Monologue about Preventive Medicine - IELTS Listening Sample Answer

The IELTS Listening section comprises four sections with a total of 40 questions. The candidates need to properly listen to the IELTS Listening audio then proceed with the 10 questions. These audio recordings will be in the form of monologues or conversations between two or more people. This topic is section Four of IELTS listening and contains the following question types:

• Complete the notes

Audio Transcript

Good morning. I’m Dr.Pat Plant, and I’m here to talk to you about preventative medicine in its widest and most personal aspects. In other words, I’m here to tell you how the patients should wrest control of their health away from the practitioners of medicine and take charge of their own medical destiny. I want to talk about staying out of the hands of the doctor.

When a patient takes responsibility for her or his own health – and let’s decide the patient is male for now – men are in fact more at risk than women anyway. When the patient takes over his own health regime he must decide what he wants to do. The first thing, of course, is to give up the demon nicotine. Smoking is the worst threat to health, and it’s self-inflicted damage. I have colleagues who are reluctant to treat smokers. If you want to stay well, stay off tobacco and smoking in all its manifestations. Our department has recently completed a survey of men’s health. We looked at men in different age groups and occupations, and we came up with a disturbing insight. Young men, particularly working class men, are at considerable risk of premature death because of their lifestyle. As a group, they have high risk factors: they drink too much alcohol, they smoke more heavily than any other group, their diet is frequently heavy in saturated fats, and they don’t get enough exercise.

We did a smaller survey in which we looked at environmental factors which affect health. I had privately expected to find air or water pollution to be the biggest hazards, and they must not be ignored. However, the effects of the sun emerged as a threat which people simply do not take sufficiently seriously. Please remember that too much sunlight can cause permanent damage.

Given this information, and the self-destructive things which people, particularly young men, are doing to themselves, one could be excused for feeling very depressed. However, I believe that a well-funded education campaign will help us improve public health standards and will be particularly valuable for young men. I’m an optimist. I see things improving, but only if things that you as students can do to improve your fitness.

So now I’d like to issue a qualification to everything I say. People will still get sick, and they will still need doctors. This advice is just to reduce the incidence of sickness – it would be great if disease was preventable, but it’s not. However, we have power.

In the late 1980s the Surgeon-General of the United States said that 53% of our illnesses could be avoided by healthy lifestyle choices. I now want to discuss these choices with you.

You should try to make keeping fit fun! It’s very hard to go out and do exercise by yourself, so it’s wise to find a sport that you like and do it with other people. If you swim, you can consider scuba diving or snorkelling. If you jog, try to find a friend to go with. If you walk, choose pretty places to walk or have a reason for walking. Your exercise regime should be a pleasure, not a penance. The university is an excellent place to find other people who share sporting interests with you, and there are many sports teams you can join. This unfortunately raises the issue of sports injuries, and different sports have characteristic injuries. As well as accidental injuries, we find repetitive strain injuries occurring in sports where the same motion is frequently performed, like rowing and squash. The parallel in working life is repetitive strain injury which may be suffered by typists or other people who perform the same action hour after hour, day after day.

In this context, therefore, the most important thing to remember before any sport is to warm up adequately. Do stretching exercises, and aim at all times to increase your flexibility. Be gentle with yourself, and allow time to prepare for the game you have chosen to play. Don’t be fooled by the term ‘warm up’, by the way. It’s every bit as important to do your warm-up exercises on a hot day as on a cool one.

I think one of the recognitions is that all sports can borrow from each other. Many sports programmes are now encouraging players to use cross-training techniques, that is to borrow training techniques from other sports. Boxers have been using cross training for years: building up stamina by doing road work and weight training, while honing their skills and reflexes. Other sports which require a high level of eye – hand coordination are following this trend, so you see table tennis players running and jogging to improve their performance, and footballers doing flexibility exercises which can help them control the ball better. All of these results are good, but the general sense of well-being is best, and is accessible to us all, from trained athletes to people who will never run a hundred metres in less than 15 seconds. Good health is not only for those who will achieve athletic greatness!

Questions 31-40

Complete the notes below.

Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.

How to Make Personal Control of One’s Health

• 31_____________________ should take charge of their health.
• The single greatest threat to health is 32__________________.
• Disturbing findings about men’s health • the group who was at most risk of early death is 33_____________________.

Possible causes are:

• drinking too much alcohol;
• heavy smoking;
• 34_________________
• no adequate exercise.

Environmental factors affecting health:

• air or water pollution
• the threat of 35______________ is most under-rated.

Personal control of one’s health:

• A well-funded education campaign will help enhance 36_________________
• and many illnesses could be prevented by 37_____________________.
• Do exercises for 38_____________________ so you may find someone to join you.
• Make adequate 39______________________ to prevent sports injury.
• Reduce injuries by using 40____________________ techniques.

Question 31.

Answer: Patients

Explanation: We can hear the speaker saying that “patients should wrest control of their health” ‘wrest’ is similar to ‘take charge of something’ so the answer is ‘patients.

Also, check:

Question 32.

Answer: smoking

Explanation: As stated by the speaker “Smoking is the worst threat to health,” therefore the answer is ‘smoking’.

Question 33.

Answer: young men

Explanation: we hear the doctor explaining “Young men …, are at considerable risk of premature death”. “premature death” means early death, hence, the group who was at most risk of early death is young men. The answer is young men.

Question 34.

Answer: heavy diet

Explanation: Following the speech, we can hear the doctor mentioning four causes of premature death out of which three are already given and we need to find out the fourth one. The speaker stated, “they drink too much alcohol, they smoke more heavily than any other group, their diet is frequently heavy”. Since the answer is no more than 3 words, we need to write ‘heavy diet’ as the answer.

Question 35.

Answer: (the) sun

Explanation: There are various environmental factors affecting health and the effects of the sun emerged as a threat. It is clear that the answer is the sun.

Question 36.

Answer: public health (standards)

Explanation: The doctor said about the campaign, “education campaign will help us improve public health standards”. So, the answer is public health standards.

Question 37.

Answer: healthy lifestyle (choices)

Explanation: The speaker mentioned, “53% of our illnesses could be avoided by healthy lifestyle choices.” The answer is very easy to spot and the answer is healthy lifestyle choices.

Question 38.

Answer: fun / a pleasure

Explanation: “You should try to make keeping fit fun”. “Keep fit” is similar to do exercise. Therefore the answer is fun.

Question 39.

Answer: warm-up (to)

Explanation: The doctor lists several types of injuries. Then, he said that “the most important thing to remember before any sport is to warm up adequately.” So we need to write ‘warm up’ in the given blank.

Question 40.

Answer: cross-training

Explanation: The doctor mentioned “Many sports programmes are now encouraging players to use cross-training techniques”, hence, the answer here is cross-training.