I.

LISTENING
Part 1.
1. B 2. C 3. A 4. D 5. C
Part 2.
6. F 7. F 8. F 9. T 10. N
Part 3.
11. (in) groups 12. every 2 days 13. 2 weeks 14. confident 15. education
system
Part 4.
16. formalise 17. three-quarters 18. key part 19. socially
conservative
20. embarrassment 21. to block 22. a relative concept 23. different
direction
24. when it joined 25. a constitutional ban

TRANSCRIP (LISTENING)
Part 1. For questions 1 – 5, you will hear the beginning of a radio interview with
Stephen Perrins, a composer of musicals. Listen and indicate the most
appropriate response, A, B, C, or D.
Interviewer: My guest today started out in the world of serious music and showed
great promise as an avant garde composer, but he made the
surprising leap into the world of the musical theatre. Welcome,
Stephen Perrins.
Stephen Perrins: Thank you.
Interviewer: Stephen, what made you change from serious music to musicals?
Stephen Perrins: Well, my parents were both professors of music, so I dutifully went
to music college, studied composition, and wrote rather inaccessible
music. But I suppose really my heart’s always been in the theatre,
and I soon found myself writing songs in secret, drawing my
inspiration from musicals.
Interviewer: Did you try to get them published?
Stephen Perrins: No, for a long time I kept them to myself, even though I thought they
were commercial. I suppose I had something of an inferiority
complex about them, because they were a bit slushy, and I was sure
my family and college would think they were below me.
Interviewer: So what happened?
Stephen Perrins: Well, we had a very light-hearted end-of-year show at college, and I
decided, more or less on impulse, to sing one of my songs, because it
happened to fit rather neatly into a sketch that Jenny Fisher and I
wrote, which was a spoof opera. And it kind of stole the show. A
year later a schoolteacher friend, who’d been in the cast, got in touch
with me – he wanted a short musical for a concert at his school. In
fact, just as an experiment, Jenny and I had already worked up the
opera sketch into something we renamed Godringer, without any real
idea of what to do with it next, so it just needed a bit of tinkering.
Interviewer: That was lucky.
Stephen Perrins: The real break was that the music critic of a national paper had a
child at the school, and the following Sunday we read this rave
review saying that Jenny and I were the future of the musical, and of
course we were on cloud nine, and we immediately had music
publishers lining up.
Interviewer: How did your family react?
Stephen Perrins: Oh, they were Oh, they were aghast at first, but they came round, and
they’ve been right behind us ever since.
Interviewer: You’ve always said you won’t do the lyrics of your songs. I presume
you’ve tried.
Stephen Perrins: I did with my early songs. In fact I could knock them off with a
rather suspect facility. But I realized that I wrote both the words and
the music I’d be working in a kind of vacuum, and what I enjoy most
is the collaboration and sparking off each other’s ideas.
Interviewer: There was a story in the papers recently that you wanted to direct
 your musicals, too. Has anything come of that?
Stephen Perrins: No, that just wasn’t true. I never claim to be a director, I always think
when you’ve actually appointed the director for a show, you
shouldn’t undermine them. For example, in one of my shows, which
Helen Downes directed, I wasn’t that happy with the design, but she
was passionate to have it, and it was right not to interfere.
Interviewer: Now in the last few years you’ve had great international success, but
for some of the more upmarket newspapers, it seems, you simply
can’t put a foot right.
Stephen Perrins: No, and I don’t really know quite why. Maybe I’m being big-headed,
but I don’t think it’s because of the music. I think it’s more that I’m
not really that bothered about my image, so I don’t do masses of PR.
Which means I leave myself open to that carping sort of criticism.
Interviewer: It seems to me it’s a kind of distaste for the popularity of your music.
Stephen Perrins: It’s like the time when serious art critics looked down on the late 19 th
century artists, and their paintings were considered worthless. The
fact is that if you went into an art gallery, guess where the public
were.
Interviewer: Just as the public are always to be found at your musicals. Stephen
Perrins, thank you.
Stephen Perrins: Thank you.
Part 2. For questions 6 - 10, you will hear a conversation. Decide whether the
following statements are true or not by writing:
T for a statement which is true;
F for the statement which is false;
N if the information is not given.
Tom: Now, tell me about Napoleon. I know he used to be a French soldier and very
quickly he became emperor of France. Do you know when he was born?
Marti: Yes. He was born in 1769 on the island of Corsica. And when he was only ten
years old, his father sent him to a military school in France.
Tom: Was he a brilliant student at school?
Marti: No, he wasn’t, but he excelled in mathematics and military science. And then,
when he was sixteen years old, he joined the French army.
Tom: Oh, I didn’t know he joined the arm that young.
Marti: His military career brought him fame, power and riches, but, finally, defeat.
Napoleon became a general in the French army at the age of 24. Several years
later, he became emperor of the French Empire.
Tom: Do you know when he became an emperor?
Marti: Yes. On may 18, 1804 he became emperor of France and the coronation
ceremony was held at Notre Dame on the second of December. He was only 35
that year. He was really many things. But he was, first of all, a brilliant military
leader. His soldiers were ready to die for him.
Tom: Yes, he was really short, too. Of course, Napoleon had so many military
victories so his size wasn’t an issue.
Marti: You are right. At one time he controlled most of Europe
Tom: Yes, but at that time many countries, including England, Russia, and Austria,
fought fiercely against Napoleon.
Marti: Right. His defeat came when he decided to attack Russia. In this military
campaign into Russia, he lost most of his army. Shortly after his defeat, his
abdication followed at Waterloo, and then he tried to escape to America but he
failed. He finally surrendered to the British government and then they exiled
him to St. Helena
Island.
Tom: I know his last years were spent there with a few chosen comrades. Do you
know how old he was when he died?
Marti: He lived there until he died. He died in 1821 when he was only 51 years old.
He died alone, deserted by his family and his friends.
Tom: Well, that’s a pretty sad way to end the life. Well, Marti, I’m sure your
presentation will be really good. You know, you could also give the
chronological order of his life and this may help your classmates to follow
 your presentation.
Marti: Yes, that’s a good suggestion. Thank you, Tom.
Tom: You are welcome. I have to go now. I have another lecture to attend. Good
luck.
Part 3. For questions 11 – 15, answer the questions below.
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each
answer.
Paul: And how was your timetable? Was it a very busy year?
Kira: Very, very busy. They make you work very hard. Apart from lectures, we had
practical sessions in a lot of subjects. We did these in small groups. I had to
go and work four hours every week in a community pharmacy. Actually, I
enjoyed this very much – meeting new people all the time. Then in second
semester, we had to get experience in hospital dispensaries, so every second
day we went to one of the big hospitals and worked there. And on top of all
that we had our assignments, which took me a lot of time. Oh, I nealy forgot,
between first and second semesters, we had to work full-time for two weeks
in a hospital.
Paul: That does sound a very heavy year. So are you pleased now that you did it?
Do you feel some sense of achievement?
Kira: Yeah, I do feel much more confident, which I suppose is the most important
thing.
Paul: And have you got any recommendations for people who are studying from
overseas?
Kira: Well, I suppose they need very good English. It would be much better if they
spent more time learning English before they enter the university, because
you can be in a big trouble if you don’t understand what people are saying
and you haven’t got time to translate.
Paul: Anything else?
Kira: Well, as I said before, the biggest problem for me was a lack of familiarity
with the education system here.
Paul: It sounds as if it was a real challenge. Congratulations, Kira.
Kira: Thanks, Paul.