Practise your English with our short listening exercises: play the audio; answer the questions; and check the answers at the bottom of the page.
Mary, the Berlin Zoo’s “Queen of Showering”, uses a hose to wash herself in a unique behaviour observed by researchers. Photo: ReutersQuestions
1. Which word can replace “handy” at the beginning of the podcast?
A. useful
B. practical
C. clever
D. skilful
2. What is unique about Mary’s showering behaviour?
A. She showers for a very long time.
B. She only showers at night.
C. She showers with a hose.
D. She sings while showering.
3. What did Mary do if the hose was too thin or too thick?
A. She broke the hose.
B. She used her trunk instead.
C. She turned the tap to adjust the water pressure.
D. She waited for the zookeeper to fix it.
4. Based on your understanding of the podcast, what sort of tools do chimpanzees and octopuses use?
A. those found in nature
B. those made by humans
C. those that are similar to complicated puzzles
D. those that look like hoses
5. According to the podcast, what do wild elephants do with objects?
A. play games
B. communicate with each other
C. decorate their surroundings
D. none of the above
6. If you “sabotage” something, you …
A. damage it deliberately.
B. protect it from being damaged.
C. take a long time to repair it.
D. study it carefully.
7. What strange thing did Anchali do?
A. She sprayed water on Mary.
B. She joined Mary in showering.
C. She pulled the hose and blocked the water flow.
D. She tried to help Mary shower.
8. How old is Mary?
A. slightly older than 10
B. almost 40
C. younger than 60
D. almost 100
9. How does Mary feel about the younger female elephants?
A. She enjoys being around them.
B. She is jealous of them.
C. She avoids them.
D. She is annoyed easily by them.
10. How does Mary “reprimand” Anchali?
A. by spraying water on her
B. by tapping Anchali with her trunk
C. by kicking her leg gently
D. by tugging her trunk
11. Complete the following summary using words from the podcast.
Mary uses different ways to wash different parts of her body. To clean her sides, she holds the hose near the water outlet with her (i) _____. To reach her back, she holds the hose further back and swings it over her (ii) _____ like a rope. She also likes to use her trunk to wash her (iii) _____ side and the hose to wash her (iv) _____ side.
Answers
1. A
2. C
3. B
4. A
5. D
6. A
7. C
8. C
9. D
10. B
11. (i) trunk; (ii) head; (iii) right; (iv) left
Script
Adapted from dpa and ABC
Voice 1: Elephants typically wash themselves by dipping their handy trunks into water, sucking the water up and then spraying it on themselves. But not Mary, an Asian elephant who has been dubbed Berlin Zoo’s “queen of showering”. She likes to use a sophisticated tool, a hose, to get clean. Lena Kaufmann is a neuroscientist who contributed to a study on Mary, and the researcher said she had never seen showering behaviour like this in any other elephant.
Voice 2: Kaufmann accidentally discovered Mary’s surprising behaviour during a visit to the elephant’s enclosure. She took a brief video to show her colleagues at her university, and they were instantly interested in studying the elephant. According to the researchers, Mary was never trained to shower herself and does sometimes use her trunk. She likes to use different techniques for different body parts. To spray her sides, Mary usually grabs the hose just behind the opening with her trunk. To reach her back, she holds the hose further back and swings it like a lasso over her head.
Voice 1: Kaufmann noted that Mary also switches what she uses to clean herself depending on which side of her body she washes. She prefers to shower her right with her trunk and her left with the hose. When the team introduced Mary to different hose sizes, she changed how she showered. If the hose was too thin or too thick, she would either skip her shower or spend more time using her trunk.
Voice 2: While animals such as chimpanzees and octopuses have been observed using tools before, the tools are generally not as complex as hoses and are not human-made. In the past, wild elephants have been seen using objects such as branches and rocks to destroy electric fences, break pipes to reach water and strip sticks to make back scratchers.
Voice 1: Researchers were even more astonished by the behaviour of another female elephant, Anchali. The 12-year-old elephant watched Mary showering and seemingly tried to sabotage the process multiple times. She was seen pulling the hose towards herself and attempting to twist and lift it with her trunk, temporarily stopping the water flow.
Voice 2: Mary is 50 years old and has lived in Berlin since 1987. The elephant is very domineering and reportedly gets on better with male elephants than other female elephants at the zoo. She does not seem to particularly like the young ones and gets annoyed quickly by them. She has even been reported to use a tap of her trunk to put the younger Anchali in her place. While researchers cannot figure out precisely what Anchali was thinking, it is possible that she sabotaged the hose to get revenge on Mary.