Compreensão do oral: Paper 3 and the whole of AO1

The recording: Trabalho numa creche há oito anos e nunca vi tantas inscrições como este ano. Não é que tenham nascido mais crianças — pelo contrário. O que mudou foi que muitos avós deixaram de poder tomar conta dos netos, ou porque ainda trabalham, ou porque vivem longe. Nós tentamos responder, mas as vagas são as que são. The questions: 1. Qual é a profissão do orador? 2. Que razão dá para o aumento das inscrições? 3. Que dificuldade refere no final?

1. 01Read the questions and predict the shape of each answer

   Question 1 wants a job — a noun, one word or two, and it will almost certainly be in the first clause. Question 2 wants a reason, so listen for a causal marker: porque, uma vez que, o que mudou foi que, or a bare explanatory clause. Question 3 wants a difficulty stated at the end, so listen for a mas near the close. Thirty seconds of prediction, and you now know where in the passage each answer lives before hearing a word.

2. 02Pass one: shape only

   One voice, first person, speaking about their workplace; there is a rise in demand; there is a cause; there is a constraint at the end. That is the whole shape, and it can be captured in five words of notes: creche / mais inscrições / avós / vagas. Nothing else is written. A candidate who spends this pass trying to catch há oito anos will have missed the structure and will need the whole passage again.

3. 03Pass two, question one: hear the construction, not just the noun

   Trabalho numa creche há oito anos. Uma creche is a nursery or day-care centre, so the answer is that the speaker works in one — trabalha numa creche — and the safest answer names the workplace rather than inventing a job title such as educadora, which the speaker did not give. Há oito anos is the duration construction with the present tense, which Portuguese uses where English uses a perfect: I have been working for eight years. That construction is not asked about here, but recognising it stops you hearing há oito anos as a past event.

4. 04Pass two, question two: catch the negation before the reason

   Não é que tenham nascido mais crianças — pelo contrário. Não é que plus the subjunctive tenham nascido is the Portuguese for it is not that, and it explicitly rules out the obvious explanation before giving the real one. A candidate who hears mais crianças and writes that more children were born has answered with the very thing the speaker denied. The actual reason follows: o que mudou foi que muitos avós deixaram de poder tomar conta dos netos, with two sub-reasons — ainda trabalham, vivem longe. Deixar de plus infinitive is to stop doing something, another of the high-value periphrastic verbs.

5. 05Pass two, question three, and a verification pass on the idiom

   Nós tentamos responder, mas as vagas são as que são. Uma vaga is a place or opening, so the difficulty is a shortage of places. As vagas são as que são is an idiom meaning the places are what they are, that is, there is a fixed number and no more — a resigned formulation with no exact English equivalent. If you flagged it on pass two, the verification pass is where you settle it, and the safe answer avoids trying to reproduce the idiom: refere que o número de vagas é limitado e não pode aumentar. That is what the idiom means, written in plain Portuguese that will certainly be understood.

Result: 1. Trabalha numa creche, há oito anos. 2. O aumento não se deve a terem nascido mais crianças, mas ao facto de muitos avós já não poderem tomar conta dos netos, porque ainda trabalham ou porque vivem longe. 3. Refere que o número de vagas é limitado e não pode ser aumentado, apesar de tentarem responder à procura.

The recording: Ele deixou de trabalhar na fábrica em dois mil e nove, quando ela fechou, e passou a fazer entregas por conta própria. Não é que ganhe mais — ganha menos, e sem horário certo — mas diz-nos que prefere assim. Ao fim de tantos anos, deram-lhe uma indemnização que mal chegou para o carro. The question asks: Porque é que o orador diz que ele prefere a situação atual?

1. 01Separate deixou de from passou a, because they are the whole first sentence

   Deixou de trabalhar na fábrica … e passou a fazer entregas. Two periphrastic verbs in opposition: he stopped working at the factory and started making deliveries. Both auxiliaries are unstressed and both are easy to lose, and losing either produces a sentence that says something quite different. Na is em + a; por conta própria is self-employed, from the work sub-theme's vocabulary. Em dois mil e nove is the year, and writing 2009 as a digit takes a second while writing it in words takes five.

2. 02Catch the não é que construction, met before and worth automating

   Não é que ganhe mais — ganha menos. Não é que plus the present subjunctive ganhe rules out an explanation before the speaker gives the real one, exactly as in the earlier nursery passage. The dash and the flat ganha menos are the correction. A listener who hears ganhe mais without the negation will answer the question with the opposite of what was said, which is why this construction deserves specific drilling: whenever you hear não é que, the next clause is being denied.

3. 03Find the actual answer, which is not stated as a reason at all

   Mas diz-nos que prefere assim. That is the assertion; the reason is not given explicitly, and the question asks why. This is where the question becomes an inference question rather than a retrieval one. What the passage supplies is a contrast: less money and no fixed hours on one side, and por conta própria on the other. The available inference is autonomy — he prefers working for himself — and a good answer says so while marking it as an inference: o orador não o diz explicitamente, mas sugere que a razão é a independência de trabalhar por conta própria.

4. 04Do not be distracted by the final sentence, and do parse its idiom

   Deram-lhe uma indemnização que mal chegou para o carro. Uma indemnização is a redundancy payment; mal here is barely, not badly, and chegar para is to be enough for. The payment barely covered the car. It is a vivid detail and it is not the answer to the question asked, so it belongs in your notes and not in your answer — unless you use it as supporting evidence that money is not the reason, which is a legitimate and rather good use of it.

5. 05Write the answer with the inference marked

   Keeping an inference marked as an inference is not hedging for its own sake; it is accuracy, and in a listening paper it protects you when the mark scheme accepts a range of readings. O orador não indica uma razão explícita. Sugere, porém, que a preferência não tem a ver com dinheiro, uma vez que afirma que ele ganha menos e não tem horário certo; a única vantagem que refere é trabalhar por conta própria. That answer names what was said, names what was not said, and reaches the inference by elimination, which is exactly the reasoning the passage supports.

Result: O orador não dá uma razão explícita. Sugere, no entanto, que a preferência não se prende com o dinheiro, uma vez que afirma que ele ganha menos e não tem horário certo. A única vantagem que refere é a de trabalhar por conta própria, pelo que a razão parece ser a independência.

The recording says: A câmara municipal decidiu não avançar com o projeto este ano, não por falta de vontade política, mas porque o financiamento europeu só chega em 2027. A obra continua prevista, apenas mais tarde do que se esperava. The item: O projeto foi (A) cancelado; (B) adiado por falta de apoio político; (C) adiado por razões de financiamento; (D) concluído com atraso.

1. 01Read the options before playing and find the axis they vary on

   All four options are about the fate of a project, and they vary on two axes at once: whether it is cancelled, postponed or finished, and if postponed, why. So there are two things to listen for and they are separable. Knowing that before pressing play converts a four-way guess into two binary decisions, which is a much easier task to perform in real time.

2. 02Settle the first axis: cancelled, postponed or finished

   Decidiu não avançar com o projeto este ano … a obra continua prevista, apenas mais tarde. Não avançar este ano is not proceeding this year, and continua prevista is it is still planned. Together they mean postponed, not cancelled, which eliminates A. Concluída com atraso would require the work to have been finished, and nothing in the passage says it has begun, which eliminates D. Two options gone from a single clause, and neither elimination required understanding the reason.

3. 03Settle the second axis on the negation, which is the whole item

   Não por falta de vontade política, mas porque o financiamento europeu só chega em 2027. Não por X, mas porque Y is the construction, and it explicitly denies the political explanation while giving the financial one. Option B reproduces the denied reason word for word — falta de apoio político closely echoes falta de vontade política — which is exactly why it is there. A candidate matching words rather than meaning picks B; a candidate who heard the não … mas picks C.

4. 04Notice why the distractor is built the way it is

   Distractors in this paper are frequently built out of the words a passage uses to deny something. That is not a trick so much as a test of whether you heard the structure of the sentence rather than its lexical content. The general defence is a listening habit: whenever você hear não … mas, não é que, longe de or ao contrário do que se pensa, mark it, because a distractor is almost certainly built on the part that was denied.

5. 05Confirm with the date, which is a free check

   O financiamento europeu só chega em 2027. The presence of a specific year attached to funding corroborates C independently of the negation. Whenever an option can be confirmed from two different places in the passage, confirm it from both — on a multiple-choice item that costs no writing at all, and it converts a judgement into a certainty. Then move on: this is a one-mark item and it should take under a minute of the forty-five.

Result: C — adiado por razões de financiamento. The passage postpones rather than cancels (não avançar este ano; continua prevista), and explicitly denies the political explanation before giving the financial one (não por falta de vontade política, mas porque o financiamento europeu só chega em 2027). Option B is built from the words of the denied reason.

The recording: a schoolteacher in an interior town says: Fecharam a escola da aldeia há três anos e as crianças passaram a ser transportadas para a vila. Compreendo as contas — eram nove alunos. Mas ninguém contou o resto: as famílias jovens deixaram de vir, e sem famílias jovens não há aldeia. A decisão foi tomada olhando para uma folha de cálculo e não para um território. Write 5(a).

1. 01Find the position, which is not in the first sentence

   The first sentence is a fact — the school closed and the children are bussed. The position arrives with mas ninguém contou o resto: the speaker is arguing that the closure was assessed on the wrong criteria. Everything before that is the setting and everything after is the argument. A summary that leads with the bussing has summarised the setting; a summary that leads with the criticism of the criteria has summarised the point of view.

2. 02Note the concession, because it is part of the position

   Compreendo as contas — eram nove alunos. The speaker concedes the arithmetic explicitly, and that concession is not a weakness in their position but a feature of it: they are not disputing the numbers, they are disputing what was counted. A summary that omits the concession makes the speaker sound as though they deny the facts, which misrepresents them and, in a points-based scheme, misses a point that is plainly there to be caught.

3. 03Catch the two consequences the speaker names

   As famílias jovens deixaram de vir, e sem famílias jovens não há aldeia. Deixar de plus infinitive again — stopped coming, not never came. The second clause is a conditional stated as a flat present, which in Portuguese is a strong rhetorical form: without young families there is no village. These are the reasons supporting the position and a summary needs at least the first of them.

4. 04Render the closing image without trying to reproduce it

   A decisão foi tomada olhando para uma folha de cálculo e não para um território. Uma folha de cálculo is a spreadsheet, and the contrast with um território — a place, a piece of country — is the speaker's whole case in one line. A summary can and should capture the contrast in plain Portuguese rather than attempting the image: sustenta que a decisão foi avaliada apenas em termos contabilísticos e não em termos territoriais. The image is memorable but the claim is what is marked.

5. 05Write it in three sentences with attributive verbs

   Three sentences, each with a reporting verb that marks the status of what follows: reconhece for the concession, sustenta for the position, argumenta for the reason. Keeping the reporting verbs varied is worth AO3 range marks in a section that is otherwise all comprehension, and it costs nothing. Note that 5(a) is points-based, so length beyond the points is wasted; three sentences is right.

Result: Na gravação, a professora reconhece que o encerramento da escola foi contabilisticamente compreensível, uma vez que havia apenas nove alunos. Sustenta, porém, que a decisão foi avaliada com um critério demasiado estreito, olhando só para os números e não para as consequências no território. Argumenta que, desde o encerramento, as famílias jovens deixaram de se fixar na aldeia, e que sem elas a própria aldeia não subsiste.

Each of these pairs differs by a syllable and by a whole meaning. Work through what you would have to hear in each to answer a comprehension question correctly. 1. Ele falou com o diretor / Ele falava com o diretor. 2. Sei que ele vem / Espero que ele venha. 3. Se quiser, telefone / Se quer, telefone. 4. Disse-me tudo / Não me disse nada.

1. 01Falou against falava: one event or a habit

   Falou is pretérito perfeito, one completed conversation. Falava is imperfeito, a habit or a state — he used to speak to the director, or he was speaking to him when something happened. The audible difference is the stressed syllable and the extra one: fa-LOU against fa-LA-va. A question asking quantas vezes falou com o diretor, or whether the conversation was ongoing when something interrupted it, turns entirely on this. Train it by listening for the number of syllables rather than for the vowel.

2. 02Vem against venha: knowledge or hope

   Sei que ele vem states a fact and takes the indicative. Espero que ele venha expresses hope and takes the present subjunctive. The difference in the verb is a single vowel and an extra syllable, and it is entirely predictable from the trigger, which is the useful point: if you heard espero que, sei que, é certo que or duvido que, you already know which mood follows, so the trigger is the thing to catch. A comprehension question asking o orador tem a certeza? is answered by the trigger, not by the verb.

3. 03Quiser against quer: future or present

   Se quiser, telefone uses the future subjunctive and means if you should want to, at some point, ring. Se quer, telefone uses the present indicative and means if you want to, now, ring. In fast speech quiser and quer are close, and the difference is a condition about the future against a condition about the present. The context usually decides, but the grammatical shape is what makes the difference audible: se plus a form ending in -er, -ar or -ir with no person ending is a future subjunctive.

4. 04The negation that arrives late

   Disse-me tudo against não me disse nada. In the second, the não comes early but the nada comes at the end, and Portuguese permits — indeed requires — the double negative. A listener who has processed the clause as far as disse and is waiting for the object may already have formed the wrong expectation. The practical defence is to hold judgement until the clause ends, and to treat nunca, nada, ninguém, nenhum and nem as words that require reprocessing of what came before them.

5. 05Turn all four into a drill rather than a fact

   None of these is learnable by reading about them. Record or find each pair spoken at natural speed, listen with your eyes closed, and identify which member of the pair you heard, twenty times per pair. The point of this exercise is not knowledge — you already have the knowledge — but the automaticity that lets you recognise the form while the next sentence is arriving. That automaticity is precisely what the AO1 grid is measuring when it distinguishes a candidate who understands main points from one who understands detail and inference.

Result: 1. Number of syllables: fa-LOU is one completed event; fa-LA-va is a habit or an ongoing state. 2. Catch the trigger, not the verb: sei que forces the indicative vem, espero que forces the subjunctive venha, and the trigger tells you whether the speaker is certain. 3. Se plus a bare -er, -ar or -ir form is the future subjunctive and the condition is about the future; se quer is about now. 4. Hold judgement until the clause ends: a late nada, nunca or ninguém can reverse a clause you have already half-processed.