Use of English Listening Test 1997

Announcer Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination, Use of English Section A Listening
Test 2000, Instructions to Candidates. You should have on your desk a
Question-Answer Book. Do not open it until you are told to do so, I repeat, do
not open the Question-Answer Book until you are told to do so.

Now write your Candidate Number, Centre Number and Seat Number in the
boxes provided on your Question-Answer Book.

(15 seconds pause)

You are reminded that all examination materials wilt be played ONCE only. The
test is divided into two parts: Part 1 and Part 2. You should use a pencil to take
notes on both parts. At the end of the examination, when you are told to stop,
put down your pencil and close your Question-Answer Book. You may not leave
the examInation room until you are Instructed to do so at the end of the
examination session. No one may leave early. Put your hand up now if you have
any difficulties. It is not possible to handle complaints after you have taken the
test,

(10 seconds pause)

Now look at your Question-Answer Book. Check that your Question-Answer

Book has no missing pages. Look for the words ‘End of Test* on the last page.

(10 sec—nds pause)

The test Is about to begin Keep your earphones on until you are told to take
them off Now look at page 1 of your Question Answer Book

(5 seconds pause)

Introduction.
Situation. .

Next month, you and the other students In your school will be asked to
participate in a survey conducted by a research team from an Australian
university. So that you can prepare for the survey, your. teacher, Is going to play
you a tape of a radio programme about the topics it will cover. She wants you to
take notes while you are listening to the programme and has designed a
workbook with note headings and diagrams in order to help you.

The radio programme is divided into two parts. In the first part you’ll hear an
interview with the head of the research team and her assistant, and In the second
part there’ll be a question-and-answer session.

Part I
 In this part you’ll hear an interview with the head of the research team and her
assistant.

You'll have 5 minutes to’ familiarize yourself with the note-headings for Part I
before the Interview begins.

At the end of Part 1 you’ll have 5 mInutes to tidy up your answers.

(5 minutes of Greensleeves)

TONE

Knight: Good morning! Good morning! Hope you’re all feeling relaxed, healthy and
bright. it's ten o’clock, it’s Sam Knight with you here again, and lime for Youth,
Health and Happiness, our regular weekly look at health issues affecting
teenagers in Hong Kong, and I suppose, many other places In the world too.
This week we'll be looking at the interesting topic of health-related surveys. In
the first part of the programme I'll be talking to Doctor Jane Brooking, and her
assistant, Doctor Keith Yuen, about the work they’re doing in this area - that is
specifically health surveys In schools - and then later on we’ll invite a couple of
Hong Kong ‘students to put a few questions to these experts.

First though, let me introduce Doctor Brooking from the University of Gosford
in Australia where she helped set up the Schools Health Observation Research
Team, known appropriately as S-HO-R-T, or SHORT for short. And with her is
Doctor Vuen, her locally-based assistant.

Brooking Hello

Yuen Hi

Knight Nice to have you both here with us this morning. So, Doctor Brooking, is this
your first visit to Hong Kong?

Brooking No, the University has sent me on several visits over the years.

Knight I see, and what've you been doing on these visits?

Brooking Well, on my first trip in 1990, which seems like a long time ago now, I reviewed
the research methods used in Hong Kong, that is, I looked at the methods used
to find out specifically about drug abuse. That didn't realty take me very long as
the research methods were fairly rudimentary at that time I also studied the local
education system — you know basically got to know the schools here and how
they work which was obviously very important and finally I interviewed some
students about their free time — er what they did in their free time their hobbies
interests that sort of thing

Knight And then you came back again in 1995 ?

Brooking 96 actually a year before the Handover This time I spoke at a conference on
drug abuse It was a fairly big conference held at a local university and it was
interesting to see how awareness of the problem had increased over the five
years in between. I also helped set up a local branch of the Research Team. The
local branch of SHORT is made up of a number of medical experts, one of
whom is Keith, who were fortunate enough to be given a government grant to
pursue research. At the end of the visit, I drafted plans for a school survey.
‘SHORT aimed to conduct this survey In Hong Kong schools at some point in
the late nineties.

Yuen: We're a little bit late, but better late than never.

Knight: And now you're back to help put that survey into action?

Brooking:That's right, though Keith has done the lion's share of the work getting it ready.
Before we go into details about what's in the survey, perhaps I ought to mention
why we developed it In the first place. There're several reasons why we need a
comprehensive and reliable survey like this. To begin with, the media always
focus on bad behaviour in schools. Many newspapers, for example. are full of
sensational stories about school kids shooting up with heroin or sniffing glue.
Normal behaviour is seldom reported or measured so we don't get the whole
picture. Another reason is to show that we, I mean, society, cares. This can be
done by asking schoolchildren questions and showing an Interest In their
problems. Finally, the results of the survey can then help with urban planning -
planning that can improve the community, by providing new facilities and such
like.

Knight: Presumably you based the survey on something similar that you'd tried out in
Australia?

Brooking:Uh-huh. The survey takes the form of a questionnaire, what we've called in
Australia, the Teenage Health and Behaviour Questionnaire.

Knight: What does health and behaviour actually cover?

Brooking:Well, that depends on the school year it's aimed at. When we start
work on the Questionnaire, we try to put down the basic questions
that we want to ask and identify which age group we think they are
most appropriate for.

Actually, if you're a student listening to the programme, you may want to note
down some of the questions and later on think about what answers you would
give to them.

Knight: Good idea. Hope you've got your pencils at the ready.

Brooking:One area that seems appropriate to all secondary school students is that of
smoking, for example. Once a student has Indicated on the Questionnaire that
they do smoke we ask them various things to find out about their smoking
 habits.

Knight: What, you mean something like how many cigarettes do you smoke a day?

Brooking:Yes, exactly. That's the very first question we ask. We then find It useful to ask
when they started. That way we can see if there're particular trends in particular
age groups.

Knight: Right, and then you go on to find out, say, whether they smoke high or low tar
cigarettes?

Brooking:Well, we don't really go into that kind of detail. What we do ask though Is what
their favourite brand of cigarettes is, you know, is it Marlboro or Kent, or what?
That can yield some very useful information.

Knight: What about with older students; what sort of health areas do you cover there?

Yuen: One section of ,the Australian Questionnaire deals specifically with drinking —
by that I mean drinking alcohol. Drinking is a significant problem in some
schools in Australia and we want to find out if there's any chance of a trend
developing In Hong Kong. What we're interested in here if they tick 'yes' is
where they get the alcohol from. Of course, It's Illegal far shops to sell liquor to
anyone under 18, but somehow teenagers still manage to get hold of it. One of
the other important questions we ask here Is why they drink. It's vital that we
establish whether the reason is peer pressure, or depression, or whatever. A third
question asks them whether they drink alone or with friends - put another way;
is their drinking a solitary or social activity? Teenagers who drink alone may
already be on their way to the first stages of alcoholism; those who drink with
friends may perhaps just be experimenting.

Brookirig:The same kind of questions can be asked about drugs, a subject which I think is
perhaps more relevant to Hong Kong, but what we tend to focus on first of all Is
what drugs they take. There're so many different kinds of drugs available today,
both natural and synthetic. The next thing we try to find out Is how do they get
hold of the drugs. Drugs are becoming more and more accessible and the ease
with which children are able to get hold of them Is quite frightening. A further
question In this section If they answer 'yes' is: how do you pay for them? Drugs
are not cheap and children who use them need more than their pocket-money to
pay for them.

Knight: Okay, now what about things like AIDS? I presume that takes up quite a large
section of the Questionnaire?

Brooking:Yes, of course. The sections I've mentioned before cover possible habits which
some schoolchildren may indulge in. but we do have a section relating to
broader health Issues In which AIDS figures highly. As the disease spreads,
getting the AIDS message across becomes more and more important. The sort of
questions we ask here may seem to be quite radical. To begin with, we ask them
to tell us what the causes of AIDS are... and believe me, some of the causes that
students come up with make you wonder what’s going on, if anything, in the
 way of AIDS education In some schools. Next we ask them what they
understand by the term ‘safe sex’ — what does It mean? I can tell you that In
Australia many teenagers become sexually active at a very early age, and we
want to know whether they're aware of what precautions can be taken. Another
thing we want to find out in this section Is what their attitude to homosexuality
Is, or to put it another way, what do they think about gay people. Many students
still mistakenly believe that AIDS is a disease which affects gay people only,
and of course that's not true.

Knight: Now, AIDS is obviously the most serious of the general health Issues which is
dealt with, but what other subjects do you cover in this area? Doctor Yuen.

Vuen: Diet, of course, is a very Important health issue, and certainly we need to be
aware of what young people are eating nowadays.

Knight: McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken, I guess?

Yuen: Well, yes, obviously we ask them how much fast food they eat, particularly as
there's so much available these days. Then, of course, we also want to know if
they eat fruit and vegetables. A lot of research has been done into diet over the
years and one thing that always emerges is that fruit and vegetables are an
essential part of everyone’s daily intake. Snacking is another subject we cover.
How often do they snack? I don't know about you, but even though I know it’s
bad for me I can't get by without a chocolate bar of some kind at some point
during the day!

Knight: Same here, I have one right before the show every morning with a cup of coffee.
Now, the sections you've mentioned so far seem to depend largely on asking
direct questions, but there're other techniques which you use in the
questionnaire, aren't there?

Brooking:Sure, we try all sorts of different formats. This Is partly so that we can make the
Questionnaire more Interesting for the students to complete. Otherwise the
students may not be motivated to answer it fully. Varying the format also means
we can control the information we get. If every question Is open-ended, we
would get so many different 'responses it would be impossible to recognize
general trends.

Knight: Can you give us an example of the kinds of formats you use?

Brooking:Okay. Let's take the section on TV-watching habits. Now, rather than simply
asking the students to list their favourite programmes, we give them a typical
daily TV schedule and ask them to tick which programmes they’d prefer to
watch. The schedule gives them a little information about some of the
programmes — not all of them — In case the titles are ,not explicit enough, and
that way we can see if people opt for the Same types of programmes. We can
also get supplementary information such as when students start watching TV —
sometimes it’s almost as soon as they get home from school — and also,
whether they watch TV after hours. By after hours I mean do they watch TV
after nine o'lock when TV channels start to show more adult programmes.
 Knight: And how about videos?

Brooking:With videos we used to provide them with a range of video covers and ask the
students to select the one that they found the most Interesting. But we found the
results to be a bit too wide-ranging to get anything useful from them. Later we
added reviews of the videos so that the students had more infotmation about the
movies, but again the Information we got was not as focussed as it could be. In
our most recent revision we’ve opted for a straightforward multiple-choice
format. This has allowed us to cover more diverse issues in a more objective
way. From the choices they make, we can get extra infcrmation, for example,
about’lhe degree of parental control over video-watching — parental control is
perhaps the most important factor regardIng children’s access to videos - and by
putting in very recent titles which are not officially available on video, we can
see how piracy has spread — pirate cassettes, CDs, etcetera, are a particular
problem in Asia, with Hong Kong being no exception.

Knight: The use of computers Is another area which Is touched upon, I believe.

Brooking:It certainly Is. I mean, let's take CD-ROM games to begin with. These are
incredibly popular now. In the survey we give the students information about a
variety of games and again ask them to make a choice about which one they'd
prefer to play.

Knight: So you provide them with reviews of the games?

Brooking:Well, that's one way of doing it, but not the way we do it. We did try just giving them the titles
and asking them to tick the names of the games they'd played, but now, instead, we give them
the box descriptions of the games, you know, what the manufacturers write In order to sell the
game, and ask them to make a choice based on that. From this we can also get other
Information, erm, we can measure the impact of marketing — what is it that the manufacturers
do that attracts young people to buy the games? Also, of course, we can see if there're any
violent trends in the students’ choices. Do young people prefer to play violent games like Doom
more than peaceful ones like Myst, for example? The kind of games people play on their TVs or
computers is believed by some to have a great influence on how children behave, particularly if
you think back to the tragic school shootings in America last year.

Knight: I never realized there were so many different ways of asking questions. Tell us a bit more about
the computer section, Doctor Yuan. Do you coveruse of the Internet at all?

Yuan: . Yes, we do. This section was developed because many students have PCs at home and spend an
awful lot of time on them. What we try to find out is which web-sites they visit. Once they've
listed those, or at least the ones they visit most commonly, they have to estimate how long they
spend on a particular site — sometimes they may spend hours, on other occasions maybe just
seconds. Then, If they spend time on a site we want to know whether they download any
information, or print it out. Downloading suggests that they'll use It for something, say, for
example, doing their homework. So the thing we next want to find out Is what they use the
information for.
Knight: It must be difficult keeping track of the sites young people visit these days.

Yuan: Yes It is, but it's interesting to see what the students write down. The lists they produce have
also revealed some additional information that wasn't the main focus of the survey. They show
how familiar children are with computers, often more familiar than adults, in fact. But another
more sinister thing they show is how some Internet sites target young people — I mean Internet
sites which post dangerous or Indecent materials Children are often targeted without them
realizing it the Net,.but also what, er , is looking for children on the Net.

Yuen: That’s one way of putting it, yes.

Knight: This is all fascinating stuff, and we’ll hear more about the Questionnaire In a short while,
though Doctor Yuan will be leaving us at this point. Thank you, Doctor Yueh. We'll be back,
though, after this short break.

Announcer:That's the end of Part 1. You’ll now have 5 minutes to tidy up

what you've written.

(5 minutes of Greensleeves)

TONE

Part 2

In this part you'll hear a question-and-answer session. You’ll now have 3 minutes to familiarize yourself
with the headings for Part 2. At the end of Part .2 you’ll have 10 minutes to tidy up your answers.

(3 minutes of Greensleaves)

TONE

Knight: Welcome back to the show, and we have a couple more guests joining us who I'll quickly
introduce. There's Angela Chu from Shek Kip P0 Secondary school In Tsuen Wan.

Chu: Hello.

Knight: And David Lee from the New Peninsula School in Hong Kong.

Lee: Hi.
Knight Thank you for coming this morning. Okay, now David and Angela are both members of the
Student Council at their respective schools and they're here to ask Doctor Brooking about the
Questionnaire and what uses it’s put to. I shall sit back and leave it to you. Perhaps you’d like to
start with the first question, Angela?

Chu Yes, erm. you said earlier that, erm, the survey has been through a number of revisions. Can I
ask why you need to revise it so often? I would have thought you could use the same one each
time.

Brooking The Questionnaire has been revised many times since it was first run in the seventies on schools
 in New South Wales. We think it's important to revise the Questionnaire because there are
always new topics which need to be covered, new issues of concern. Something else to bear in
mind is that attitudes change over the years, and we need to reflect those changing attitudes In
the questions we ask. For example, people think very differently about dating and relationships
these days compared to the seventies. We also like to try out new methods of research; I
mentioned some of those methods in the first half of the programme, you know, multiple-
choice, open-ended questions, that sort of thing. But I suppose the most important reason for
revising the Questionnaire is to keep people aware of health issues. You can't keep asking the
same old questions because people will just get bored. Awareness can really only be maintained
by taking a fresh approach on a regular basis.

Lee Yeah, I think it’s great that people are really talking about drugs and stuff now, and I think it’s
quite cool, you know, the way you talk about it in the survey. It’s like, we know you're taking
drugs so why don’t you tell us alt about it?

Brooking Actually, that's not the message we want to -

Lee -but the thing is, how dd you know the kids are telling the truth? That’s what I want to know. I
mean, some kids would say, yeah, I take drugs, when they've never even touched them in their
life. And if you ask them about sex and stuff, I mean they’ll probably say 'yes' because, well,
you know it sounds sort of grown-up.

Brookinh You've hit on a very good point there, a crucial one in fact. Obviously we want to make sure
that we get valid and reliable Information, so we have to have very strict guidelines on how the
survey is conducted, and perhaps I can say something about what these guidelines entail. To
start with, one of the requirements is that the teacher, I mean the teacher who administers the
survey, should be well-respected by the students. It really helps having someone they like and
admire. This guideline Is necessary because a well-respected teacher will be : able to create an
atmosphere of responsibility in the class. This atmosphere of responsibility will then encourage
the students to answer seriously. We also put a lot of stress on the fact that the responses should
remain confidential No one in the school gets to see a completed questionnaire, and when I say
no one, I mean all the teachers up to the principal. This is to encourage open and honest
responses from the students. Dishonest answers can really be a problem for us.

Lee Yes, I take your point, but the other thing I want to know is what use is the information? I mean,
people are still taking drugs and –
Brooking - Oh, I think we do a lot with the results. The research team can use them to raise drug
awareness, if you want to take that example. I mean, we can plan anti-drug campaigns -
campaigns at a public as well as a school level. The results may also lead to us improving media
coverage - the media can play a vital part in raising awareness.

Lee Oh, you mean stories about schoolkids dancing the night away on ecstasy?

Brooking (Slightly irritated) No, I don't mean that. I mean something more positive, like, for example
RTHK’s Teen Time, a programme made specially for teenagers. I actually asked Sam to provide
a Teen Time tape for me this morning so I could play you a typical excerpt from it. This one,
recorded in 1994, has a local expert from the Community Drug Advisory Council talking about
drugs. It’s a good example of how youth health issues can be dealt with on the radio. If I can ask
Sam to press the right button...
 (Tape plays)

Expert Hong Kong’s young people, as In every developing country, are seeing themselves as part of a
global community, er, they see that, er, taking drugs is becoming the norm around them and so
they foal that, er, they want to be in on it, they want to know about it. It's something new. It's
like a fashion. And whereas in, er, former times that fashion was trying a new beer, or a new
brand of cigarette, both of which can be as dangerous as illegal drugs...in fact, or, now, taking
some beer or smoking cigarettes Is an everyday type of thing which isn't looked on as being
risky, so if young people want to try something new and take a risk, It could be Illegal drugs
that they move into.
The drug which Hong Kong Is most well-known for is heroin, and I think this Is very
unfortunate because it means that the authorities, parents, teachers, er, often turn their eyes
away from all these other drugs which we’ve been speaking about and say, oh well, heroin is the
worst, heroin is the most dangerous drug when in fact heroin Is not dangerous In itself, It's all
the things that go around taking heroin like the er, illegal activity because it 's expensive er the
Injecting which can have risks of AIDS, the fact that, er, while you are under the influence of it
you can do very dangerous and silly things. Heroin is, In fact, Interestingly enough, sixty times
less poisonous than nicotine, which is what we find in tobacco. Gram for gram, If you take, er,
one gram of heroin, you will almost certainly survive. If you take one gram of nicotine you will
certainty die, but of course you never get one gram of nicotine you only get very small amounts
of It in each cigarette. So, gram for gram, nicotine is a lot more dangerous than heroin.

Heroin, er, Is one of the most difficult drugs to, er, get rid of If you become addicted to It ,er, It
can take months, .there are, er, usually relapses, er, you go back into using the drug again
and,er, it suppresses your appetite, so you become thin and, er, life becomes generally very
unpleasant. You usually have to steal to get it, er, because the cost Is quite high, 150 to 200
dollars per, er, dose or daily dosage In Hong Kong. Er, to get that kind of money, er, a young
person typically either has to steal or has to get involved In some other activity like running
drugs for. somebody else ,er, girls who get involved in illegal drug-taking often get involved
in prostitution

(Tape ends)

Brookinh There we go Some interesting points there, and a typical example of some of the health issues
tackled by RTHK s Teen Time

Lee Yeah but don' t you think kids might listen to that kind of thing because they ,er, they want to
find out about the Latest drugs. I mean, this week’s big hit is cough medicine, but you know, a
few years back everyone was sniffing glue, and then along came paint thinner...

Chu So what you re saying is that we shouldn’t talk about drugs?

Lee: I think it’s enough just to warn people,.,

Chu. (Irritated) Oh, right. ‘Don’t do this' ‘Don’t do that’. People have been following that approach
 for
years and things haven't got any better.

Lee: Look, all I'm saying is

Brooking:- I’m afraid I have to agree with Angela. We have to take a more sophisticated approach with
young people these days; To put it bluntly, we shouldn’t treat them like children. If we fall to
tackle issues such as drug abuse heed on. there can be very serious consequences for young
people. There'll be more teenage drug addicts, there's no doubt about that, and a marked
increase in youth crime — crime, as the expert just pointed out, is an inevitable part of drug
culture. Worse still, there’ll be more suicides, more kids whose lives have been ruined by drugs,
killing themselves as a result.

Chu One thing that does worry me a little is the directness of the questions you ask I mean some of
the ones you mentioned In the questionnaire like 'Do you drink?’ — that sort of direct question
may frighten students here.

Brooking Again, a very good point. When we devise the questions we have to think about the students’
culture, I mean the students we’re dealing with. What may easily be asked directly in Australia
or the West may have to be rephrased in the East. Also, the questions must be very objective -
it's no good If everyone has a different Interpretation of what the survey is asking. Finally, as I
mentioned earlier, we need to grade the questions. By grading, I mean we ask different forms at
school years different questions.

Lee: Okay, so the kids have behaved themselves and they've answered all the question honestly, so
how do they benefit from the results? I mean, what do they get out of the survey?

Brooking Oh, a lot. I mean, for example, the results can provide real data for class projects. This real data
is drawn from a summary of their actual responses.

Chu: Yes, I think we've done projects with real data in class..

Brooking And the projects themselves can have practical results. I mean, I saw a very nice example of
what can happen as a result of schoolwork based on the survey lust before I left Sydney. The
survey results had indicated a dissatisfaction with the facilities in the area, so a huge map was
put up in the school entrance hall with coloured threads drawing attention to places of Interest.
There was one which not only indicated the location of a youth club, but also ‘told you what
you could do there and actually gave you the name of someone who could show you round the
club.

Knight: Perhaps one more question from Angela?

Chu: Yes. I honestly feel too much time is spent on dealing with drugs. Do you think it’s true that
other health areas are neglected because of that?

Brooklng It's certainly true of the past, but hopefully not so true of today. I mean, if you look at what
we're able to do at a community level with some of the other health areas In Australia. I think
you’ll agree the survey results can have a wide-ranglng Influence. Where smoking is concerned,
for example we can find out if cigarette advertising is aimed at teenagers Two years ago a big
.American cigarette company was successfully sued because its advertising: Was dearly targeted
 at underage people. The information we get on drinking habits may. for example, be used to
review the law on the sale of alcohol. The government may want to review the law so that you
have to be 21 or above to buy liquor, as you do in many places. As for AIDS, well, many people
have strong prejudices about the disease and its causes. The feedback we get from the
Questionnaire can help us to stop such prejudices from developing.. •

Knight: And on that very positive note I'm going to have to bring the questions on the Teenage Health
and Behaviour Questionnaire to a close, Thank you very much to our special ‘guest Doctor Jane
Brooking.

Brooking Thanks for inviting me.

Knight: And to our two Student Council members for their., challenging questions. Sam Knight, here,
wishing you a good day and handing you over now to...

(Fade out)

Announcer That's the end of the programme. You'll now have 10 minutes to tidy up your answers. Keep
your earphones on until you hear the announcement at the end of the 10 minutes.

(10 minutes of The Blue Danube)

TONE

That's the end of the test. Stop writing now and put down your pencil. Close your Question-
Answer Book and leave it on the desk in front of you for the invigilator to collect. The music
you have just listened to is The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss. played by the Orchestra of the
Vienna Votksoper. conducted by Franz Bauer-Theussl Take off your earphones now and turn
off your radio.