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Lesson
Listening Part 2: A tour of an open-air museum
A guide welcomes visitors to a museum. Practise multiple choice, matching places to features, and note completion in an IELTS Part 2 monologue.
What happens in Part 2
One speaker gives information about a place, event or service: a tour, a radio talk or a welcome speech. The questions are often multiple choice, matching or a map.
Matching: listen for the feature, not the word
In matching tasks, the options are paraphrased. You may read "you can buy something made there" and hear "the bread sold in our shop is baked there every morning".
- Read the list of places (questions) and the list of features (options) before the recording starts.
- The places come in the order you hear them. The features don't.
- Some options are never used, and some are mentioned for the wrong place. Listen to the end of each section before you decide.
"The cinema near the main gate is currently closed…" – This matches it is closed at the moment, but the cinema isn't one of the questions, so it's a distractor.
Practise freely
Listening
Welcome to Greenfield Open-Air Museum
You will hear a guide talking to a group of visitors at the start of their visit.
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Answer the questions while you listen. In the real test you hear the recording once.
Your browser can't read the recording aloud. Open the transcript below and read it instead.
Show the transcript (try the questions first)
Guide: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Greenfield Open-Air Museum. My name's Claire, and I'll tell you a little about the museum before you set off to explore.
Guide: The museum opened in 1978, when a local farmer gave his land to the town.
Guide: Since then, we've moved more than thirty old buildings here from all over the region, piece by piece, and rebuilt them exactly as they were.
Guide: Most visitors spend about three hours here, but if you want to see everything, including the farm animals, you'll need most of the day.
Guide: Now, a few practical points. You're welcome to take photographs anywhere outside, but please don't use a flash inside the buildings, because the light can damage the old paintings and fabrics.
Guide: Food is not allowed inside the buildings either, but there are picnic tables beside the lake.
Guide: Let me tell you about some of the buildings you'll see.
Guide: Straight ahead of you is the school, which dates from 1890. At eleven o'clock and again at two, one of our volunteers runs a lesson in the old style, and children can sit at the original wooden desks.
Guide: To the left of the school is the bakery. The ovens there still work, and the bread sold in our shop is baked there every morning, so do go and try some.
Guide: Further down the path you'll come to the blacksmith's workshop. It's one of the oldest buildings we have, and you can watch metal being shaped by hand. Please stand behind the rope, though. It gets very hot.
Guide: Next to the blacksmith is the chemist's shop. It looks small from the outside, but inside there are hundreds of glass bottles, and our most popular exhibit: a collection of old toothbrushes. People always laugh at those.
Guide: Beyond the lake is the farmhouse. It's the largest building in the museum, and on the top floor there's an exhibition about family life in the 1950s, with a working radio you can listen to.
Guide: The cinema near the main gate is currently closed while we repair the roof, but we hope to reopen it in the spring.
Guide: Our café is in the old railway station, at the far end of the site. It's open until half past four.
Guide: Right, I think that's everything. Enjoy your visit, and if you have any questions, look for the staff in green jackets.
Questions 1–3
Choose the correct answer, A, B or C.
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The buildings in the museum were
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Visitors who want to see the farm animals should allow
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Visitors are asked not to
Questions 4–8
What does the guide say about each building? Choose FIVE answers from the list, A–G.
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The school
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The bakery
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The blacksmith's workshop
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The chemist's shop
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The farmhouse
Questions 9–10
Complete the notes. Write ONE WORD ONLY for each answer.
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The café is in the old station.
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Staff can be recognised by their jackets.
More listening practice
Practice test
Cambridge IELTS Listening tests (Books 10–21)
PDF worksheet