A guide giving a talk to visitors at Bridgeford Watermill, which is
IELTS Listening — IELTS Practice Originals, Listening Practice Test 3, 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 guide giving a talk to visitors at Bridgeford Watermill, which is now an arts and crafts centre. First, you have some time to look at questions 11 to 15.
Now listen carefully and answer questions 11 to 15.
WOMAN: Hello everyone, and a very warm welcome to Bridgeford Watermill. I'm Ruth, and rather than march you straight round, I'll explain what you'll find in each part of the building, so you can explore in your own time. Let's start right here in the cobbled courtyard where we're standing. It looks quiet now, but every Saturday it's transformed, this is where we hold our weekend craft market, with stalls from makers all across the county. During the week it's simply a pleasant spot to sit with a coffee.
WOMAN: Now, through that main door is the ground-floor gallery. A lot of people walk in expecting to buy their tickets there, but no, that whole bright room is given over to our gift shop, and I do want to stress that everything on its shelves is genuinely handmade by local artists, never bought in from a wholesaler. You actually pay for tours and workshops at the little desk by the entrance.
WOMAN: Next to the shop, in what was once the miller's own cottage, that low, beamed building to your right, you'll find our café. People are forever looking for it over in the main mill building, but it's the cottage, and it does wonderful cake. And immediately beside the café, the old grain store has been given a new life as our exhibition space, where we hang a fresh show of members' work every single month.
Before you hear the rest of the talk, you have some time to look at questions 16 to 20.
WOMAN: Right at the top of the building, up a rather narrow staircase, the entire upper floor is now craft studios. When we first reopened there were only six of them, but demand was such that there are now eighteen, and you can lean in and watch potters, weavers and jewellers actually at work.
WOMAN: Now, a few things people always ask. First, the mill's history, for centuries that great wheel outside ground the local wheat into flour, right up until the nineteen fifties. After decades standing derelict, a local trust rescued it, and the fully restored building reopened, as an arts centre this time, in two thousand and eight. Do note, by the way, that the wheel turning outside is not the Victorian original, that had rotted away completely, it's an exact working copy that local engineers built just three years ago.
WOMAN: A last word on a couple of practicalities. The café, as I said, really is in the miller's cottage, not the main mill and not the grain store, so don't go wrong there. On parking, we've no car park of our own and the lane outside is far too narrow, but there's a large public car park just across the road, free at weekends. And finally, our workshops, we run pottery, weaving and glass-blowing, and while all three are popular, it's the glass-blowing that books up fastest of all, so do reserve a place at least seven days ahead. Enjoy your visit.
That is the end of Section 2. You now have some time to check your answers.