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CELPIP Listening Part 4: Listening to a News Item

CELPIP Listening Part 4 Practice Test: A Time Capsule in Winnipeg

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. The capsule was difficult to find because

  2. Many of the letters

  3. The prediction about Winnipeg winters turned out to be

  4. Kowalchuk's letter suggests that, as a teenager, she

  5. In 1976, the capsule was buried by

Transcript (read it after you answer)

NARRATOR: Students at a Winnipeg high school received a rare glimpse into the past this week, although the occasion very nearly didn't happen. In June 1976, graduating students at Westbrook Collegiate sealed letters, photos and a transistor radio inside a steel box and buried it beside the school's flagpole, with instructions that it be opened in fifty years. However, when the flagpole was relocated during renovations in the 1990s, the precise location was forgotten. Staff eventually enlisted a local surveying company, whose ground-scanning equipment found the box beneath what is now a bicycle rack. Unfortunately, moisture had seeped inside over the decades, leaving roughly half the letters unreadable. Those that survived contained some surprisingly accurate predictions. One student foresaw telephones that would fit in a pocket, while another confidently expected Winnipeg winters to be abolished by the year 2000. Over thirty former classmates, now in their late sixties, attended Tuesday's ceremony. Retired nurse Linda Kowalchuk read aloud her own letter, in which her eighteen-year-old self pleaded with her to stop worrying so much, prompting laughter across the gymnasium. Inspired by the event, current Grade 12 students are assembling a capsule of their own, this time in a waterproof container with a carefully recorded location.

0 of 5 answered

Answer key

Show all 5 answers
  1. The capsule was difficult to find because C. a nearby landmark had been moved.
  2. Many of the letters A. had been damaged by water.
  3. The prediction about Winnipeg winters turned out to be B. clearly mistaken.
  4. Kowalchuk's letter suggests that, as a teenager, she D. was a rather anxious person.
  5. In 1976, the capsule was buried by A. students finishing high school.

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