You will hear five different people talking about short courses they have attended. For questions 19-23, choose from the list (A-F) what each speaker says about their course. Use the letters only once. There is one extra letter which you de net need to use.
A I was encouraged by the teachers to continue developing my skill.
B I learnt something about the subject that I hadn’t expected.
C I preferred the social life to the course content.
D I intend doing a similar course again.
E I found out something about myself.
F I thought the course was good value for money. Man: I went on a canoeing course last weekend, rather against my better judgement, because although I enjoy swimming, I thought canoeing might be too difficult. And I was right. I really couldn’t get the hang of it. I bet the tutors will remember me: not because I was one of their star students, far from it, but I fell out of the canoe more often than everyone else put together! But even so, I enjoyed it so much that when some of the group signed up to do another course together, in six months’ time, I found myself signing up too. I bet the tutors refuse to teach me next timer
Man: There were several people I’ve met on other courses: I haven’t been on that many, but some of them seemed to take at least a dozen a year. Actually we ended up spending a lot of time chatting and going for walks in the garden, and that kind of made up for the fact that I didn’t really learn much about local history, which is why I’d gone. The tutor certainly knew a lot about the subject, but she seemed to have very little idea how to teach, so I just couldn’t get into it. And it cost enough. I probably need to find a better way of studying.
Woman: I can hardly move, I’m so exhausted. We were out on the courts playing tennis from morning to night, practically. I’m certainly not as fit as I ought to be. I suppose they thought we’d want to play all day to get our money’s worth. Well, I could have done with a bit more theory and demonstrations, and a lot more taking it easy! They told me I should go on to the advanced course, next month, but I don’t know: I think they have to say that to get the bookings, because they seemed to be saying the same thing to everyone.
Man: It was quite an odd sort of course, in a way, because I expected everyone to be working together, and helping each other to learn, but most of the time we were all just working on our own computers, with the tutor going round and helping each person individually. No teamwork at all. It made me realise that I work much better with other people than on my own: maybe it’s poor motivation, or something. Anyway, I learned much more about using a computer, which is what I wanted, so I suppose it was worth it, even though I can’t say I enjoyed it much.
Woman: It was really good fun: 15 people from all sorts of backgrounds, all desperately trying to speak Italian to each other, and most of us were absolute beginners. We kept falling about laughing, but actually it did get a lot easier by the last day, and the tutors were awfully patient. It was held in a big house in the country which now belongs to a university, and the whole thing was brilliant. In fact I don’t know how they can do it for what they charged, because it was almost like staying in a luxury hotel. Maybe it was subsidised by the university.
