Listening Practice- Part 2- Sentence Completion

Part 2

You will hear a radio programme about a day in the life of a television researcher. For questions 9-18,  complete the sentences.

Check your answers⇓.

Answer Key

9. biology
10. media studies
11. Costa Rica
12. twelve (12)
13. frog
14. waterfall
15. tuna
16. torch
17. ‘Sun Gun’
18 scared

Script

You will hear a radio programme about a day in the life of a television researcher. For questions 9-18, complete the sentences.
Hi. My name’s Rita Lewis and I’ve come along today to tell you about my work. I’m a researcher on a television programme and I’m going to tell you about a typical working day in my job. Well, quite an exciting day actually.
But first of all, I should explain that I work on a wildlife programme. I’ve always been interested in the sciences and animals in particular, and I did my first degree in biology before going on to specialise in zoology in my second degree. My degree subjects are invaluable in my job as they help me to plan things like deciding which animals to film, where to find them and how to approach them. But I also did a post-graduate course in what’s known as media studies that prepared me specifically for the television work, and it was the combination of the two things that really got me the job.

The job has taken me to a variety of countries including South Africa and Australia, but the day I’m going to tell you about was last winter, when I was in Costa Rica. I was in the jungle doing some filming for the programme.
I woke up at five-thirty in my room at the Corcovado National Park research centre. Before setting off we had to pack up our filming gear, which weighs fifty kilos, and head out to the first location. Fortunately there are twelve of us in the team, including three cameramen and a local guide. So we could share the load between us.
For this particular TV series the presenter, who’s called Jamie, had to complete a variety of difficult wildlife challenges. You know the sort of thing, communicating with wild monkeys, eating insects, etc. Anyway, that morning he had to photograph a poisonous type of frog, and that meant getting pretty close. The animals are not that hard to find, and fortunately our guide found one very quickly. I had to hold it very carefully, though, while Jamie got his camera ready. For me this is the best part of the job, when I get to interact with the animals.
Our first location was on top of a thirty-metre high waterfall. First of all we wanted to film Jamie abseiling over the edge. Next we needed to get a shot of the same action from below. We can’t risk sending the camera down on ropes, so we have to walk for an hour-and-a-half hike through heavy jungle to the pools beneath.
By the time we’d done that it was lunchtime. Some of the crew tucked into chicken legs and cheese sandwiches, but I’d got tuna in mine, which was fine for me. I ate them on a completely empty, beautiful beach, and they tasted like the best sandwiches ever.

After lunch, the team relaxed for the afternoon, before the evening’s filming. Jamie’s next challenge was to cross a river where crocodiles live. The river is near the sea, so we had to wait for the right tides. You need to use a torch to spot the crocodiles’ red eyes glowing in the dark and make sure they’re not too close before you set out across the river.
We found a safe place to film and set up our lights. We were using what we call a ‘Sun Gun’ light, which is used to film in large areas at night. Jamie was just about to step into the water when the light went out. Fortunately we had a smaller standby light, so we taped that onto the camera. We shone the new light over where Jamie was about to step. There, right in front of him was a 3-metre-long crocodile. It must have come up from under the water while we were changing our equipment. That was close.
We moved upstream where the water was lower. Jamie finally crossed, but when you see the programme, you’ll see he looks genuinely scared on screen, which is unusual for him as he’s usually really calm and relaxed on camera, whatever he’s doing. So it was an exciting day. For me, getting out in the wild is the best part of the job.