Listening audioscript

THE STUDENTS DISCUSS TWO POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO THE WOMAN’S 
PROBLEM. EXPLAIN THE PROBLEM. THEN STATE WHICH OF THE 
SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEM YOU THINK IS BETTER AND WHY. 
SPEAKING QUESTION 6, Speaking Skill 16 
 
Example Question 6, Listening Passage A, Page 300
[ mp3 130]
Listen to part of a lecture in a Western civilization class. 
(Professor) 
The Persian Empire of the fifth and sixth century BCE was the first that 
brought the Greek world into direct contact with an empire that included 
Egypt, Mesopotamia, and extended even as far as India. For the first 
time, with part of the Greek lands under Persian control, ideas and trade 
goods could spread more freely from the lands of the Near East to the 
Greek city-states. And these city-states would become very influential in 
the formation of Western culture. Now, how the Persians managed to 
increase the speed at which goods and ideas moved can be traced to 

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LPREP IBT 3 E AudioScript 
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several policies that facilitated communication and trade throughout their 
empire.
So, as far as trade goes, the Persians were one of the first cultures to 
use stamped coins as money. They also partially put into place standard 
weights and measures, so people could use the same type of money and 
units of measurement in many different areas of the Persian Empire. 
Having these standard units helped make trade a lot easier. It makes 
sense, right? Because this standardization made it possible for 
merchants to understand what the different quantities and prices were in 
each of the different places where they were trading. And the Persians 
also built roads. Although they were originally built to help move military 
troops quickly, the roads also made travel and trade easier throughout 
the empire.
And, related to my second point, the roads also made communication 
easier. You see, news could travel much faster along the roads, and so, 
the Persian king had a constant stream of messengers bringing 
information to and from the capital and the outer edges of the empire. 
Communication was also facilitated by the eventual dominance of one 
language as the primary language of the empire. The diverse people 
within the empire spoke their own languages of course, but many also 
knew and used the primary language. With the same language spoken 
and understood across such a large territory, it made the spread of ideas 
much faster.