You now have some time to look at questions 28 to 30.
Now listen carefully and answer the questions 28 to 30.
Tanya:
Now, we should include a
summary of the progress of
the sustainability program, don’t you think?
Greg:
Yes, let’s go through it step by step. It all started
with a decision by the university management to do
something about sustainability. They needed some
broad goals, so they formed a steering committee to
come up with a plan.
Tanya:
Now I know one of the first obvious changes they
made was to revise the design guidelines for any new
buildings to be constructed on campus.
Greg:
That’s right. The student body is expanding so they
couldn’t afford to delay on that.
What they needed
next was someone who could take responsibility
for implementing all these policy changes, so they
appointed an energy manager for the first time. Not a
professor, but an administrator.
Tanya:
Hmm. It wasn’t just administrative reform though, was
it? I mean, the university also made changes in the areas
of research and learning, too. Look at the institute that
they formed.
Greg:
That’s true. There was a worldwide
search for scholars
to work there.
Tanya:
They’re now doing research that will make a positive
difference.
That is the end of Section 3. You now have half a minute to check
your answers.
Now turn to Section 4.
Section 4
Questions 31–40
You will hear part of a lecture given to marine biology students
about a small fish that lives in the Australian desert. First you have
some time to look at questions 31 to 40.
Now listen carefully and answer the questions 31 to 40.
Lecturer:
… so, let’s talk now about an unusual type of fish that lives
here in Australia: the goby fish. It’s a colourful fish that grows
to only about six centimetres in length. And while you might
think that all fish are skilled at swimming through water with
ease, goby fish can’t do so easily.
So how do they manage to
move around? Well, goby fish will in fact travel hundreds of
kilometres using the fast moving water during a flood to travel
more quickly. Scientists know this because they’ve tracked the
4
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DNA of goby fish in different locations and found connections
between them.
So why are we talking about this fish today? Well, it’s an amazing
little fish if we consider its habitat. It lives in the very dry desert
interior of central Australia, in rivers
and springs that come and
go depending on rainfall. It can even be seen in the little puddles
that are left behind when the rivers and springs dry up. Goby fish
are able to wait in the shallow water long enough to ‘leapfrog’
their way across the landscape when the wet weather returns
which is an ingenious way of travelling around. This makes them
quite different to other species of desert fish which often show
more isolated population patterns.
Amazingly, these little fish can live quite happily in extreme
environmental conditions. The waters the fish inhabit
sometimes contain three times as much salt as sea water
and the temperature of the water ranges from between 5
and 40 degrees.
Despite these hardships, the benefits for this
hardy little fish of moving to new water sources when the
opportunity arises are that there is less risk of overcrowding
and, as a consequence, there is more food to share around.
When it comes to reproduction and mating behaviour in
the spring and summer time it is the male goby who must
attract the female. After clearing an area where eggs are to be
deposited, the male goby performs a flashy little dance. Once
attracted, the female follows the male back to his nest which is
often under rocks on the river bed.
Once there she will lay her
eggs. Unlike most other species, it is in fact the male who looks
after the eggs. He fans them with his pectoral fins which helps
to keep up a supply of oxygen to the eggs.
The threats to goby fish are many. Of course there will always
be natural predation such as when birds make a snack out of
goby fish they spot in shallow water. But like so many natural
environments around the world, the areas that goby fish live in
are being altered by human activity
which poses a threat to the
tiny fish. Water is a precious resource in central Australia and the
use of bores that drill down to bring up underground water is
causing the level of the water table to fall and some springs are
even disappearing altogether. Furthermore, freshwater sources
are obviously important for livestock, but cattle often harm the
easily damaged margins of the springs. Some good news is that
a few springs containing desert goby have been fenced off and
some have recently been acquired as National Park.
Recent research into goby fish has come up with some surprises.
It is commonly believed that the large,
dominant males of a
species are the ones who go on to breed with the females. But
it has been observed that smaller goby fish pretend to be highly
aggressive and attack quickly when threatened. This causes their
opponent to retreat and so a fight is avoided. This intimidation
strategy increases the smaller males’ breeding chances as the
larger male is scared off before they can assess the real risk
posed by the smaller fish. This opens up the possibility that this
may also be the case for other animal species. Already, scientists
have found a jumping spider that uses the goby-like bluffing to
hold their ground against larger males
and it is expected that
other animal species will do the same.
That is the end of Section 4. You now have half a minute to check
your answers.
That is the end of the listening test. In the IELTS test you would
now have 10 minutes to transfer your answers to the Listening
Answer sheet.
