B2 First Reading, partes 5 a 7: test de práctica

On air

I had never intended to work in radio. When I first walked into the cramped studio of Radio Ibai, a community station run from the back of an old furniture shop, I was only there to deliver a box of records that my uncle had promised the station manager. Marta, who had been running the place on a tiny budget for twelve years, took the box, looked me up and down, and asked whether I could read aloud without stumbling. I said I supposed so. ‘Good,’ she replied, ‘because our weekend newsreader has just moved to Madrid, and you start on Saturday.’

I assumed she was joking. She wasn't. Over the next three days she showed me how the mixing desk worked, which buttons I must never touch, and how to read a script so that it sounded like a conversation rather than a list. ‘Listeners can hear a smile,’ she told me more than once, ‘and they can definitely hear panic.’ I nodded as if I understood, although privately I was convinced that the whole town would hear nothing but my heartbeat.

That first Saturday did not go smoothly. Halfway through the local news, I turned over two pages at once and found myself reading the football results in the middle of a story about a new bus route. For a terrible second I froze. Then, remembering Marta's advice, I laughed, apologised to ‘everyone waiting for the number 12 to score a goal’, and carried on. When I came out of the studio, I expected to be told it would be my first and last broadcast. Instead, Marta handed me a cup of coffee and a list of phone messages. Three listeners had called to say how much they had enjoyed the joke.

It was only later that I understood why she had been so relaxed. Community radio, she explained, is not about sounding perfect; it is about sounding like the people who are listening. The big national stations had professional voices and expensive equipment, but they could not tell you why the market had moved or which bakery had won the town's annual competition. ‘Our listeners forgive mistakes,’ she said, ‘but they never forgive us for being boring.’

I stayed at the station for four years, long after I had finished my degree. I learned to interview nervous shop owners, to fill three minutes of silence when a guest failed to turn up, and to keep my voice calm while the studio roof leaked onto the desk. None of it appeared on my university timetable, yet when I eventually applied for a job as a press officer, it was the only thing the interviewers wanted to talk about.

These days I rarely speak into a microphone, but I still think about that first broadcast whenever I have to stand up in front of an audience. The mistakes will come, I tell myself; what matters is what you do in the second after you make them.

All aboard the night train

Twenty years ago, many people in Europe thought the night train was finished. Low-cost airlines could take passengers from one capital to another in two hours, often for less than the price of a dinner. Rail companies, meanwhile, were struggling to fill sleeper carriages that had not been modernised for decades. One by one, sleeper services were cut, and the old carriages were sent to museums or sold abroad. (37) ?ABCDEFG

Today, however, the picture looks very different. New routes have opened between cities such as Vienna, Paris and Amsterdam, and tickets on popular dates often sell out weeks in advance. (38) ?ABCDEFG Many of them say they are choosing the train because flying makes them feel guilty about the environment. Others simply love the idea of falling asleep in one country and waking up in another.

Environmental concerns are only part of the story, though. Travellers also point out that a night train saves them a hotel bill and a day of their holiday. You board after dinner, sleep while the train crosses two or three countries and arrive in the centre of a city in time for breakfast. (39) ?ABCDEFG For many passengers, that difference alone is worth the extra hours on board.

Not every journey is quite so comfortable. Older carriages can be noisy, and some passengers complain that they hardly slept at all. (40) ?ABCDEFG They are now investing in new trains with private sleeping pods, better air conditioning and even showers. Some of the new carriages also have small cabins for people travelling alone, which were almost impossible to find on older trains.

Price is another obstacle. Because sleeper trains carry fewer passengers than a plane of the same length, tickets are often more expensive than a low-cost flight. (41) ?ABCDEFG Some governments have started to help by reducing taxes on rail travel, while others have introduced special discounts for young people. Even so, a family of four can still pay more for a sleeper compartment than for a cheap flight and a hotel room.

Experts disagree about how large the market for night trains really is, and whether the night train can really compete with air travel remains to be seen. (42) ?ABCDEFG For now, at least, the sound of a train rolling through the dark seems to be attracting a new generation of travellers.

Learning an instrument as an adult