PET Listening Practice Test 5

Answer Keys

Tapescript

The part of the text containing the answer is underlined with the question number given in square brackets []. If you still struggle with pet Listening, please refer to Listening tips.

Part 1

Question 1
Woman: I’m trying to get everything ready for the picnic tomorrow. And what’s a good picnic without sandwiches? My brother Mark is responsible for bringing them – I hope he won’t forget that! I thought about making a cake, but unfortunately I won’t have enough time for that. Then I remembered the fruit I bought yesterday, so I’ll cut that up and put it in a container. [1] I also found some biscuits in the cupboard, but there probably won’t be enough for everyone. My sister said she’d bring some drinks, so I think we’ve got most things covered.

Question 2
Man: So, we moved into this new house last week, and there has been quite a few things I had to do. The bathroom tap has been dripping for weeks, but my brother said he’d come and fix that on Saturday. There’s also a loose handle on one of the kitchen cupboards, although I can probably deal with that later. The biggest problem at the moment is the back door. It doesn’t close properly, especially when it’s windy, [2] so I’m going to take a look at it tomorrow morning. If I can’t fix it myself, I’ll have to call someone, I’m afraid.

Question 3
Man: Are you still going to the photography club tonight?
Woman: No, I decided to miss it this week. I’ve got too much to do at home.
Man: The housework you mean? I’m glad I almost never have to deal with that – our apartment is pretty small and Susan usually has free time to take care of all the chores.
Woman: Well, lucky you! Mine is not too big either, but the thing is my aunt is coming for dinner tomorrow, so I need to prepare the spare room. Because of that I will need to go shopping as well. Neither is too urgent, so I’ll buy groceries and do the cleaning on Saturday. Before I start cooking tonight, though, I’m going to phone the hotel and confirm our booking for next month. [3]
Man: That shouldn’t take long.
Woman: I hope not. After that, I’ll get started on dinner.

Question 4
Man: We spent a week in the mountains last month. I’d expected to enjoy the long walks most, because I’d been looking forward to them for ages. The views, the fresh air, that kind of thing. They were good, but the weather was quite warm in the afternoons, so we didn’t walk as far as we’d planned. We also hired bicycles for a day, which was more tiring than I expected. Surprisingly, though, I enjoyed visiting the little villages we passed on the bus. We stopped at two of them, and I liked looking around the local shops and talking to people there. I’d definitely do that again. [4]

Question 5
Woman: I’ve been meaning to buy something to put in the empty space above my sofa. This is quite an important decision for me because that’s the first thing the guests see when they come in. I thought a large mirror would work there, but it would be way too high to actually use it. I also considered getting a photograph printed, because I have some good pictures from my trip last summer. My friend thinks a painting would look better, though. I wasn’t convinced at first, but I found one online that I really like. It’s not very large, but I think it’ll fit the space perfectly. [5] Now I just need to find a frame for it.

Question 6
Man: Maria, did you get there in time in the end? I know how important it was for you not to be late.
Woman: Just about. I left home earlier than usual because I knew the roads might be busy. It didn’t help though – I was still almost an hour late!
Man: Was there a traffic problem? I know it can get quite bad here.
Woman: Not really. The roads were actually pretty clear. The problem came when I changed trains. My first train arrived on time, but the next one wasn’t ready to leave because there was a problem with one of the doors. [6] We waited for about fourty minutes before they fixed it. I thought I’d miss my appointment, but luckily they were running late too.
Man: Well, it’s good to know that it all worked out well for you!

Question 7
Woman: How was your day out on Saturday?
Man: Really good. We started at the railway museum, which was bigger than I expected. I thought we’d only stay for an hour, but there was so much to see that we were there until lunchtime.
Woman: And did you go straight home after that?
Man: No, we walked into the town centre. We had lunch there, then looked around a few shops. Nothing special, really. The interesting part was later, when we found a small park beside the river. There was a rowing club there and we sat on a bench watching the boats for quite a while. [7]
Woman: That sounds relaxing!
Man: It was! We were going to visit the art gallery too, but by then we’d been out all day and decided to leave it for another time. I didn’t expect much from the park, but that’s probably what I remember most. It was a memorable experience indeed. [7]

Part 2

Question 8
Woman: Have you been to that new Italian restaurant on King Street?
Man: Oh, the Dolce Vita? Yeah, we went there last Friday. We came in quite early, so it wasn’t very busy. I liked the atmosphere, and the waiter was friendly enough.
Woman: What about the food?
Man: My pasta was good, although I thought the portion was a little small. Sarah had the fish, and she couldn’t finish hers. [8] We both liked the dessert, though. I had the lemon cake, and she ordered ice cream.
Woman: So, would you go back there?
Man: Probably. We waited quite a long time for our main courses, but they were busy by then. so I wouldn’t complain about the service.

Question 9
Man: You weren’t here when I arrived this morning. Everything all right?
Woman: Yes, although I nearly gave up on getting here. I left home at the usual time, but there was a road closure on my normal route.
Man: So you had to go another way?
Woman: Exactly. I knew a different road, but there were hardly any parking spaces when I arrived. I drove around for about ten minutes before finding one. [9]
Man: That explains it. I thought you might have forgotten something and had to go back home.
Woman: No, luckily I had everything with me. I just didn’t expect the journey to take so long.

Question 10
Woman: So, what did you think of the house?
Man: I liked it more than I expected. The kitchen is quite small, though.
Woman: I know. I thought we’d have to replace some of the cupboards, but actually they’re in pretty good condition.
Man: The garden surprised me. It looked much bigger in the photographs.
Woman: It isn’t huge, but it’s enough for us. What I really liked was the location. We can walk to the station in about seven minutes, and there’s a supermarket nearby too. [10]
Man: That’s important. I don’t want to depend on the car every time we need something. [10]
Woman: Exactly. The house isn’t perfect, but getting around from there would be very easy.

Question 11
Man: Are we ready for tomorrow’s meeting?
Woman: We are. Well… we almost are. I’ve checked the presentation twice, but there’s one thing I’d like to change.
Man: The slides?
Woman: What? No, the slides are fine! I think we should change the order of the presentations. [11] If we start with the sales figures, we’ll have more time to discuss them while everyone is fresh.
Man: I thought we’d already agreed to put those at the end. Do we really need to change things at the last minute?
Woman: Look, it’s better that way. There is going to be a lot of information in that presentation. [11] The meeting is still at ten, and I don’t think we need to invite anyone else.
Man: Fair enough. I’ll tell the others about the new order.

Question 12
Woman: How’s that photography course going?
Man: Better than I expected. I thought we’d spend most of the time learning about cameras, but we’ve actually covered quite a few different kinds of photography.
Woman: Like what?
Man: Portraits, buildings, nature — even food photography last week. I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy that one, but it was quite interesting. [12]
Woman: Have you had much homework?
Man: Some. We have to take pictures between classes, but it doesn’t take as long as I expected. The expensive part was buying a better camera. I didn’t realise we’d be using one with manual settings.
Woman: So that’s what surprised you?
Man: No, I knew the camera would cost something. I just hadn’t expected the course itself to cover such a wide range of subjects.

Question 13
Woman: Have you looked at what we can do on Sunday yet? We want to plan ahead to enjoy the experience, you know.
Man: Well, I’ve had a quick look. There’s a castle about twenty minutes from the hotel. We could go there in the morning. You like castles, don’t you? [13]
Woman: That sounds good. I’m not really keen on castles, but we could go there. I saw something about boat trips too.
Man: Yes, but they don’t start until the afternoon, and the weather might change by then. I’d rather not spend half the day waiting around.
Woman: What about the walking route along the river?
Man: That’s another possibility. It’s supposed to take three hours, though, and I don’t really want to spend our whole Sunday walking.
Woman: So the castle, then?
Man: Yes. We could visit the castle first and still have plenty of time afterwards to look around the town.

Part 3

Martin: When my friend James suggested a cycling trip last summer, we thought we’d keep things fairly simple. We’d both taken longer rides before, so we decided to spend four days cycling through the countryside [14] and stay in a different place each night. We’d planned the route carefully, although we didn’t book anywhere to stay. We thought we’d find small hotels or guesthouses as we went.

The first day went almost exactly as planned. We left early, stopped for lunch in a village and arrived at the town where we wanted to spend the night in the afternoon. The problem started when we discovered that the road we’d planned to use the next morning was closed because of some building work. [15] There was another road, but it would have taken us several hours longer, so we decided to change the route completely.
That evening, we found a small campsite outside the town. Neither of us had planned to camp, and I hadn’t brought a proper tent, but luckily the campsite had a couple of small cabins. [16] They weren’t particularly comfortable, but they were dry and cheap, which was all that mattered at the time.

The next morning, we were ready to leave quite early. I picked up my bike and immediately noticed that something wasn’t right. One of the pedals had become damaged during the journey the day before. [17] I had some basic tools with me, but I couldn’t repair it properly. James suggested asking at a nearby garage, but it was still closed, unfortunately.
We waited for nearly an hour before someone arrived. The owner looked at the bike and managed to make a temporary repair. He told us it should be fine for a while, but we didn’t want to take any chances. So, instead of cycling, we put the bikes on a local train and travelled to the next town. [18] From there, we were able to continue our trip by bicycle.

We didn’t complete the original route, and the journey took an extra day, but I actually enjoyed the trip more because of the unexpected changes. [19] Before that, I always liked having a clear plan and following it exactly. This time, I had to accept that things wouldn’t always work out as expected. I think the biggest lesson for me was becoming more flexible.

Part 4

Interviewer: So, Peter, you’ve just come back from quite an unusual holiday. You spent three weeks travelling around the country only using trains. What made you decide to do that?
Peter: Well, I’d been thinking about taking a long trip for a while, but I didn’t really want the usual kind of holiday where you fly somewhere and stay in one place. I wanted to see parts of the country I’d never visited before, and travelling by train seemed a good way of doing that. [20] I wasn’t especially interested in avoiding airports, actually. I’ve flown plenty of times without any problem. And although I travelled alone, that wasn’t the reason for choosing trains either.
Interviewer: Did you do a lot of planning before you left?
Peter: More than I expected, actually. I had a list of towns I wanted to visit, and I knew roughly when I wanted to be in each one. Accommodation wasn’t too difficult because I booked most of it quite early. The complicated part was working out the train routes. [21] Some places looked close together on a map, but there wasn’t always a direct train between them. I spent quite a few evenings checking connections and changing my plans.
Interviewer: And did everything go according to that plan?
Peter: Not quite. On the fifth day, there were engineering works on the railway line, so my train stopped at a different station from the one I’d expected. At first I thought I’d have to find another way to get to my hotel, but there was a later train that took me there. The problem was that I arrived much later than planned, so I had very little time to see the town that evening. [22] I didn’t miss a connection, though, and I didn’t have to change my hotel.
Interviewer: Was there a particular place that you enjoyed?
Peter: Yes, a small town in the north called Bellford. I’d originally included it because there was an old railway station there that I wanted to see. The station was interesting, but what really made the visit special was a woman I met in a café. We started talking about the area, and she told me about a walking path along the river that wasn’t mentioned in my guidebook. I followed it later that afternoon and found a really beautiful old bridge. [23] So, in the end, it wasn’t the place I’d planned to visit that I remembered most.
Interviewer: You were travelling by train for quite a long time. Did anything surprise you about that?
Peter: The trains themselves weren’t particularly surprising. What I hadn’t expected was how many conversations I’d have with other passengers. [24] Normally, when I’m on a train, I put on my headphones and work or read. This time, because I wasn’t in a hurry, I found myself talking to people. One man recommended a restaurant in a town I was visiting the next day, and another passenger told me about a museum I’d never heard of. I didn’t spend the whole journey chatting, of course, but it happened much more often than I’d expected.
Interviewer: And would you do anything differently if you made the same journey again?
Peter: Definitely. I tried to see too many places in three weeks. I don’t regret visiting them, but sometimes I only had a day or a day and a half somewhere, which wasn’t really enough. Next time, I’d choose fewer places and stay for longer. [25] I might leave one or two days completely free, but I wouldn’t stop planning altogether. I actually enjoyed knowing where I was going next. And I’d probably travel alone again — that worked very well for me.