A ranger giving a welcome talk to visitors arriving at a wetland
IELTS Listening — IELTS Practice Originals, Listening Practice Test 13, Section 2
{# No redirect, deliberately: the text above must be the same thing a reader and a crawler get, and the CTA is how a reader crosses into the timed app. #} Listen and answer Play the recording once, as in the exam, then see every answer with the moment in the audio it comes from. Start nowTranscript
{# Shown in full, as the review screen does after a sitting: it is the text a searcher is looking for, and hiding it would leave this page with nothing on it but a heading. #}Section 2. You will hear a ranger giving a welcome talk to visitors arriving at a wetland nature reserve. First, you have some time to look at questions 11 to 16.
Now listen carefully and answer questions 11 to 16.
WOMAN: Good morning, and welcome to Marshlands Wetland Reserve. Before you head off along the trails, let me give you a little background and a few important rules, because this is a working conservation site as well as a place to visit.
WOMAN: The reserve is younger than most people think. This whole area was once farmland, and before that, gravel pits, dug out for the building trade. When the digging stopped, the pits flooded, and rather than fill them in, a local wildlife trust bought the land in nineteen eighty-five and let the water and the reeds take over. So what looks utterly natural is in fact entirely man-made, and that surprises a lot of people.
WOMAN: Today the reserve is best known for its birds. In winter, thousands of ducks and geese arrive from the far north to spend the colder months here, and that's genuinely the peak season for visitors, not the summer, as you might expect. We also have a growing population of otters, though I'll be honest, you're very lucky to see one, they're shy and mostly active at dawn.
Before you hear the rest of the talk, you have some time to look at questions 17 to 20.
WOMAN: Now, getting around. There are three trails. The short boardwalk loop is fully accessible, flat and suitable for wheelchairs and pushchairs, and it takes about twenty minutes. The woodland trail is longer and can get very muddy, so sensible footwear, please. And the far trail leads out to our largest hide, the two-storey one overlooking the main lake, which is the best spot for photography.
WOMAN: A few firm rules, and I do mean firm. Dogs, sadly, are not allowed anywhere on the reserve, not even on a lead, because they disturb the ground-nesting birds. Please keep to the marked paths at all times, the wet ground off them can be genuinely dangerous. And do keep your voices low near the hides. Right, the café by the entrance does excellent soup if you get cold, and it's open till four. Enjoy your visit.
That is the end of Section 2. You now have some time to check your answers.