day-71-ielts-listening-practice

IELTS Booster Lab Listening

Day 71 IELTS Listening Practice - Group Project Roles

Section 3 speaker-matching practice with four contrasting voices, academic roles, opinions, reasons, research methods, corrected quantities, scheduling, and distractors.

Practice Instructions

1. Listen once without pausing.
2. Answer all 10 questions.
3. Check the answer key.
4. Replay the mistakes only.
5. Read the transcript after trying.
6. Write one weak point for tomorrow.

Questions 1-5

Which student makes each statement? Choose A. Priya, B. Lukas or C. Tessa.

1. I would be effective at monitoring deadlines and linked tasks.
2. I have suitable experience for processing numerical findings.
3. I want responsibility for making the presentation visually consistent.
4. I am concerned that two research methods could collect repetitive information.
5. Audience questions should be directed to the person with the relevant expertise.

Questions 6-10

Complete the project notes. Write ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.

6. Target number of completed student surveys: __________
7. Number of cafe managers to interview: __________
8. Name of the shared source folder: __________
9. Day for the questionnaire pilot: __________
10. Room booked for the full rehearsal: __________

Answer Key

1. A
2. B
3. C
4. B
5. C
6. 120
7. 6
8. evidence
9. Wednesday
10. B14

Distractor Explanations

• Tessa offers reminders, but Priya takes coordination because she can track dependencies.
• Priya can build the questionnaire and Tessa knows spreadsheets, but Lukas has statistical-analysis experience.
• Priya edits the report; Tessa owns diagrams, templates, and visual consistency.
• Lukas identifies the risk that interviews could repeat questionnaire information.
• Priya proposes one spokesperson before Tessa recommends routing questions by expertise.
• Eighty and 150 surveys, four and eight interviews, broader folder names, Tuesday, and C12 are replaced by confirmed details.

Transcript

Professor Chen: Priya, Lukas, and Tessa, today we need to assign clear roles for your group project on reducing food waste in university cafes. You have a promising topic, but the proposal currently says that everyone will help with everything.

Priya: We thought that would sound cooperative.

Professor Chen: Cooperation matters, but shared responsibility without named owners often creates gaps. Let us decide who leads each task while still allowing everyone to comment.

Lukas: Should we begin with project coordination? I can attend every meeting, although I am not always good at reminding people about deadlines.

Tessa: I can send reminders. I already use a calendar app for another group.

Priya: Sending reminders is useful, but coordination also means checking which tasks depend on earlier work. I am comfortable maintaining timelines and noticing when one late task will affect three others.

Professor Chen: That is a stronger reason than simply being available. Priya, would you take responsibility for monitoring deadlines and linked tasks?

Priya: Yes. I will maintain the schedule, record decisions, and flag delays before they affect the next stage.

Tessa: I will still add my design deadlines to the shared calendar so Priya does not have to chase me.

Professor Chen: Good. Coordination does not mean completing everyone else's work.

Professor Chen: Next, who should lead the quantitative analysis of the student questionnaire?

Priya: I can build the questionnaire because I have used the online survey platform before. However, I have only done basic calculations.

Tessa: I am comfortable with spreadsheets, but mostly for budgets rather than research data.

Lukas: I completed the statistics option last term. I cleaned a large dataset, checked missing values, and used R to compare groups. Processing the numerical findings would suit my experience.

Professor Chen: Then Lukas should lead data cleaning and analysis. Priya can construct the questionnaire, but Lukas must review the response options before the pilot.

Lukas: Agreed. Poorly designed categories would create problems that no statistical program could repair.

Professor Chen: What about the final presentation?

Priya: I can edit the written report so the terminology remains consistent.

Lukas: I would rather explain the findings than design the slides.

Tessa: Visual communication is my strongest area. I can prepare the diagrams, create one slide template, and make sure the fonts, colours, and chart styles remain consistent throughout.

Professor Chen: That gives Tessa clear ownership of visual design. Each of you should supply accurate content, but she will control the final appearance.

Tessa: Please send me charts as editable files, not screenshots. Otherwise I cannot correct labels or match the type sizes.

Professor Chen: Now let us examine your research methods. You propose an online questionnaire for students and interviews with cafe managers.

Priya: The questionnaire can show which meals students leave unfinished and whether portion size influences their choices.

Lukas: I am not fully convinced about the manager interviews. If we ask managers which food is discarded and how often, they may simply repeat the same information as the student questionnaire.

Tessa: That would happen only if both methods asked identical factual questions. The survey can identify patterns in student behaviour, while managers can explain ordering systems, storage limits, and why surplus food cannot always be reused.

Lukas: So the interviews should investigate operational reasons rather than produce another list of wasted items.

Professor Chen: Exactly. Lukas has identified a genuine risk of repetitive information, and Tessa has shown how to avoid it. Record a separate purpose for each method.

Priya: I will add that distinction to the methods table.

Professor Chen: You also need a plan for audience questions after the presentation.

Priya: Perhaps we should choose one spokesperson. That might prevent us from interrupting one another.

Lukas: One person may not know the detail behind every method. We could ask you to nominate speakers during the session.

Professor Chen: I will chair the session, but the group should manage its own subject knowledge.

Tessa: Then we can direct each question to the person with the relevant expertise. Lukas can answer about statistics, Priya about the questionnaire and schedule, and I can handle interview design and visual evidence. Another member can add a point after the first answer.

Professor Chen: That is more credible than one spokesperson attempting every answer. Tessa's suggestion should become your agreed procedure.

Lukas: We should practise those handovers during the rehearsal.

Professor Chen: Good. Let us now confirm the practical details. How many completed student surveys are you targeting?

Priya: I wrote eighty because that seemed manageable within one week.

Lukas: Eighty may leave very small groups when we compare students who live on campus with those who commute. I suggested 150.

Tessa: Can we realistically obtain 150 complete responses? Many people open questionnaires but stop halfway.

Professor Chen: That is the key distinction: invitations are not the same as completed surveys. Invite more than 150 students, but set a target of 120 completed surveys. That supports useful comparisons without making the schedule unrealistic.

Priya: I will change the target from eighty to 120 completed responses.

Lukas: I will prepare the data file for 120, but it can accept extra valid responses if we receive them.

Professor Chen: How many cafe managers will you interview?

Lukas: Four managers would be enough if we select cafes with different menus.

Tessa: I proposed eight because opening hours and storage facilities vary considerably.

Priya: Eight interviews may be difficult to transcribe before our analysis deadline.

Professor Chen: Use six managers. That gives you some variation without creating an excessive transcription load.

Tessa: Six is workable. I can interview three, and Priya can conduct the other three while Lukas monitors the survey.

Professor Chen: Fine, but use the same topic guide for all six interviews.

Priya: We also need a clearer shared-file system. At present, articles and interview documents are mixed together.

Lukas: I created a folder called Sources, but that name includes almost everything.

Tessa: What about Reading?

Professor Chen: That is also too broad. Create one folder named Evidence for journal articles, official statistics, and documents that support claims. Keep raw interview recordings in the restricted data folder.

Priya: I will create the Evidence folder and move only citable material into it.

Lukas: I will add a spreadsheet showing who checked each source and which claim it supports.

Professor Chen: When will you pilot the questionnaire?

Priya: We planned Tuesday afternoon with ten volunteers.

Professor Chen: I am supervising laboratory assessments throughout Tuesday, so I cannot observe the pilot then.

Tessa: We are all free on Wednesday after two.

Lukas: Wednesday also gives me Tuesday evening to test the routing between questions.

Professor Chen: Confirm Wednesday at two thirty. Five volunteers are sufficient for checking wording and navigation; you are not collecting final data at that stage.

Priya: Wednesday at two thirty, with five pilot volunteers.

Professor Chen: Finally, where will you hold the full rehearsal?

Tessa: I reserved C12 because it has a large screen.

Lukas: I taught a workshop in C12 last month. The screen is excellent, but the hard walls produce an echo, and audience questions are difficult to hear.

Priya: B14 has movable seats, a good projector, and acoustic panels. It is available on the Friday morning before our presentation.

Professor Chen: Use B14. A slightly smaller screen is less damaging than poor sound during a rehearsal that includes audience questions.

Tessa: I will cancel C12 and confirm B14 for ten o'clock.

Lukas: I will bring a sample dataset so we can practise explaining one chart without reading from the slide.

Priya: I will update the task list: I coordinate deadlines and build the questionnaire, Lukas leads numerical analysis, and Tessa controls visual design. Our targets are 120 surveys and six manager interviews.

Tessa: The shared source folder is Evidence, the pilot is Wednesday, and the full rehearsal is in B14.

Professor Chen: Good. Your roles are now distinct, but the decisions remain collaborative. That balance should make the project more efficient and make each speaker's contribution easier for the audience to recognise.

Mistake-Review Point

Attach each opinion to the speaker who gives the reason for it. Do not select someone merely because another speaker later agrees.