Lesson 3

Listening

1. Listen to a speaker presenting his opinion about driving in the future. Look at the statements below and tick (✓) the points that the speaker thinks are important.

1. Cars are everywhere and people drive them every day. ✓
2. There are no good alternatives to cars at the moment. ✓
3. Some people believe that there will be alternatives to cars by 2030. ✗
4. There are problems with alternatives to cars, like flying vehicles. ✓
5. More and more cars are environmentally-friendly today. ✓

2. Read the sentences and listen to the speaker again. Underline the words he stresses and put a cross (✗) when he pauses.

1. I’m here today to talk to you about cars and tell you why we will not have stopped driving them by 2050. There is bad air pollution that comes from our cars every day. It's hard-perhaps impossible- to imagine that the air in our cities will ever be clean again.
2. Most people drive their cars every day. It’s hard, perhaps impossible, to imagine that people will have changed the way they travel so much that by 2050, nobody will be driving. Why is that? (✗) Because they will all be using less polluting fuels.

3. Listen to the speaker again. Complete the phrases he uses to show that he’s going to say something important.

1. The first argument I would like to make, and something we should never forget, is that cars are everywhere, everywhere. Just look around.
2. Another very significant point that I’d like to make is that it’s hard to imagine a good alternative to the car at the moment.
3. It’s important to keep in mind that more and more of the cars we’re making today are environmentally-friendly.