TAPE SCRIPT
PART 1:
Nguồn IELTS SIMULATION TEST 2 ACADEMIC – PART 1
PART 2:
iT's 6,371 kilometres to the centre of the Earth.
Follow us down.
We're going all the way to the heart of the planet. The Earth
Our world is made of layers, a bit like an onion, and as far as we know, life only exists in the
first layer - the crust. In the crust, you'll find the burrows of animals such as moles and badgers.
The deepest are made by Nile crocodiles and can reach depths of 12 metres.
The crust is also home to ancient underground cities like Elengubu in Turkey,
an elaborate labyrinth capable of housing 20,000 people, complete with schools and chapels. It is
thought to have been built around 370 years BC.
The world's deepest mines can go down to around four kilometres. South African gold miners
have found worms two kilometres down, but all life stops before three kilometres. Then there's
the deepest hole ever drilled - the Kola Superdeep Borehole in Russia. Some call it the gateway
to hell, with locals claiming to hear the screams of tortured souls. At around 30 to 50 kilometres
depth, we reach the next layer - the mantle. It's made of hot rock, which appears solid to us but
actually flows very slowly, just a few centimetres a year.
These delicate shifts below can give rise to earthquakes above. In the 1960s, a group of scientists
attempted to drill into the Earth's mantle.
Although unsuccessful, new efforts are afoot with a plan to drill deep below the Indian Ocean.
As we descend, the increasing pressure means that atoms become warped,
and even the most familiar materials behave bizarrely.
Crystals change from green to blue to brown, and rock becomes as malleable as plastic.
2,900 kilometres down, we reach the bottom of the mantle. See those two giant blobs?
They're the size of continents. Scientists aren't sure how they were formed or what they're made
of. They cradle the next layer - the outer core.
In Jules Verne's classic novel, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Professor Otto Lidenbrock
encounters an entire underground world, replete with prehistoric creatures and a subterranean
ocean.
While the dinosaurs might have been a bit of a stretch, there is an ocean of sorts,
but this one consists of flowing red-hot iron and nickel, a sunless sea with its own currents and
jet streams.
This motion creates a magnetic field that protects the Earth from dangerous solar rays.
The final layer is known as the inner core. It's 6,000 degrees in here.
The pressure is so intense that the metals here have crystallised, forming a solid sphere
at the very centre of our planet. In reality, our little vehicle would have been crushed
and melted long ago. And as for our driver, I think she better head back to the surface.
It's a long way to go. Good luck!
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PART 3:
NGUÔN CAE TRAINER TEST 2, PART 3
PART 4:
In March 2021, fierce winds blew a container ship off course. In most places, this would
have caused a minor incident. But in the Suez Canal, it was a global crisis.
This vessel wasn’t just blocking other ships— It was obstructing the flow of international
trade through one of the world’s most important waterways.
The site of the Suez Canal has been of interest to rulers of this region as far back as the second
millennium BCE.
To move goods between Asia and the MediterraneanBasin, traders had to traverse the
narrow isthmus separating the Red Sea and the Nile, journeying in camel-bound caravans
through the unforgiving desert.
A maritime passage between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea would bypass
this trip altogether. And throughout the 16th century, multiple powers attempted to construct such
a canal. But their plans were obstructed by cost, political strife, and the ever-shifting sands.
In 1798, interest in building a canal was rekindled, this time attracting attention from
across Europe.
Over the following decades, individuals from Austria, Italy, Britain, and France pitched
their plans to Egypt’s rulers
At the time, Egypt was a territory of the Ottoman Empire, which was resistant to these
proposals. But Egypt's political and economic autonomy was gradually increasing, and its
government was eager to pursue the project. When Sa’id Pasha came into power in 1854, he
approved plan from the enterprising and manipulative French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps.
Signed in 1854 and 1856, a pair of concessions gave de Lesseps authority to establish the Suez
Canal Company and finance it by selling shares to “capitalists of all nations.” The contracts
between Sa’id Pasha and the Canal Company also promised a workforce of hundreds of
thousands of Egyptian workers.
Beginning in 1862, about 20,000 laborers were forcibly recruited every month, digging
the canal in harsh desert conditions without easy access to food or water. Diseases like cholera
ran rampant and workers toiled under the threat of whips. The estimates of those who died during
construction range into the thousands.
In 1864, the new Egyptian ruler, Isma’il Pasha, put an end to the coerced Egyptian labor,
but he still pressed forward with construction. Foreign workers from all over Europe and the
Middle East labored alongside dredgers and bucket excavators to remove 74 million cubic
meters of dirt. This massive population of workers required infrastructure to deliver drinking
water and other supplies, giving rise to a flourishing economy of restaurants, brothels, and
smuggled goods.
Amidst the bustle were born three new cities with multi-ethnic populations: Port Said on
the northern Mediterranean shore, Ismailia on the canal's middle tract, and Port Tewfiq, at the
southern edge of the canal.
The construction site bypassed the Nile and ran directly from Port Said to Suez. And after years
of work, the streams of the two seas finally began merging in the mid-1860s. The finished canal
was 164 kilometers long, with a width of 56 meters at the surface, and it was officially
inaugurated on November 17th, 1869.
While it struggled financially during its first few years, the canal ended up dramatically
accelerating global trade. It also facilitated the migration of numerous marine species,
dramatically changing local ecosystems and cuisine.
Over the decades, traffic through the canal grew. But in 1875, financial issues forced Egypt to
sell much of its stock in the Canal Company, allowing Britain to take over.
It was only in 1956 that control of the canal fully reverted to Egypt when it was
nationalized by President Gamal Abdel Nasser. This move sparked a military standoff between
Egypt and Britain, France, and Israel. But once resolved it transformed the canal into a major
source of Egypt's national revenue and helped redeem the canal's imperialist legacy.
Today, nearly 30% of all global ship traffic passes through the Suez Canal, totaling over
20,000 ships in 2021. However, the incident of the Ever Given is a stark reminder of just how
fragile our man made systems can be.
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