The Science Club Announcement With Two Corrections
Yui, a first-year student, is practicing for the listening section with her teacher. The teacher reads this script twice: 'Good morning, science club members. Today's meeting will start at 3:30 in Room 2. ... Oh, I'm sorry. Room 2 is being used for a PTA meeting today, so please come to the science lab. Ms. Sato will be ten minutes late, so the meeting will begin at 3:40. Bring your experiment report, not your textbook. The meeting will end at 4:20, and the bus for the soccer game leaves at 4:30. If you are going to the game, tell Mr. Ito before the meeting.' Yui is not on the soccer team. She must return two library books, and the library closes at 5:00. She also has a piano lesson at 5:30, and it takes 25 minutes to get there from school. The room change is announced only once, and the script includes a self-correction.
1. At what time and in which room does the science club meeting begin? Explain how the self-correction in the script affects your answer.
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The meeting begins at 3:40 in the science lab. The script first says 3:30 in Room 2, but two later statements replace that information. Room 2 is being used for a PTA meeting, so the room changes to the science lab. Ms. Sato will be ten minutes late, so the start time moves from 3:30 to 3:40. In a listening task, the first number is often a distractor. The correct answer must use the corrected time and place, not the opening announcement. '3:30 in Room 2' is therefore wrong even though it was said clearly. The reasoning is: hear the first plan, notice the correction signal ('Oh, I'm sorry'), and replace only the information that is corrected.
2. Yui plans to return her library books before the meeting. Evaluate this plan using the times given.
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Returning books before the meeting is risky and probably impossible. The meeting starts at 3:40, so Yui must be in the science lab at 3:40. If she goes to the library first, she may be late, and the script does not say how long the library takes. A better plan is to return the books after the meeting: the meeting ends at 4:20 and the library closes at 5:00, so she has 40 minutes. She also has a piano lesson at 5:30 and needs 25 minutes to travel, so she should leave school by about 5:05. Returning the books right after 4:20 fits both deadlines. The task tests whether the student connects new times to the student's own schedule, not just copies numbers.
3. The script says, 'If you are going to the game, tell Mr. Ito before the meeting.' Yui is not going to the game. How should she treat this sentence when answering a question about what she must do?
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She should treat it as a distractor, because it is conditional: it applies only to students going to the soccer game. Yui is not on the soccer team and is not going, so 'tell Mr. Ito' is not one of her duties. A common listening error is to hear an action verb and assume everyone must do it. The correct reasoning is: identify the condition, check Yui's situation against it, and exclude the action if the condition is false. This is different from the meeting time and room corrections, which apply to all members. The sentence is still useful because it shows how the test separates general instructions from conditional ones.