Bakery Shifts and a Bicycle: Working Out What Ken Can Afford
On the audio, Ken, a second-year high school student, is talking with his friend Mika after school. Ken works at Green Bakery every Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and is paid ¥1,100 an hour. He wants to buy a used bicycle that costs ¥15,000 and hopes to buy it on July 19. Today is June 7, and there are six Saturdays between today and July 19. Ken tells Mika that he will miss two of those Saturdays because of baseball games. He also says, 'My manager asked me to stay until 2:00 from next month, but I said I would think about it.' Mika answers, 'That's up to you - but you know the extra hours are paid at the same rate, right?' Ken then says, 'Never mind. I'll just ask my brother.'
1. Using the numbers in the conversation, can Ken buy the ¥15,000 bicycle on July 19? Show the calculation.
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Count the Saturdays he will actually work, not the Saturdays on the calendar. There are six Saturdays before July 19, but Ken misses two for baseball, so he works four Saturdays.
Each shift is 8:00–12:00, which is 4 hours. At ¥1,100 an hour, one shift pays 4 × ¥1,100 = ¥4,400.
Four shifts: 4 × ¥4,400 = ¥17,600.
¥17,600 is more than ¥15,000, so yes, he can buy the bicycle, with ¥2,600 left over. Two checks make the answer safe: he must not miss a third Saturday (three shifts would give only ¥13,200, which is short), and he must not spend the money on something else first.
The distractors work like this: using all six Saturdays gives ¥26,400, which is far too high, and multiplying by 6 hours instead of 4 gives the wrong shift pay. The number that matters is shifts actually worked × hours × hourly rate.
2. What does Mika's reply - 'That's up to you, but you know the extra hours are paid at the same rate, right?' - tell us about her attitude?
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Mika is not telling Ken what to do. 'That's up to you' explicitly hands the decision back to him, so an answer like 'She wants him to take the extra hours' or 'She orders him to refuse' is wrong.
What she adds is a fact that may change his decision: staying until 2:00 means two more hours, but the hourly rate does not go up. She is signalling that the offer is less attractive than it sounds, because the trade is time for money at the normal price, and Ken already has baseball on Saturdays.
Her tone is neutral to slightly cautious - a gentle warning, not a complaint and not an instruction. In inference questions like this, the safe method is to separate three things: the surface words ('up to you'), the information she supplies (the same rate), and the emotion (mild concern). Choosing an answer that mentions only emotion usually leads to the wrong option.
3. What does Ken's 'Never mind. I'll just ask my brother' show, and what should you NOT conclude from it?
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'Never mind' here is a topic-closing move, not an angry comment and not an agreement. Ken is telling Mika that he no longer wants to discuss the manager's offer. The switch to 'I'll just ask my brother' shows he has moved to a different plan, probably about the bicycle or about money, so the conversation has changed direction.
What you should not conclude: that Ken has accepted the longer shift (he said he would think about it and has now dropped the topic), that he is upset with Mika (nothing in her words attacks him), or that he has decided not to buy the bicycle.
A practical rule for listening inference: when a speaker says 'never mind', 'anyway', or 'forget it', ask what topic is being closed and what new topic is starting. The exam often places a question right after such a phrase precisely because the meaning is in the change of topic rather than in the words themselves.