Listening: A Rescheduled Workshop and Two Conflicting Times
During a listening practice, Luka hears a conversation between a student, Petra, and a workshop coordinator. The recording is played twice. Petra says: 'I wrote down 3:15 for the coding workshop, but the email said 3:30.' The coordinator replies: 'The email was right at the time, but we moved it to 4:00 because the room was double-booked. The 3:15 time was for the introductory talk, not the workshop.' Petra asks, 'So the workshop starts at four, and the intro talk is at 3:15?' The coordinator says, 'No, the intro talk is now at 3:45, right before the workshop.' Luka's notes read: 'coding 3:15? email 3:30; room problem; intro 3:45; workshop 4:00.' He has 20 seconds to answer: 'When does the coding workshop begin?' Options: A) 3:15 B) 3:30 C) 3:45 D) 4:00. He remembers hearing '3:15' first and considers choosing A.
1. Which option is correct, and why is A especially tempting but wrong?
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D) 4:00 is correct. The coordinator explicitly says 'we moved it to 4:00 because the room was double-booked.' The pronoun 'it' refers to the coding workshop in the previous sentence. A is tempting because '3:15' is heard early and Luka wrote it down first, but the coordinator corrects the association: 'The 3:15 time was for the introductory talk, not the workshop.' Later the intro talk is moved again to 3:45, so A is not even the current intro time. B is the old email time, and C is the introductory talk. Luka should listen for correction markers such as 'but', 'moved', and 'not the workshop', then match the final time to the correct event.
2. What note-taking change would reduce Luka's risk in the second listening?
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Luka should use a two-column timeline rather than a single list of times. One column should be 'old/mentioned', the other 'final/confirmed'. When he hears 'we moved it to 4:00', he should cross out 3:15 and 3:30 for the workshop, or write 'workshop = 4:00 final' beside them. He should also label each time immediately with the event: 'intro talk 3:45', 'workshop 4:00'. This prevents a number from floating free and being attached to the wrong noun. He should not try to transcribe every word; instead he should listen for contrast and correction signals. In the 20-second answer window, he should trust the labelled final note, not the first number he remembers hearing.