IELTS Practice Test 16 Listening

IELTS PRACTICE TESTS
LISTENING
TEST 16
IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com Practice Test / Listening
IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com
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Listening Test 16

SECTION 1 Questions 1 - 10
Questions 1 - 4
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.
Application for Social Security
Name: 1 .............................
Social Security Number: 2 .............................
Address: 3 .............................
Telephone: 4 .............................
Questions 5 - 10
Write NO MORE THAN ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.
Application (continued)
Status: 5 .............................
Number of children: 3
Type of accommodation: 6 .............................
Total number of rooms: 7 .............................
Monthly mortgage / rent: 8 .............................
Utilities monthly: Gas £35, 9 ................... £27,

Water 10 ...................

Questions 11 - 14
Choose the correct letter, A, B or C.
11 How will the people take the tour?

A by minibus.
B by walking.
C by golf car.
12 Originally Mount Pleasant was

A a retirement village.
B a farm.
C a golf course.
13 The developers thought that Mount Pleasant was a good site because
A there were a lot of retired people living in the area.
B there are great views.
C it's very close to the main road.
14 The tour guide says that Mount Pleasant

A has three main areas.
B has a great view from the golf course.
C has two main accommodation areas.
Questions 15 - 20
Label the plan below.

N
Lake with fishing and
W E
16 ......................
Outdoor pool S
19 ......................
15 .....................
Cafe Bar
17 ......................
The high point 18 ..............
20 ......................

Questions 21 - 26
Notes Single Mothers

Many people incorrectly believe that single parent families are a 21 .................. group.
34% of total in USA
22% in Canada
19% in 22 .................. and 22 ..................
Thirty years ago, single 23 .................. made up just 13% of the total
Percentage by race in the USA
22% 23 ..................
57% black families
33% Hispanic families
Women live alone because:
Did not have a 24 .................. when they became pregnant
Because their husbands have 25 ..................
They got divorced
Divorce rate has now reached 26 ..................
Questions 27 - 29
Choose THREE letter, A - F.
Which THREE factors does the speaker say help prevent teen pregnancy?
A Her level of ambition
B A high level of education
C A good relationship with her parents
D The value she places on herself
E A wealthy family
F Good friends
27 ...........
28 ...........
29 ...........
Questions 30
Write NO MORE THAN ONE WORD.

The number of women choose to be a single parent is growing probably because of higher financial
help from some governments, more jobs for women and a higher level of 30 .............. .

Questions 31 - 35
Notes - Social Security in the US
- 1930s - many old people were very poor
- Today - 12% of 31 ............. Americans are very poor
- 8th June 1934 President Roosevelt started the idea of a Social Security program
- 32 ............. 1935 - Social Security Act signed
- US Postal Service - sent out 33 ............. , collected completed forms, typed SSNs and returned
cards to the people.
- 35 million SSN cards produced in 1936-1937
- 1937 - 1942 People retiring got a single 34 ............. payment
- Ernest Ackerman, the first person, paid 5 cents and received 17 cents on the day he 35 .............
- Average payment at this time - $58.06
Questions 36 - 40
When did each event happen?
A In the 1940s
B In the 1950s
C In the 1970s
Choose A, B or C.
36 The Social Security program had very few changes ...........
37 Ida May Fuller died ...........
38 The COLA started to be reviewed every year ...........
39 Social Security benefits were paid monthly for the first time ...........
40 The COLA was introduced ...........

IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com Answers

SECTION 1 SECTION 2 SECTION 3 SECTION 4
1 John Carragher 11 C 21 relatively small 31 older

2 WK 87 23 44 E 12 B 22 Australia, Denmark 32 August 14th
3 313, Newborough 13 B 23 women families, 33 applications
Road white families
14 A 34 lump-sum
4 0364 5748 1724 24 stable relationship
15 Saunas 35 retired
5 married 25 died
16 paddle boats 36 A
6 apartment 26 29%
17 Residential Flats 37 C
7 8 27 A
18 Car Park 38 C
8 £470 28 C
19 Golf Course 39 A
9 Electricity 29 D
20 Village Hall 40 B
10 £14
30 acceptance

IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com Tapescripts

SECTION 1
MAN 1: Hello there. Please have a seat. So how can I help you?
MAN 2: Hi. Well, I lost my job last week ... I mean I was made redundant.
MAN 1: I see.
MAN 2: And I was told to come here to claim unemployment benefit ...
MAN 1: Right. Well, I need to take some details from you, then. First of all, can I take your name,
please?
MAN 2: John Carragher.
MAN 1: Sorry, could you spell your surname, please?
MAN 2: Sure, it’s C-A-R-R-A-G-H-E-R.
MAN 1: Right, thanks. And do you have your social security number with you?
MAN 2: Yes, I do. The company told me that I’d need it. Just a second ...
MAN 1: OK.
MAN 2: Here we are ... WK 87 23 44 E
MAN 1: WK 87 23 44 E. OK, I should be able to get your details on the screen now. Just a moment,
please ...
MAN 2: OK.
MAN 1: Yes, here we are. Can I just check some details with you? Are you still at Sandy Lane?
MAN 2: Oh no. We moved a couple of years ago. Our address now is Newborough Road ... 313,
Newborough Road.
MAN 1: OK. 313 ... Newborough. Is that N-E-W-B-U-R-G-H?
MAN 2: N-E-W-B-O-R-O-U-G-H.
MAN 1: OK. So that means you telephone number has changed as well, has it?
MAN 2: Yes. It’s now 0364 5748 1724.
MAN 1: 0364 5748 1724.
MAN 2: That’s it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MAN 1: Now, no doubt you’d like to know how much your will receive each month
MAN 2: Yes, that would be very helpful.
MAN 1: OK. So I need to check your situation. So first of all, you’re still married?
MAN 2: Oh yes. Very happily!
MAN 1: OK. And according to your records, you have two children?
MAN 2: Well, that’s changed. We have three now ... a baby girl just 6 months ago.
MAN 1: Oh, well, congratulations!
MAN 2: Thank you. Not the best time to lose my job!
MAN 1: No, not at all. So that’s why you moved house, was it?

MAN 2: That’s right we needed an extra bedroom.

MAN 1: OK. So I just need to ask you about your new place. Is it a house or apartment?
MAN 2: It’s an apartment, actually.
MAN 1: And how many rooms are there?
MAN 2: Well, let me see. There’s a living room, a bathroom, a kitchen, two toilets actually and three
bedrooms.
MAN 1: OK. And is it rented or did you purchase it?
MAN 2: It’s rented.
MAN 1: Right. Sorry, but I need to ask you how much the monthly rent is.
MAN 2: £470.
MAN 1: OK, and how much did you have to pay for utilities?
MAN 2: Sorry?
MAN 1: How much do you pay approximately for gas, electricity and water ... monthly?
MAN 2: Um ... gas about £35, electricity not so much about £27 and water usually about 14.
MAN 1: OK, please just give me a few minutes while I calculate the benefit you should receive ...

SECTION 2
Well, a very good morning everyone. My name’s Brian. I’ll be your guide on this tour of the Mount
Pleasant Retirement village. I trust you won’t mind getting in and out of the golf cars. They do save on
the walking and they’re much easier to get around on than using the minibus.
Just a little bit of background information before we set off. The Mount Pleasant area was previously
used for farming until about 8 years ago. The farmer wanted to retire and so he sold of the land
including the farm buildings. The farm buildings have been converted to the retirement flats and
we’ll have a close look at those at the end of the tour.
The developers felt that this was an ideal location for a retirement village. The location makes it
extremely convenient to get to most of the places retired people in this area like to visit ... at the same
time it’s also not too close to the main roads so it’s not at all a noisy area ... but the main reason was
for the spectacular landscape you can see all around you ... from up here.
The layout of the village itself can be divided into three areas. You have, as I mentioned, the
commercial area behind us at the moment, where you have the local supermarket, coffee shops and a
few other shops ... in front of us we can see the highest point of the area and the gardens around it ...
and then between the two, you have the residential area. The golf course is over to the right but we’ll
get a better view of that and everything else from the high point, so let’s go there now ...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So here we are at the high point and from here we can get a very clear understanding of the layout of
the village. On the west side you can see a few small buildings with an outdoor pool and those are in
fact Finnish style saunas. If you look to the left of those you can see another small building with
chairs outside and that’s a café bar where you can relax after your sauna and enjoy the scenery.
In front of us you can all see the lake ... and on the right hand side there’s an area reserved for
fishing ... nobody there at the moment it seems ... and on the opposite side there’s a paddle boat area ...
great fun and good exercise, too.
Then moving round to the east side, you can see first of all the residential flats and the car park
behind them, and then just north of the flats and the car park you can see the entrance to the golf
course.
OK, just a couple of other buildings to point out to you. If we look directly south ... just a short walk
from the flats ... you can see a windy path ... and that leads to the village hall ... it’s there where most
of the evening events are held ... dances and shows ... also sometimes they have a small Saturday
market there and it’s also used for meetings as well ... Then over to your ...

SECTION 3
GUEST: Well, as I’m sure you all know, I was invited here today to talk about single parenting.
In fact most of the single parents in the world today are single women, and so I will be
focussing mainly on single women, rather than single parents. Please feel free to ask
any questions as we go through. First of all, you may find some of the statistics I’m
going to throw at you rather surprising. Contrary to popular opinion, single parent
families do not make up a relatively small percentage of the total.
STUDENT 1: Sorry, so would you be able to tell us what percentage of all families are single women
families?
GUEST: Yes indeed. Let me give you some figures from around the world. Currently the US has
the highest percentage at 34% of the total. In Canada the figure is somewhat lower,
there it’s about 22%. Turning to Europe, for Austria and Denmark, for example, the
figures are about the same, around 19%. So you can see that this is not a small group,
in fact they are making up just under a quarter to one third of the total.
STUDENT 2: So, has this always been the case?
GUEST: Well, it certainly wasn’t the case in the States thirty years ago. At that time, there were
only 13% of families headed by a single woman.
STUDENT 2: I see.
GUEST: There is also quite a marked variation in the numbers depending on race, which you
might find of interest. Again these figures are just for the US ... currently the
proportion of white families headed by a single mother is about 22%, whereas for
black families the figure is about 57%, and for Hispanic families the percentage of
single mothers is around 33%. As I say, those figures are for the States.
STUDENT 1: So, what do people think are the main reasons for these fairly high numbers? I mean,
not all of these single parents want to be single parents, right?
GUEST: Well, that’s right. There are some of course who do, but I’ll come back to that group
later. But there are of course many reasons why women are left on their own. In fact
sometimes they are not ‘left’ because they were never in a stable relationship in the
first place ... there are a considerable number of out-of-marriage births. And then
there are a number of single mothers who are widows but again this is not a large
percentage. The single biggest factor is, as you may expect, increases in the divorce
rate. Back in the sixties it was under 10% for couples under 30. That figure increased
gradually until it reached about 29% five years ago ... since then the figure has fallen
slightly to about 24% ...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GUEST: The other aspect of single parenting which you might be interested in is the number of

teenage mothers ... these figures are quite alarming ... at the moment teens account for
around 15% of all births in the United States. And worldwide, adolescents give birth to
around 14 million children annually!
STUDENT 1: 14 million! That is a bit shocking. So what are the main factors which contribute to
teen pregnancy?
GUEST: There are many factors. One of the main factors of course is poverty. And another
major contributor is education or rather the lack of it ... particularly with respect to
contraception. And there are other factors which play a part. For instance, the
perception that many female teens have of their being very few opportunities available
to them ... or the lack of an adult role model, someone they can look up to ... also peer
pressure ...
STUDENT 2: There seem to be so many problems. Are there any solutions?
GUEST: Well, there are longer-term solutions, yes ... and most of them rely on education. A girl
is much less likely to get pregnant if ... for instance ... she has close family ties ... so
again we see how the importance of a strong family comes into it. In addition, if a girl
has aspirations for the future ... or high expectations of life ... then again she is far less
likely to become pregnant ... high self-esteem also plays a very significant part and that
comes, as we know, from both good schooling and good parenting.
STUDENT 1: You mentioned a group of women who choose to be single mothers.
GUEST: Yes, I did. And I think it’s definitely worth mentioning that this group is significant in
terms of numbers, and is growing. I suppose there are two sub-groups here, women
who choose to raise their own children by themselves, and more recently, those who
IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com choose to adopt. It is becoming easier for these women as a result of probably three
changes: an increase in child benefit payments from the state; an increase in the
employment opportunities for women in today’s society; and a growing acceptance by
society of this kind of family ...

SECTION 4
Good morning everyone. I’ve been invited here today to talk briefly about the social security system
in the US. Now clearly, we don’t have time to go into too much detail so I shall cover what I believe to
be the main points and, of course, I’ll be happy to take any questions at the end.
Right, one of the great social and economic successes of the early 20th century was the effort to pass
meaningful social insurance laws. In the 1930s, being old all too often also meant being poor. The
Social Security Act of 1935 helped change all of that. Today, thanks largely to Social Security, people
know that they will have a dependable source of income when they retire. In fact these days, only
about 12 percent of older Americans fall below the poverty line.
So it was, on June 8, 1934, that President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced his intention to provide a
program for Social Security and in January 1935 a committee responsible for the new program made
its report to the President. On January 17, the President introduced the report to both Houses of
Congress for their simultaneous consideration. Each House passed its own version, but eventually the
differences were resolved and the Social Security Act was signed into law on August 14, 1935. In
addition to several other provisions of general welfare, the new Act created a social security program
designed to pay retired workers aged 65 or above a continuing income after retirement.
The first, monumental task was the need to register employers and workers before January 1, 1937.
This was the date when workers would begin acquiring credits towards old-age security benefits.
Actually, the task was carried out by the U.S. Postal Service. They were able to distribute the
applications at the beginning of November 1936. The post offices then collected the completed forms,
typed the Social Security number cards, or SSN cards, and returned the cards to the applicants. The
applications were then forwarded to the Social Security Bureau processing centre, which was located
in Baltimore. There, the numbers were registered and various employment records established. Over
35 million SSN cards were issued using this procedure in 1936 / 1937.
Under the 1935 law, monthly benefits would start in 1942. From 1937 to 1942, it was agreed that
Social Security was to pay benefits to retirees in the form of one single, lump-sum payment. The
earliest reported applicant for a lump-sum payment was a retired Cleveland tram driver named
Ernest Ackerman. Ernest retired one day after the Social Security program began. During his one day
of participation in the program, a nickel, or perhaps I should say 5 cents, was taken from Mr.
Ackerman’s pay for Social Security, and upon retiring, he received a lump-sum payment of 17 cents,
The average payment during this period was $58.06. The smallest payment ever made was just 5
cents.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first payments of monthly benefits began in January 1940. On January 31, 1940, the very first
monthly retirement cheque was issued to a retired secretary, a lady by the name of Ida May Fuller,
from Vermont. The amount was just $22.54. Miss Fuller died in January 1975, at the age of 100.
During her 35 years as a beneficiary, she received about $22,000 in benefits.
From 1940 until 1950, virtually no changes were made to the Social Security program due to the
program still being in its infancy. Social Security’s retirement payments were very low, In fact, until
1951, only about 50 percent of American workers were covered under the program.
In 1950 though, major amendments were made. These amendments raised payouts for the first time,
and put the program on the right track for universal acceptance across the States.
Also included in the 1950 amendments, was new legislation concerning the first COLA or Cost of
Living Allowance. These annual rises in Social Security benefits designed to keep up with inflation
are now something that most people take for granted. But, in fact, when Ida May Fuller took receipt
of her first $22.54 benefit, in January of 1940, this was the monthly amount she expected to receive
for life. It’s not surprising that, when the first COLA was implemented,10 years later, it produced a
79% increase in the value of the monthly benefits.
From then on, benefits were increased but only when Congress endorsed special legislation. It wasn’t
until 1972 that the law was changed to make annual COLAs standard practice and even then the
system didn’t start until 1975.
Fortunately, these days, beneficiaries no longer have to wait for a special act of Congress to receive a
benefit increase and no longer does inflation drain value from Social Security benefits ...


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Application for Social Security

Social Security Number: 2 .............................

Type of accommodation: 6 .............................

Total number of rooms: 7 .............................

Monthly mortgage / rent: 8 .............................

Utilities monthly: Gas £35, 9 ................... £27,

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11 How will the people take the tour?

12 Originally Mount Pleasant was

14 The tour guide says that Mount Pleasant

Label the plan below.

The high point 18 ..............

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Notes Single Mothers

Choose THREE letter, A - F.

Write NO MORE THAN ONE WORD.

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Notes - Social Security in the US

- 1930s - many old people were very poor

- Today - 12% of 31 ............. Americans are very poor

- 32 ............. 1935 - Social Security Act signed

- 1937 - 1942 People retiring got a single 34 ............. payment

- Average payment at this time - $58.06

© IELTS-PRACTICE-TESTS.com, All Rights Reserved.

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SECTION 1 SECTION 2 SECTION 3 SECTION 4

1 John Carragher 11 C 21 relatively small 31 older

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MAN 2: That’s right we needed an extra bedroom.

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