【正确答案】[听力原文]
EXAMINER: Good morning.
CANDIDATE: Good morning.
EXAMINER: Could you tell me your full name please?
CANDIDATE: My name is Jason Rock.
EXAMINER: Can I see your ID please?
CANDIDATE: Sure. Here you go.
EXAMINER: Thank you. That's fine. Now in this first part, I'd like to ask you some questions about yourself. Let's begin with work. What do you do?
CANDIDATE: I work in publishing. The official title I've got is a consultant. However, in this day and age, the boss pretty much wants you to do a million and one things. So apart from doing a lot of product training, I also get heavily involved in sales and marketing and also in part of the editorial work.
EXAMINER: What do you find difficult about your job?
CANDIDATE: The most difficult thing about my job is probably talking to, having to talk to lots of different kinds of people. So sometimes I have to negotiate deals with you know, school owners, have to talk with professors at universities who have PhDs. So you're really talking to people from all walks of life and so obviously you need to approach them in different ways and be able to persuade them in different ways. And even though it's difficult, I see it as a challenge and that's actually what I find quite interesting about the job.
EXAMINER: What have you learnt from your boss?
CANDIDATE: Well, most of my bosses they've all had a lot of experience in the publishing industry. They've been, you know, most of them have been in the industry for over 10 years so obviously they can give me a lot of market knowledge and give me lots of ideas and information about how to best go about my job. So it's pretty much the knowledge that they can provide me.
EXAMINER: OK. Now let's move on to talk about family. How do you spend time with your family?
CANDIDATE: Well, these days because I'm living abroad, I don't get to spend so much time with my family. But I probably go back home about once a year. When I do, we usually go on day trips or short trips away. The whole family loves the beach so it usually ends up being a beach trip down to the Gold Coast. Sometimes we get a houseboat and go fishing along the river, or in the evenings, we might go out to a nice restaurant or go to the casino.
EXAMINER: OK, what do your parents do?
CANDIDATE: Well, my mother, she works in the housing department for the government so she helps people; poorer people, underprivileged people, people less fortunate than ourselves, helping them find accommodation so they have a roof over their heads. While my father, he is a quantity surveyor so he estimates the cost of buildings and basically how many bricks and windows and electric sockets a building needs.
EXAMINER: Would you like to have a big or small family?
CANDIDATE: I think I would prefer to have a small family and I'd like to have a family when I'm quite young. So that way when I get older or not so old, I'm still young enough to enjoy travelling around the world and doing things that I wouldn't be able to do if I had children much later in life. So I think 2 is maximum for me.
EXAMINER: Let's now talk about pets. What kinds of pets are popular in your country?
CANDIDATE: Well, I'm not really a big fan of pets but I guess pretty much the same as every other country that dogs are quite popular. Where I live, people usually prefer to have bigger dogs or sheep dogs or Labradors, things like, dogs like that so they can take them on walks and go for a run and guard the house.
EXAMINER: Why do people have pets?
CANDIDATE: Very good question. I don't know. I don't wanna have any pet. I think it's too much responsibility and a lot of mess that you have to clean up. But I guess some people they might feel a little bit lonely at times, so they'd like to have a dog there as a companion. Someone, when they get home from work, they can vent their anger on and you know talk, pretend that they're talking to, I suppose, and just someone that will just quietly sit there and listen and not answer back.
EXAMINER: OK. Which animal would make the best pet?
CANDIDATE: For me, for someone who doesn't like pets I think the best pet is a fish because they can just sit, not sit, they can just swim in an aquarium. Swim around. They don't really bother you. You don't really have to clean up their mess. Maybe once a month you might have to clean the tank. And it's quite, it's actually quite calming just looking at them swimming around and hitting against glass walls.