ICAO Aviation English Proficiency Evaluation

Practice Materials
Part G - Story Retelling

In the Story Retelling task, the test taker listens to an orally presented aviation scenario and is
then asked to describe what happened in his or her own words. The scenarios are several
sentences long and describe one or more characters, a situation, and an outcome. The test
taker must identify words in phonological and syntactic context, extract key information, and
then paraphrase the relevant information in an informative, extended response of 30 seconds.
Scoring of the Story Retelling responses focuses on the test taker’s vocabulary range as well as
on the test taker’s ability to relate the relevant information in an informative manner.

Subskills covered in this section:

pronunciation vocabulary

fluency comprehension

structure interactions
Listen carefully to the stories. At the conclusion of each story, you have 30 seconds to retell what happened.

Most of the flight between Tokyo and Hawaii was calm. An hour into the flight, the pilot encountered a line of
storms which she had to fly over. The flight became bumpy and the passengers were nervous but the flight
attendants kept everyone in their seats. After a few minutes, the plane cleared the storms and the rest of the
flight was smooth. Several hours later, the plane arrived safely in Hawaii.

A passenger on the flight began choking on a piece of food. The flight attendants attempted to administer the
Heimlich maneuver but were unable to dislodge the food. After a few minutes, a fellow passenger identified
himself as a doctor and began first aid procedures. He succeeded in removing the food from her airway and the
remainder of the flight continued normally, with the passenger under observation by the flight crew.

There was a strike by the ground crew at the Paris airport. Replacement staff were called in from surrounding
airports but their lack of familiarity with the Paris airport caused many flight delays. Angry passengers
approached the crew to complain but the crew said they had no control over the situation. A New York-bound
flight departed three hours late, while a Toulouse-bound flight was delayed for six hours.

Air traffic controllers were faced with a sudden power outage that limited their ability to direct incoming flights.
The back-up generator was not working, and all flights were kept in a holding pattern for 30 minutes while
electricians came to fix the generator. Finally, the control tower resumed normal activity.

A female passenger was about to board the plane when she realized she had lost her passport. She suspected
she had left it on a seat in the boarding area, but it was not there. A flight attendant saw her Duty Free bag and
suggested that she quickly check the Duty Free shop for her missing document. Finally, the relieved woman
found the passport in the shop and was able to make her flight.

One of the flight attendants noticed that a passenger had been in the lavatory for a very long time. Growing
concerned, she knocked on the door but received no answer. After several minutes and failed contact attempts,
crew members unlocked the door and found that a man had fallen unconscious over the sink. They were able to
revive him and found out that he had slipped into a diabetic coma. He recovered after being given a glucose
injection and the flight was not diverted.

After taking off from the Dubai airport, the pilot's windshield was impacted by a bird. The strike caused a crack in
the windshield and the pilot decided to stop the climb and attempt to land the disabled plane. The plane entered
a hold to burn off fuel until it was safe to land. They returned to Dubai and landed approximately 45 minutes
after departure.

An airplane was in the initial climb out of Bangalore when there was smoke in the cabin. Passengers noticed that
there were flames coming from one of the engines. The crew shut down the engines and activated the fire
suppression system, the plane then returned to Bangalore for a safe landing about fifteen minutes after takeoff.
The passengers were evacuated and the fire department put out the engine fire. There were no injuries.
There were storms in the area of a flight from Indonesia to Hong Kong. The pilot requested additional fuel for
weather diversion and advised the flight attendants to make sure that passengers stayed in their seats. Although
the radar indicated a clear path, the plane did hit a severe patch of turbulence for two minutes. During this time,
three flight attendants and eleven passengers were injured. The plane returned to Indonesia for the injured
people to seek treatment.

A flight from Capetown to Durban was denied landing clearance due to traffic congestion. The crew decided to
return to Capetown. A passenger on the flight became very angry because he wanted to see a football match
that was being played in Durban. He assaulted and screamed at the flight crew, who blocked access to the
cockpit because they worried he would try to enter. The pilots requested priority landing at Capetown and after
the flight landed, the man was arrested for his unruly behavior.

A holiday flight from New York to Paris was delayed several times. Each time, the passengers were given a new
boarding gate and had to move. After the third delay and gate change, passengers started to get very angry and
yelled at the crew. The crew explained that the delays were out of their control and a result of the airport being
very busy due to the holidays. The flight finally departed three hours later than scheduled.

An aircraft flying from Florida to Los Angeles made an unscheduled landing in Texas due to a medical emergency.
A male diabetic passenger suffered a heart attack and became unresponsive and unconscious. A nurse on board
gave the man CPR as they waited for the plane to land. After the plane landed the man was taken to the hospital
in critical condition.

An airplane was cleared for takeoff and began taxiing down runway 27R. The air traffic controller then realized he
had made a mistake and scheduled another aircraft to land on a runway that intersects 27R. The air traffic
controller canceled the takeoff clearance when the airplane was already at high speed and apologized to the
pilot for his error.

While landing an aircraft, the pilot saw a drone about 50-100 meters away. There was no time for the pilot to
make any evasive maneuvers and the plane continued and landed safely. The pilot immediately reported the
incident to air traffic control. Police were unable to find the operator of the drone.

During a flight from Singapore to Indonesia, the passenger oxygen masks were suddenly released. The
passengers were very surprised, as there was no obvious reason for the release of the masks. The crew
performed a normal descent to FL200 and returned to Singapore 50 minutes after the masks came down.

While pre-boarding a flight to Dallas, the flight attendant noticed that an elderly man in a wheelchair appeared
to have problems breathing. She alerted the airport's staff, who called a medical doctor to check whether the
man was fit to fly. The doctor concluded that the man should not board the airplane, and he was taken to a local
hospital for treatment. The rest of the passengers boarded the flight like normal and it departed with a 30
minute delay.