Listening audioscript

1. WHY DOES THE STUDENT GO TO SEE THE PROFESSOR? 
2. LISTEN AGAIN TO PART OF THE PASSAGE. THEN ANSWER THE QUESTION. 
(Student) 
Um, so I was thinking of doing The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest 
Hemingway, and, well, the thing is that, I can tell from your lecture on 
Hemingway that he isn’t one of your favorites. 
(Professor) 
Ah, yes, I suppose my opinion is sometimes too…apparent.
(Student) 
Well, I don’t want to write a paper that’s going to irritate you… 
WHAT CAN BE INFERRED ABOUT THE PROFESSOR?
3. WHAT DOES THE PROFESSOR TELL THE STUDENT ABOUT CHALLENGING 
HIS PROFESSORS?
4.WHAT ASPECT OF HEMINGWAY’S BOOK WILL THE STUDENT PROBABLY 
WRITE ABOUT?
5. LISTEN AGAIN TO PART OF THE CONVERSATION. THEN ANSWER THE 
QUESTION. 
(Professor) 
Do you have any ideas of what you’re going to talk about? 
(Student) 
I’m not exactly sure yet, but I think I want to talk about his iceberg theory.
I think it’s great how he wrote whole passages and then took them out 
deliberately.
(Professor) 
That sounds great, Jake. That’s one of the most fascinating things about 
that particular book. For me, some of those writing techniques almost 
make up for my dislike of the characters. 
H
OW DOES THE PROFESSOR SEEM TO FEEL ABOUT THE STUDENT’S TOPIC? 
Page 447
[ mp3 206] 
Questions 6 through 11. 
Listen to a lecture in a zoology class. 
(Professor)

So we’ve talked about human hearing, but now let’s look at how 
another animal hears. Instead of my usual comparison of human senses 
to the abilities of animals, I’m going to start today talking about 
adaptations of one particular species for a specific purpose. Today we’re 
going to talk about the barn owl, also known as the screech owl around 
here for the sound it makes, which many consider…um… a less than 
pleasant shriek. So, because barn owls are nocturnal – they hunt 

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especially mice and voles and rodents that are active at night—um, 
because they’re nocturnal they have amazing physical adaptations to 
help them hunt using their sense of hearing. They use hearing to make a 
kind of map of their surroundings, and in fact are capable of locating prey 
in absolute darkness. See their specialized hearing has made them 
possibly the most studied species when it comes to this sense– apart 
from us, of course. 
OK, let’s start with the obvious. Looking here at this picture of the barn 
owl’s face, you can discern two adaptations, one immediately. So, look 
at the heart-shaped pattern of the feathers of the face of the barn owl.
Can you see how they form two kinds of satellite-dish shapes? Well, 
they’re like this to funnel sound toward the back of the parabolic shape 
and into the ears, which you can see indicated here. So that’s an 
adaption that helps amplify faint sounds coming to the owl’s ears.
Now, an adaptation that many owls have in common with the barn owl is 
also visible here. See here how its beak is pointed downward in 
comparison to other birds? Well, the reason for that is the downward 
turned beak minimizes its interference with the sound coming into the 
owl’s ears from below as it hunts. It’s different from the beak of other 
birds because it’s important that it not cause sound waves to reflect or 
change direction before they reach the ears. See that would interfere 
with the ability of the owl to use sound directionality to form its map of the 
world in the dark.
So, how does the owl hunt in total darkness? Now, humans can tell 
whether a sound is coming from the left or right, just as owls can. The 
separation of the ears means that sounds arriving from one side or the 
other reach each ear micro-seconds apart, but this, along with the 
difference in volume is enough for our brains – and those of owls – to tell 
which side of the head a sound is coming from. 
Where barn owls have people beat is the fact that they can also 
determine whether a sound is coming from above or below the plane 
connecting the two ears. So, a barn owl looking down can determine 
exactly where, in the two dimensions of the ground, a rustling or squeak 
is coming from.
Its ears have a remarkable adaptation—a barn owl’s ears are 
asymmetrical. They’re at different heights in comparison to the ear 
canal, and what that means is that they affect sounds in different ways 
depending on whether the sound is coming from above or below, or if the 
owl is looking down, if the source of the sound is coming from nearer or 
farther 
OK, so the skin flaps block the sound differentially, and the owl’s brain is 
able to interpret this. If the sound is coming from below, the skin flap that 
is lower will block more of the sound relative to the flap that is higher.
And if the sound is coming from above, then the reverse will be true, with 
the skin flap that is higher blocking more of a sound coming from above.
It is the difference in how the sound arrives in each ear canal that the 
owl’s brain interprets to decide whether the source of a sound is above or 
below. Now of course, it does all of this automatically, without any more 
effort than you exert on distinguishing whether a sound is coming from 
the left or right. The result, when applied to the ground below the owl, is 

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the ability to pinpoint prey even in total darkness because of the added 
dimension. I mean, think about it. You hear left or right, but a barn owl 
hears left, right, up, and down and the result is something like a two-
dimensional audio map.
OK, so now there are other adaptations for hunting that the barn owl has, 
namely the feathers on top of its wings that reduce turbulence and allow 
it to fly silently. Furthermore, barn owls are territorial and it’s thought that 
they get to know their hunting grounds well, which obviously helps. But 
it’s this hearing adaptation that I wanted to point out as something that 
makes a barn owl’s hearing not simply more acute than a human’s but 
having literally an added dimension.