English Exam Prep

With this question, when we incorporate the technique we discussed of deducing the answer during the pause where they allow us to read ahead, before even listening to the person speaking, we can deduce that the answer will 100% be a noun.

What were the nouns you were thinking of as possibilities in this question?

Perhaps weather, water, temperature or something related to this concept.

With this, you are definitely on the right track, though none of these exact words are the answer.

Instead, we’re going to listen for a synonym or antonym of one of these ideas and that will be our perfect answer!

When we do this, we can see that the answer to this question was ‘tide.’

The researcher mentioned this quite obviously with the statement ‘this can happen in areas where the tide can change.’

Right away, we know that the word for this will be a verb.

Which verbs work in here without listening to the researcher?

Perhaps you are thinking of words such as ‘swim in,’ ‘live in,’ etc.

If so, you are 70% on the way to the correct answer before even listening to the recording!

Also, remember to be careful with your spelling since even if you mistakenly wrote ‘nevigate,’ in which the ‘e’ should be an ‘a,’ this would be marked as wrong by the examiners even though you demonstrated that you know the answer.

Grammatically, you will definitely use a plural noun for both answers.

What could the nouns be? Do you have any ideas about what whales could possibly feed on?

Obviously, this isn’t an exam about your knowledge of whales, but you can certainly use some of your general knowledge to get 60-70% of the way there!

On a side-note, if you are thinking of food such as fish, shrimp or plankton, remember that these are all exceptions to singular/plural rules in that they will always be referred to as ‘fish, shrimp or plankton’ regardless of if we are talking about 1 or 1 million fish, shrimp or plankton.

This is a difficult question because you are looking for two correct answers to put in and both must be correct.

When the researcher discussed parasites, you should have realized that this is information that is meant to trick you.

Once you heard the word ‘poisons,’ you should have started to pay close attention since that is where the answers to this question will be given.

Remember again to be careful with the singular/plural form in this one since if you had put ‘plant’ and/or ‘animal’ rather than the plural form if this, you would have had your answers marked as wrong.

The researcher goes on to talk about a specific group of whales that poisoned by eating tuna, however, this is after the information she gave us regarding plants and animals. Since we can easily group tuna as a specific ‘animal,’ we would stick with our original answer.

The key word for us to deduce this answer is ‘operations.’

Does this mean medical operations like heart surgery? No. In this context, even if you find some of the concepts and words confusing, we need to be able to strategize to lead us a couple of steps closer to the answer.

‘Operations’ here simply means ‘projects’ or ‘actions.’

What could possibly be noisy in the middle of the sea? Oil exploration? Explorers?

In this question, we are listening for exactly this answer, which was ‘military.’

Right away when the researcher begins saying that there were two instances of military operations leading to mass strandings, we should listen carefully because we know that the answer to this question will definitely be in the section where she mentions the Bahamas and 2000.

What can we deduce from the grammar? We are definitely looking for an adjective relating to the whales before they died.

The researcher says ‘all the beached animals were found to be healthy’

We are definitely looking for a noun here.

Where could whales potential be stranded? Is is a location like a cave or an ocean? Is it something else?

We’ll have to listen carefully to find this answer.

The tricky part here might be the use of ‘not.’

Remember though that the key to answering many of the questions is understanding that we need to always look for synonyms and antonyms.

In this case, the researcher mentions that these whales are usually found in groups, but the whales being discuss were alone.

This is another question where we need to be careful about antonyms since the sentence given to us says the animals were NOT …..

We can also get a hint from what is given to us above the sentence with the missing word.

What would negate the theory that the whales simply got confused while hunting?

The correct answer is ‘feeding,’ which perfectly answers the above question.

When we hear the word ‘leader,’ this should give us a hint, especially when combined with the adjectives ‘healthy’ or ‘sick.’

Then we simply need to wait for a variation of ‘even if it means they will die’ which is given to us as ‘to their death,’ which gives us the answer of ‘sick.’

This one might seem tricky as some people might have put ‘toothed’ rather than the correct answer of ‘social.’

In this context, ‘toothed whales’ is simply the name of a group of whales and the bigger context that leads us towards the correct answer is simply ‘social.’

Once we are finished the previous question, we can see that we have about 60 seconds until the answer to this question comes up.

In this section, they are trying to trick you into reviewing and changing previous answers by hinting at some of the elements we already discussed.

Do not change your answers in these situations.

Remember what we discussed in the lessons in that you will continue answering questions progressively through the exam instead of jumping back and forward.

IN this case, the word ‘networks’ sneaks up on us quickly so you may have missed it. However, by looking at the referencing when she says ‘these networks,’ this should give you the certainty you need to answer this question correctly.