start, in the long term it is
the (3) …………… of the food that she feels is most important.

On her website, she has made it clear that her products come from (4) …………… , which
customers may approve of.

None of the meals her company suggests require a lot of (5) …………… , so people who
don’t cook for a living should appreciate that.

Advertise food meals products research

1. Who did Victoria __________ ?

2. What did she use to ___________ her online meals service?
3. What does she think is most important about her _____________ in the long term?
4. Where do her _____________ come from, according to her website?
5. What don’t her ____________ require a lot of?

Unit 8: Exercise 6
Read the summary again. Match the specific information needed to complete
the summary with the questions.

Setting up and running an online meals company

Before Victoria Andrews set up the Fresh Ideas company, she did some research to find out
who her (1) …………… might be.

Then, she had to find a cheap way to advertise her online meals service and
used (2) …………… to do this.

Although she thinks advertising was important at the start, in the long term it is
the (3) …………… of the food that she feels is most important.

On her website, she has made it clear that her products come from (4) …………… , which
customers may approve of.

None of the meals her company suggests require a lot of (5) …………… , so people who
don’t cook for a living should appreciate that.

a form of media, where people look at things a feature of good food

a place where we can get food from something that people don’t need
a group of people

1. Question 1
2. Question 2
3. Question 3
4. Question 4
5. Question 5

Unit 8: Exercise 7
Read the information. Then listen to the introductions to each part of the talk.

Match the gaps 1–5 of the summary with the introductions.

In summary-completion tasks, the sentences you read in the summary are closely related to
the speaker’s main points. Therefore, it is important to listen for when the speaker moves
from one main point to another. Speakers will usually signpost that they’re going to do this
by using words and phrases such as also, another thing and well, obviously.

Speakers may use the same words as in the questions to do this, or they may paraphrase key
ideas. The talk will always be in the same order as the questions.
1 Advertising is very important when you start, but you also need to think about …

2 Another thing that my business partner and I are always thinking about is how to help our
customers …

3 Well, obviously, we needed to do some research. We knew …

4 If you have the opportunity, go to our website …

5 We had to find a cost-effective way to let people know about us …

Setting up and running an online meals company

Before Victoria Andrews set up the Fresh Ideas company, she did some research to find out
who her (1) …………… might be.

Then, she had to find a cheap way to advertise her online meals service and used (2)
…………… to do this.

Although she thinks advertising was important at the start, in the long term it is the (3)
…………… of the food that she feels is most important.

On her website, she has made it clear that her products come from (4) …………… , which
customers may approve of.

None of the meals her company suggests require a lot of (5) ……………, so people who
don’t cook for a living should appreciate that.

Gap 1 Gap 5 Gap 4 Gap 2 Gap 3

1.MP3

2.MP3

3.MP3
 4.MP3

5.MP3

Unit 8: Exercise 8
Listen and complete the summary.

Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.

 Read through the summary and identify any key words. Look around the gaps, and try
to be clear about what specific information you need to find.
 Listen and pay attention to how the speaker goes through each key point in order. The
speaker will signpost any new topics, so use this to help you.
 Listen for the specific information you need, and complete the summary with words
you hear the speaker use.
 After listening, check that you have written no more than two words (this means that
you can write one or two words, but not more) in each gap. Make sure your spelling is
correct.

Presenter: You will hear a woman giving a talk about how she started an
online meals company.

Woman: Hello, I’m Victoria Andrews, owner and director of Fresh Ideas,
the online meals service. We create menus for people, and deliver the
ingredients they need to prepare meals themselves. Let me start from the
beginning. What do you think we had to do before we set up our company?
Well obviously we needed to do some research. We knew there was no point
starting up until we were certain whether or not we had any competitors –
whether anyone else was offering a similar service to us. We found out that
no-one was, so we decided to go ahead. We spent a lot of time planning our
menus, and trying and testing all the dishes that we wanted to promote. play.MP3

When we were sure we had the right meals, we had to find a cost-effective
way to let people know about us … to get lots of people interested. We
couldn’t afford to pay for advertisements in magazines, so we decided we
would tell people about our online meals service through social media. And
it worked. More and more people began to place orders with us.

Anyway, advertising is very important when you start, but you also need to
think about how you are going to grow. In the long-term, what customers are
really looking for and what will help you maintain customer loyalty, is
quality. We make sure that all our food is organic, and that it’s tasty and
nutritious.

If you have the opportunity, go to our website. You’ll find links that show
exactly where we get our fruit, vegetables and meat from, and that’s local
farms, because it means that all the food will be really fresh. It’s much better
for the environment when you’re not shipping your products from thousands
of miles away.

Another thing that my business partner and I are always thinking about is
how to help our customers. They aren’t professional chefs, and they’ve
probably spent a long day at work, so we ensure that all our meals are ones
that don’t need much time spent on them. At most, they would only take 30
minutes to cook. And I think that’s another secret to success – give people
something that makes their lives easier.

Setting up and running an online meals company

Before Victoria Andrews set up the Fresh Ideas company, she did some research to find
out who her (1) …………… might be.

Then, she had to find a cheap way to advertise her online meals
service and used (2) …………… to do this.

Although she thinks advertising was important at the start, in the long term it is
the (3) …………… of the food that she feels is most important.

On her website, she has made it clear that her products come from (4) …………… , which
customers may approve of.

None of the meals her company suggests require a lot of (5) …………… , so people who
don’t cook for a living should appreciate that.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Unit 8: Exercise 9
How do the words and phrases in the summary paraphrase what you heard in
the talk?

Match the words and phrases.

Setting up and running an online meals company

Before Victoria Andrews set up the Fresh Ideas company, she did some research to find
out who her (1)…………… might be.

Then, she had to find a cheap way to advertise her online meals
service and used (2) …………… to do this.

Although she thinks advertising was important at the start, in the long term it is
the (3) …………… of the food that she feels is most important.

On her website, she has made it clear that her products come from (4) …………… , which
customers may approve of.

None of the meals her company suggests require a lot of (5) …………… , so people who
don’t cook for a living should appreciate that.

don’t cook for a living products set up none of the meals … require a lot of
is most important cheap made it clear advertise

1. let people know about us

2. aren’t professional chefs
3. what customers are really looking for
4. cost-effective
5. starting up
6. show exactly
7. fruit, vegetables and meat
8. don’t need much

Unit 8: Exercise 10
Think about some of the main skills you need when you approach the IELTS
Listening test.

Decide if the statements are True or False. Choose the correct answers.
1. You will have a short amount of time before each recording starts. Use this time to
relax.

o True
o False

2. You can predict what you might hear by looking at the questions.

o True
o False

3. You won’t know whether you will hear a conversation or a monologue.

o True
o False

4. Try to work out what you need to listen for, before you start listening.

o True
o False

5. Listen to every word that the speakers say carefully.

o True
o False

6. Pay attention to the words in the questions, because the speakers will usually say
them.

o True
o False

7. When you hear a word that seems like it could fit a gap, or answer a question, write it
down.

o True
o False

8. You won’t be tested on very difficult vocabulary.

o True
o False