Below you will find the transcript and answers to this listening practice.

If you have not completed this lesson, please do so before looking at the transcript or answers. Click here: Rainforest Listening Lesson

Transcript to Rainforest Fires Listening Practice

Use the transcript to listen and read at the same time. This is a useful way to develop better listening skills and improve your pronunciation.

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The Amazon rainforest—home to one in 10 species on Earth – is on fire. And as of last week, 9,000 wildfires were raging simultaneously across the vast rainforest of Brazil and spreading into Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru. The blazes are now burning in massive numbers, an 80 percent increase over this time last year. The fires can even be seen from space.

For the thousands of mammal, reptile, amphibian, and bird species that live in the Amazon, the wildfires’ impact will come in two phases: one immediate, one long-term.

Generally, in the midst of wildfire, animals have very few choices. They can try to hide by burrowing or going into water. They can be displaced. Or they can perish. In this situation, a lot of animals will die, from flames, heat from the flames, or smoke inhalation.

The entire ecosystem of the burning sections of rainforest will be altered. For example, the dense canopy of the Amazon rainforest largely blocks sunlight from reaching the ground. Fire opens up the canopy at a stroke, bringing in light and fundamentally changing the energy flow of the entire ecosystem. This can have cascading effects on the entire food chain.

Furthermore, environmentalists are also calling attention to the consequences that a burning Amazon—often called the lungs of the planet—would have on climate change.

Source: Read the full article at the National Geographic published Aug 23rd.

Answers

1. SPECIES
2. SPACE
3. AMPHIBIAN (This is not plural. If you wrote this as a plural, it would be marked wrong. You can see from the grammar in the question statement that this word needs to be singular: ” The fires affect thousands of mammal, reptile, ……..and bird species. ” – the words of each species is singular = mammal, reptile, bird” = singular. In this case, the following word in the list would also be singular. So, this isn’t just a case of listening skills, it is also about paying attention to grammar in the question statement given. Also note, if your spelling is wrong, the whole answer is marked as wrong.)
4. SMOKE INHALATION
5. FOOD CHAIN (note the word “food chain” is a compound noun written as two separate words. It cannot be written with a hyphen. The word count is only two – so you can’t use the word “entire” in your answer.)
6. LUNGS (This is plural. If you wrote it without the “s”, it would be marked wrong.)

I hope you enjoyed this lesson 🙂 Remember, this topic can easily appear in writing task 2 or the speaking test. For more listening practice, click here: IELTS Liz’s Listening Section

All the best, Liz

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Hi guys,

Below are the answers to the reading lesson based on matching headings about The Greenhouse Effect.

If you have not completed this reading lesson, please do it before look at the answers. Click here: Matching Headings Reading Practice

Below you will find the headings options and the answers.

Matching Headings Options

• i  Changing temperatures
• ii. The Greenhouse
• iii. Creating Global Warming
• iv. Use of a Greenhouse
• v. Our Choices
• vi. How the greenhouse effect works
• vii. Earth’s Atmosphere
• viii. Reversing the Damage
• ix. Effects of Carbon Dioxide

Paragraph A = ii

• The answer can’t be iv. The paragraph did contain information about how the greenhouse was used, such as growing vegetables. But that information was not the main aim of the paragraph, it was additional information. 
• The paragraph actually talked about what it was made of, what it was used for and how it works. The best title would be “The greenhouse” because it gave a clear overview of it.
•  

Paragraph B = vi

• The answer isn’t i because the paragraph actually explains that this natural effect keeps the temperature of Earth stable.
• The answer is vi which explains how Earth’s atmosphere works to keep our planet at a stable temperature.

Paragraph C = iii

• The answer isn’t viii because the paragraph isn’t not aimed at explaining carbon dioxide and in fact only mentions it along side other greenhouse gases.
• The answer isn’t ix because although climates are affected around the world, the whole paragraph aim isn’t to discuss climates in different countries.

Paragraph D = v

• The answer isn’t vii because the paragraph doesn’t actually discuss his research, but rather his opinion’s about what options we have to deal with our changing climate.

I hope you found this useful 🙂 From Liz. 

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Hi guys,

I’ve just made a new Matching Headings Reading Lesson for you.

Click here: Matching Headings Reading Lesson

I think this reading practice lesson gives you a challenge and will help you understand how to avoid difficulties with this type of question. I hope you find it useful 🙂

All the best

Liz

Below are the answers for the practice lesson on uncountable nouns. If you have not completed this lesson, please do it before looking at the answers. To view the lesson, click here: Uncountable Noun Practice Lesson

I’ve also put a link to a list of Uncountable Nouns under the answer key below.

Answers

1. Luck plays
   1. The word “lucky” is an adjective, not a noun. The word luck is uncountable and is never plural. With uncountable nouns the verb is always third person singular, which means you need an “s” (play =plays)
2. advice
   1. This is uncountable.
3. courage
   1. This is uncountable.
4. Economics plays
   1. The noun is “economics”. The “s” is part of the noun and does not create a plural noun. “Economics” is a singular, uncountable noun but it is irregular because it contains an “s”. The other noun form is “economy” and that is countable. The word “economic” is an adjective. The other adjective is “economical”. As you see, this word can take different forms.
5. wisdom
   1. This is uncountable.
6. employment
   1. This is uncountable.
7. equipment
   1. This is uncountable.
8. News is
   1. This is another irregular uncountable noun because it contains an “s” in the singular form.
9. pollution
   1. This is uncountable.
10. hairs
    1. This word is both countable and uncountable.  In most cases, it is not possible to count how many hairs a person has on their head. This means it would be uncountable when referring to hair on people’s head. However, in this example, the person was almost bald. This means it was actually possible to count each individual hair. This made the noun countable. You could also see that the sentence contained the quantifier “a few” and this can only be used with countable nouns. It was a tricky question and don’t worry if you didn’t get it right. If you did get it right – well done 😊

Uncountable Word List

If you would like to learn more about uncountable nouns. See my comprehensive list, click here: Uncountable Noun List

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Hi guys,

This is a quick email to let you know that my website is having technical work done Monday 5th Aug at about 7pm UK time. This might (or might not) cause disruption to my site.

Update: The technical work is now complete. Hopefully my website will be stable from this point onwards. Thanks for your patience and support.

I’ll post a new lesson on Thursday this week. If you don’t receive it by email, it means you need to check your spam folder and possibly subscribe again.

Thanks for your understanding.

All the best

Liz