IELTS Preparation Series 3, Episode 16: Listening for Numbers
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Hello, and welcome to Study English, IELTS Preparation. I'm Margot Politis.
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In the Listening Module of the IELTS Test you can expect to be asked questions about
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numbers.
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So it's important to be familiar with how we talk about numbers.
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First, listen to the numbers in this clip about a wind farm in Tasmania:
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Each tower that you can see can generate enough power for between seven and eight hundred
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houses.
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'between seven hundred and eight hundred houses'
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When numbers are exact or a clear approximation such as 'between seven hundred and eight hundred',
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the word 'hundred' has no final 's'. The plural is formed by the following noun: 'between
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seven hundred and eight hundred houses'.
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For an exact figure you say: seven hundred houses.
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You can use a preposition to be less exact and say: over seven hundred houses; around
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seven hundred houses; about seven hundred houses; nearly seven hundred houses or under
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seven hundred houses.
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When we state a number, such as seven hundred or eight thousand there is no 's' after the
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unit - four hundred, ten thousand, or five million.
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So when do we add 's' to these words?
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Listen to the man in the next clip use 'hundreds' to describe the slow change from one type
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of forest to another:
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There have probably been three lots of logging since white settlement in the 1860s. In time,
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that eucalyptus forest will gradually go back to rainforest, but that takes hundreds of
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years.
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'Hundreds of years'. There is no number; it's just more than one. Notice we add 'of' before
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the noun 'years' Hundreds of years.
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So listen carefully. 'Thousands of' and 'millions of' are not exact numbers. They're guesses
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or rough figures.
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He also said the 1860s. This means any year from 1860 to 1869.
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In the next clip about Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the speaker doesn't use the final 's'.
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Angkor is one of the most popular World Heritage sites in the whole of Asia. Every year now
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there are over one million tourists coming to Angkor.
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By saying 'over one million tourists', he means more than one million but much less
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than 2 million. If the figure were closer to two million, he would probably say 'nearly
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two million tourists'
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But if he'd said millions of tourists, he would mean more than 2 million.
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Instead of saying one million you can also say a million. It means the same thing.
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Listen to this woodchopper talking about how many titles he's won:
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I've won one hundred and eighty three world titles I suppose, the only person in sporting
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history to ever win over a thousand championships … so I suppose it hasn't been too bad
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of a life.
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'Over a thousand championships'. He could have said one thousand or a thousand. And
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he could have said a hundred and eighty three. Notice that 'and' is used to add numbers below
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a hundred - he says one hundred and eighty three.
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You also say a thousand and 83 (1,083) and a million and 83 (1,000,083). But you say
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one thousand, one hundred and 83 (1,183) or one million, one thousand and 83 (1,001,083).
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When you're talking about where something occurs in a sequence, you use ordinal numbers
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such as first, second, third, fourth.
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Ordinal numbers are used in dates, as in this clip in which the speaker is talking about
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a major art exhibition held in 2006.
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The Biennale of Sydney this year is the 15th. It occurs every two years, as all biennales
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do and this year starts on the 8th of June.
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He says 'the fifteenth'. He means the fifteenth Sydney Biennale exhibition. There have been
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14 held before this one. The date is the eighth of June. This date can be expressed like this:
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June eighth June the eighth
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Now listen for another use of an ordinal number in this clip about an art course held in an
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art gallery:
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So if we're looking at one of the paintings in this gallery in European art, where we're
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looking at 19th-century paintings, we're talking about the paintings as they appear in the
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gallery spaces.
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She says: '19th century paintings'.
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Ordinal numbers are used for centuries and are often written in numbers like this:
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19th
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Of course, this refers to the 1800s, again usually written as a number: the 1800s.
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So what do you call the present century?
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I think that the strongest mark of 21st century culture is artists taking from every possible
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place to realise their visions.
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He says: '21st century culture'. The suffix 's-t' is used after 1 to represent the last
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2 letters of 'first'.
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Ordinal numbers are also used to refer to fractions.
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You have the special fraction terms - half, third and quarter, but all other forms use
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ordinal numbers as in this clip about the wind farm:
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Six towers were erected in that time; these have the potential of generating one fifth
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of Tasmania's power needs from wind energy.
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'One fifth of Tasmania's power needs'.
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Plural fractions take a plural form, for example: two fifths. Fractions are followed by 'of':
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one fifth of. And a noun group which refers to the whole: one fifth of Tasmania's power
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needs.
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Another type of fraction is percentage. For example, 'one-quarter' (1/4) can be expressed
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as 25%.
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Let's listen for the percentage used in this clip about an oyster farm:
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It takes approximately 2 to 2 and a half years to get the oysters up to size and sold to
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the market. From this farm we've averaged about 15% of the market for export and that
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goes to Hong Kong and Japan.
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'fifteen percent of the market'.
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Percentages have the same structure as fractions, 'of' and a noun group: Fifteen percent of
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the market for export.
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Yet another way of talking about parts of numbers is decimals.
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Listen to how they're used in talking about wind turbines:
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It's quite a large structure. 1.75 megawatts generated by each unit.
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'1.75 megawatts'.
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Electrical power is measured in 'watts'. One megawatt is one million watts.
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You say one point seven five, but write it in numbers with a decimal point: 1.75.
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A decimal is usually followed by a plural noun: '1.75 megawatts'
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Now let's listen to a furniture maker talk about the thickness of the veneer, or layer
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of wood he puts on his furniture. Is his veneer thicker than the old fashioned sort?
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Today we're using sophisticated ways of putting our construction of our furniture. We use
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a lot of veneers and those veneers aren't the old-fashioned .06 of a mil, they're about
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a 6 mil veneer and they're laid up on MDF and they have a solid frame.
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His veneers 'aren't the old-fashioned .06 of a mil'. They're 'about a 6 mil veneer'.
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They're much thicker.
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'Point 06 of a mil' is a decimal figure. It's less than one. Mil is short for millimetre.
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Notice that he says it like a fraction - point 06 of a mil.
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Usually you say point 06, although you will sometimes hear point zero six.
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That's all for today.
