Advanced Plus Mid-course test audio script

Mid-course Test. Listening exercises 1 and 2

Recording 9

Peter: This one intrigues me the most. I suppose it’s because there’s
such a massive discrepancy between what was originally
intended and the outcome. I mean, you don’t really get much
more of a contrast between a weapon of war and a children’s
toy, do you? So, the engineer was working on a meter
designed to monitor power on naval battleships, when he
dropped a tension spring which just kept bouncing around
when it hit the ground. And there you have it, the slinky. I
doubt that kids today are particularly interested in them, but
back in the day they were a must have.

Chloe: Most people know about Alexander Fleming isolating

penicillin mould by chance, but what really fascinates me, as a
research scientist, is the work which went into its mass
production. Two medical pioneers, Florey and Heatley
realised that Fleming’s discovery wouldn’t produce enough
penicillin to treat people reliably, so set out to find a strain
which could. One day a lab assistant called Mary Hunt arrived
with a mouldy melon from a local market. It transpired that
the mould yielded 200 times more penicillin than previous
versions. After enhancing it, the research team made it
produce 1000 times as much as Fleming’s first batches. It was
this simple process that saved millions of lives.

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 Advanced Plus Mid-course test audio script

Dave: My all-time favourite is probably the humble potato chip, or

crisps to us. The reason I really love this invention story is that
it shows how human ingenuity is often born from downright
frustration. The story goes that a chef prepared fried potatoes
which were sent back for being neither thin nor fried enough.
When this happened repeatedly he lost it, cut them as thin as
he could, and fried them until they were brittle. The customer
loved them, and ordered more. Thus, the simple crisp snack
was born.

Anja: I was fascinated when I first heard how the technology behind
the ground-breaking pacemaker was invented. There’s a
history of heart disease in my family, so this one has an
emotive edge to it, I suppose. John Hopps, the electrical
engineer who came up with the concept, was conducting
research into the effects of hypothermia on human tissue.
He’d been using radio frequency heating to restore body
temperature. At some point he realised that if a heart could be
stopped by cooling, then it could be started again by artificial
stimulation. It was a paradigm shift that has had profound
results.

Andy: Perhaps this one’s a bit prosaic, but it’s helped me out on
more than one occasion. Whenever I overturn a glass of wine
or spill a cup of coffee over the carpet, I say a little thank you
to Patsy Sherman. She was a chemist for the multinational
3M, and had been developing a rubber material which could
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 Advanced Plus Mid-course test audio script

withstand exposure to aviation fuels. During her experiments

some solution dropped on her shoes. As she continued her
work, this area remained dirt-free while the rest of her
footwear became stained. She decided to retrace her steps
through the experiment and eventually identified and isolated
a stain-resistant compound which we now know as
Scotchgard™.

Melanie: Well, I’d like to think that it’s true, but I’ve a feeling it’s one
of those apocryphal tales. Although I have read about it in a
couple of places, but you never know. Anyway, I like the idea
that an ink-jet printer was first inspired by someone resting an
iron on a pen which then shot out ink moments later. I think
that kind of serendipity, and the ability to connect ideas, really
marks out the best innovators.

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