The masked numeral in a listening task: 1,600 or 1,800 hours?
Listening comprehension mock, Modern Greek, 25 minutes. Candidates hear a twice-played radio interview with Eleni, coordinator of a time bank in Patras. In the line the item depends on, Eleni says: «Έχουμε εκατόν είκοσι μέλη και έχουμε ανταλλάξει χίλιες οκτακόσιες ώρες». The audio is clear on «εκατόν είκοσι», but the second numeral is partly masked by a bus horn; one candidate’s notes read “1.600 ώρες”. The next line is: «Βέβαια, κάπως έτσι τα μετράμε, δεν είναι ακριβής επιστήμη». The item asks: «Πόσες ώρες έχουν ανταλλάξει και πόσο βέβαιος/βέβαιη είσαι;» A second item asks why Eleni adds the comment about measurement. The candidate knows the vocabulary but tends to copy the first number heard and to ignore hedges. The exam allows two listenings and five minutes’ transfer; no dictionary is allowed.
1. Which figure should you enter for the exchanged hours, and how should you phrase your confidence? Justify with at least two independent checks.
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Decision: enter 1.800 hours, marked as approximate.
Reasoning:
- Phonological segmentation. The audible chunk is «χίλιες οκτακόσιες»; the masked part is the compound boundary. The stress falls on -κό- in «οκτακόσιες», not on the first syllable that would pattern with «εξακόσιες». The candidate’s “1.600” is a plausible mishearing because Greek hundreds are easy to confuse under noise, but the stress pattern and the vowel sequence point to οκτα-.
- Co-text arithmetic. 120 members and an average of 15 exchanged hours per member gives 1,800. That is not proof, but it is an independent plausibility check; 1,600 would imply an average of 13.3 hours, which is possible but less neat. Do not use arithmetic to override clear audio; use it to arbitrate when the audio is partly masked.
- Hedge. «κάπως έτσι τα μετράμε» signals that the figure is an informal total, not an audited statistic. The correct exam wording is therefore «περίπου 1.800 ώρες» or «γύρω στις 1.800», not a bare «1.800». The hedge does not license choosing a different numeral.
What to write: «Περίπου χίλιες οκτακόσιες ώρες· το συμπεραίνω από το ηχητικό και από τα 120 μέλη × 15 ώρες κατά μέσο όρο.» If still unsure, state the figure and the uncertainty explicitly rather than leave the item blank.
2. What does Eleni’s comment «δεν είναι ακριβής επιστήμη» do to the truth-value of the figure, and what follow-up listening strategy should the candidate use?
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The line is a hedge, not a retraction. It does three things: (a) it downgrades the epistemic status of the number from audit to estimate; (b) it protects the speaker from a follow-up demand for exact data; (c) it signals informality, which fits a radio interview with a volunteer coordinator. In the item, it should lead to «περίπου» or «γύρω στις», but not to «δεν ξέρουμε». The candidate should also note that the hedge comes after the numeral, so it cannot be used to replace the numeral with an earlier one.
A good listening strategy is to mark numerals with a symbol, note the stress, and wait for the next clause: Greek speakers often signal approximation with «κάπως», «περίπου», «πάνω-κάτω». The distractor “1.600” is attractive because the bus horn covers the compound boundary. The candidate should compare the stress pattern and the arithmetic, then commit to 1,800 with a hedge. In the answer, distinguish approximate quantity from uncertain identity: Eleni is fairly sure about the order of magnitude, less sure about the exact total.