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CELPIP Listening Part 4: Listening to a News Item

CELPIP Listening Part 4 Practice Test: A Bus Driver's Final Route

By Iris

A free Listening Part 4 practice test in the CELPIP format: 5 questions with the answer key. Play each recording once, as in the real test, answer, then check your answers at the bottom of the page. The transcript is under each recording.

Questions
5
Format
1 news report, questions after it
Question style
Multiple choice, 4 options
Play like the real test
Each recording plays once, then each question with 30 seconds to answer (Parts 4–6: one timer for the part). No pausing to replay, like test day.

  1. Gerald Thibodeau originally took the job

  2. His colleagues' description suggests that Thibodeau was

  3. Thibodeau says his attendance record is due to

  4. During the ice storm, Thibodeau

  5. We can infer that Thibodeau

Transcript (read it after you answer)

NARRATOR: After four decades behind the wheel, Moncton school bus driver Gerald Thibodeau completed his final route on Friday, and, remarkably, he never once called in sick. Thibodeau, now sixty-eight, began driving for the district in 1985, at first as a temporary fill-in while he searched for carpentry work. That temporary arrangement, he jokes, simply never ended. District officials estimate he carried more than two thousand students, including, in recent years, the grandchildren of several former passengers. Colleagues describe him as meticulous: he arrived forty-five minutes early every morning to inspect his vehicle, and he knew every child's birthday by heart. His perfect attendance was not always easy. During one brutal ice storm, he completed his route even though his own home had been without power for several days. Thibodeau credits his record not to toughness, but to good fortune and a very patient wife. On his final morning, families lined the route holding handmade signs, and students presented him with a scrapbook of drawings. The district has announced that its annual safety award will now bear his name. Thibodeau's own retirement plans are far more modest: he intends to sleep past six o'clock for the first time in forty years.

0 of 5 answered

Answer key

Show all 5 answers
  1. Gerald Thibodeau originally took the job D. only as a short-term arrangement.
  2. His colleagues' description suggests that Thibodeau was A. thorough.
  3. Thibodeau says his attendance record is due to C. luck and support at home.
  4. During the ice storm, Thibodeau B. worked in spite of problems at home.
  5. We can infer that Thibodeau C. is looking forward to more rest.

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