Listening comprehension - solutions

TASK 1

1. (they were) separated (and) adopted (A két szó bármelyike önmagában is helyes

megoldás!)

2. thousands of miles (away)

3. (their) surnames/family names

4. (they were) police officers / policemen

5. music

6. (in their) local communities

7. (their) sons

8. forty/40

TASK 2

9. B

10. B

11. A

12. C

13. A

14. C

15. A

16. B

17. B

18. B

TASK 3

19. B

20. B

21. C

22. A

23. C

24. B

25. C

TASK 1

The stories of identical twins' nearly identical lives are often astonishing, but perhaps none

more so than those of the identical twins born in a small town in Ohio, back in the 1930s.

The twin boys were separated at birth, being adopted by different families in two towns

thousands of miles away from each other. Unbelievable as it sounds, unknown to each other,

both families chose the first name James for the boys, although, of course, their surnames

were different. And here the coincidences just begin. Both Jameses grew up not even knowing

of the other, yet both sought law-enforcement training, and worked as police officers. Both of

them had a natural talent for music, and were quite skillful instrumentalists who regularly

performed in their local communities. Each married women named Linda, and they both had

only one child, a son each, whom one named James Alan and the other named James Allan,

with a double ”l”. The twin brothers also divorced their first wives and married other women -

both named Betty, and they both owned dogs which they named Toy. Forty years after their

childhood separation, the two men were reunited to share their amazingly similar lives.

TASK 2

Piggy-backing on a modified Boeing 747 jet, the 75-ton space shuttle Endeavour appeared

over San Francisco at around half past nine in the morning and some two hours later over the

landmarks of Los Angeles, including Disneyland, the Getty Center, Universal Studios and

Malibu Beach. It then landed at Los Angeles International Airport.

Endeavour, the youngest shuttle from a fleet that includes Atlantis and Discovery, replaced

the shuttle Challenger, which was destroyed in an accident in 1986 that killed seven

astronauts.

In service since 1992, it has made 25 trips, logged 198 million km in space and circled the

globe almost 4,700 times. In mid-October, Endeavour will parade through the streets of Los

Angeles as it makes its way to a museum. Los Angeles has ordered 400 trees to be cut down

and street lights and traffic lights are to be temporarily removed to let the space shuttle pass

through neighbourhood streets. There are plans for 1,000 new trees to be planted to replace

those felled. Endeavour will be on display from 30 October.

Last year, NASA, the US space agency, retired the three ships in its fleet after finishing the

US portion of the $100 billion International Space Station, a permanently staffed research

facility that is owned by 15 countries and flies about 402km above Earth.

The closure of the programme was ordered by the White House, so NASA could devote more

resources to destinations beyond low-Earth orbit, such as asteroids and Mars.

NASA is leading the design of a huge new rocket and capsule for these missions, but this

hardware is not expected to launch with crew aboard before 2021.

TASK 3

A group of nursery workers in central Denmark have made parents an offer that they

might find hard to refuse. They have promised to provide two hours' free childcare on

Thursday evening, so that the parents can go to bed and make more babies. I asked Ms

Lotte Nyman of the Grasshoppers kindergarten in North Fyn about this interesting new

initiative.

What is the real motive behind your rather unusual offer?

Well, a lack of young children means the future of local nurseries is uncertain. I am sure that

nearly half of the nursery's families will accept the offer.