Track 41

Track 41.

You will hear a student discussing his dissertation with his tutor.

First you have some time to look at questions 1 to 5.

Now listen carefully and answer questions 1 to 5.

So, I’d like to talk to you about my dissertation.

I have to do something about the city of Petra, you know, in Jordan.

But I’m not sure which aspect to look at.

Oh, OK, yes, there’s plenty to write about there.

What topics have you thought about

Well, there’s the historical angle.

Petra dates back to prehistoric times, but there’s a lot of information available from about 2,000 years ago.

OK, so you’d have to concentrate on sometime in the last 2,000 years.

But that’s still a long time with a huge number of changes happening.

That’s really too wide a focus.

You need to narrow it down.

Why did Petra become well known at that time, do you think?

Well, because of the trading routes mainly.

Its location made it an ideal place for traders to stop when they were travelling between East and West.

True, and the trade route is interesting.

But, you wouldn’t really be talking just about Petra itself, as it was only one of many places on the trade route.

I would rule that one out because your topic needs to concentrate on one place.

OK.

I’m also interested in the various conflicts that took place as people started to travel and mix with very different cultures.

Right, but to be honest, that’s going to be a lot of research.

For such a small sub-topic, there’s a surprisingly large amount of material to read on this.

I think it might take too long.

Yes, I had noticed that.

So, I guess that leaves Petra’s architecture, though it might be seen as rather an obvious choice.

Well, there’s a lot of potential there.

You could talk about the unique style of half building and half carving into the rocks.

That is really fascinating, but I’m worried that it might require some specialist knowledge of building techniques and so on.

I’m interested in architecture, but my background is more history and social studies.

Understood.

So any other thoughts?

Actually I’m very interested in the buildings in the context of the present day community of Petra.

Apparently, people go and sleep in the cave dwellings, even though they’ve been given modern houses to live in.

Living in caves is very much part of their culture.

Well, I agree it’s interesting, but I think you would get drawn into talking about tourism and that’s not really suitable for your degree.

I think some kind of focus on the past would be more relevant for a dissertation.

Before you hear the rest of the discussion you have some time to look at questions 6 and 7.

Now listen and answer questions 6 and 7.

OK, Adrian, so you’ve finally decided to focus on one aspect of Petra, which is the water management systems.

What have you found out so far?

Well, mainly that the people of Petra had a really good understanding of how to make use of every bit of groundwater and rainwater they had access to.

Can you give me some examples of that?

Well, agriculture was one of the most important uses of water.

Petra is located in the middle of the desert, so keeping their plants well irrigated was essential and they developed systems to do that.

You mentioned that you haven’t studied much science.

Do you think this area is going to be too technical for you?

Well, actually the water supply process is fairly simple to grasp.

They used clay pipes and thought about the height of different areas so they could make use of gravity.

You don’t need a degree in engineering to understand it.

OK, that’s good. And what about the storage of water?

They built huge reservoirs, as simple as that.

And is there anything else that’s particularly noteworthy?

There’s an aqueduct in Petra which is around 2,000 years old.

That’s a bridge which carries water.

It was unbelievably ahead of its time.

Other similar regions were uninhabitable at that time because of the lack of water management.

OK, and what other aspects do you want to focus on?

Well, the social history angle, apart from the benefits of irrigation, initially it was the elite, that is the rich, who gained from all this technology.

Ordinary people didn’t have the luxury of baths and running water, for example.

Hmm, and that’s still the case with any new technology, isn’t it?