Questio Answer Tapescript

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9. A Interviewer: Harry Park, you run a travel company
which organises adventure holidays in some difficult
10. B places. How did you first become interested in
‘adventure travel’?
Harry: Well, my father worked in an
11. C
insurance company once he had a family. But
before that he’d spent several years travelling the
12. D world, and he never stopped telling us about it. His
stories were much more exciting than the books I
read, and they made me want to travel and have
adventures of my own (5).
Interviewer: And what made you decide to start an
adventure travel company?
Harry: Well, when I was in my twenties, I
travelled a lot in different countries. I went exploring
and climbing in mountains and deserts. I wanted to
show other people how wonderful these things were
(6). The business has been very successful, but
when I started it I didn’t know if I’d make any
money.
Interviewer: Your company’s called Far and Wide.
How did you choose the name?
Harry: Well, I just called it Park Travel at first.
But everyone thought that was terribly boring! My
wife kept suggesting different things, but in the end
it was a customer who gave me the idea (7). Far
and Wide is also the title of a book that a friend
wrote, so it reminds me of him, too.
Interviewer: Great... The places you visit are
usually very unspoilt, Harry. Some people think it’s
not a good idea to take tourists there. What would
you say to them?
Harry: Well, most of the places we visit have
no inhabitants, so we aren’t going to spoil people’s
way of life, or bring in things like television and
fridges! And I make sure that we always take care of
the environment (8). We are careful not to cause
pollution, so we take all our rubbish away.
Interviewer: Some of the things you do are also
dangerous. Do you enjoy danger?
Harry: Well, it’s not a question of enjoying it -
it’s just that you can’t do what I do without thinking
about the possible dangers. I’m never frightened
though. If I’m taking a group up a mountain or
something like that, I just concentrate on what I
have to do and get on with it.
Interviewer: You’ve been to some facinating
places, Harry.....

13. C A: Hey, I’m reading this really interesting article about

the human body.
14. D B: Yeah? Well, we know all about that from biology
lessons.
A: No, we didn’t learn much at all at school! They’re
15. B
discovering loads more things all the time. Really
amazing things! Did you know that only about one
16. A tenth of the cells in your body are really you? The rest
are bacteria.
B: What? I’m not really me?
A: No, of course you are you, but you also have
millions, or trillions, of bacteria in you.
B: Eeeeuuugh!
A: No, they’re mostly really helpful. Someone did an
experiment to see if animals can live without bacteria,
and he found that a lot of them died or had to have a
special diet. Animals need bacteria to digest food, you
see. So we’re better off with bacteria.
B: Unless the bacteria are bad.
A: Unless they are bad, but they’re nearly all good. Oh
yeah, and going back to cells, do you know how many
cells you have in your body?
B: Quite a lot, I’d say. A good few.
A: Yeah, but how many?
B: I don’t know. I’m not mathematical.
A: 7 octillion! That’s 7 plus 27 noughts.
B: I knew it was a lot.
A: OK, that’s an amazingly huge number, almost
impossible to imagine. But the really weird thing is
that most of the atoms are empty space, just air or
nothingness. And if you took out the empty space, you
could fit your body inside a tiny cube which measures
one 500th of a centimetre on either side. That’s a box
measuring 0.002 of a centimetre on each side. You’d
be much too small to see.
B: Mmm, I can imagine that. It sounds like something
that would happen in a really bad Hollywood movie.
You know, a mad scientist goes: (funny voice) ‘I’m
going to extract all the air from your body’. OK,
enough facts for one day.
A: Don’t go! One last thing, did you know …
B: No.
A: Did you know that you probably have mites in your
eyelashes?
B: Mites in my eyelashes? What are mites exactly
anyway?
A: Yeah, they’re very small creatures, like insects, only
not insects. They’re about a third of a millimetre long,
so you can’t really see them. These particular mites
live in eyelashes and eyebrows.
B: But in mine?
A: Well, maybe not. Only about 50% of people have
them, and more older people. So you might not have
any. Anyway, they’re completely harmless, they just
eat dead skin.
B: Yeah, right, harmless. I really would have preferred
not to know that.
A: Sorry.
 B: I mean, really!
17. A Girl: So, have you got any plans for the weekend?
Boy: Yeah, me and my mates are going to this activity
centre in the mountains.
18. C
Girl: Oh, yeah?
Boy: You can do all kinds of things. It’s a new centre;
19. C it sounds great. We’re going to go dirtboarding …
Girl: What’s that?
20. B Boy: It’s like skateboarding or snowboarding. You
have a board, or deck, to stand on and wheels. They’re
pretty strong because you go down rough mountain
tracks on them. Steep, rough mountain tracks.
Girl: Sounds a bit risky. Have you done it before?
Boy: No, but I’ve done similar things. Anyway, we’re
also going to go canyoning. Before you ask, that’s
when you jump and swim down a river canyon. You
have to use ropes and special equipment. And maybe
we’ll go white water rafting too.
Girl: Phew. It sounds far too difficult to me.
Boy: They have lots of things that you could do too.
Like zip-wiring, you know when you go along a wire
through the trees or down a mountain.
Girl: Go down a mountain on a wire!
Boy: It’s really easy, and exciting too. You just have to
hold on and enjoy the ride. Or there’s bungee jumping.
Girl: Jump off a bridge on a long elastic band! Me?
You’ve got to be joking! Anyway, I’m going away this
weekend too, thank you for asking.
Boy: I was going to ask. So where are you going?
Girl: Paris! I’m so excited!
Boy: Paris, wow!
Girl: Yeah, it’ll be brilliant! We’re going to do all the
sights, like go up the Eiffel Tower and take a boat
along the River Seine and see the old parts of the city.
It looks so beautiful in the photos. And then there are
all the art galleries. You know how much I like art. I
can’t wait to go round the Louvre and see all those
famous paintings.
Boy: I think the famous Impressionist paintings are
somewhere else.
Girl: Yeah, I know, they’re in the Musée d’Orsay.
We’re going there too. And then I want to go to the
Rodin Museum and see that famous statue, you know,
The Thinker. And of course, if we’re in Paris, we’ll have
to go shopping. Or look at the shops, at least. And
then there’s the restaurants. Just think, French food!
Boy: You’ve got a lot planned for one weekend.
Girl: Oh, we’re going for four days, actually.
Boy: Oh, four days, very nice. And who are you going
with?
Girl: Oh, just a friend.