Suggested answers:
1. According to the text, Sydney has 4.4 million inhabitants
2. He knows that Sydney was the site of the first British colony in Australia. And that it was established in 1788 at Sydney Cove by Arthur Phillip.
SCRIPT
Paco is prepared to visit Sydney, which is the largest city in
Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney has an
estimated population of 4.4 million and is one of the most
multicultural cities in the world. Lots of tourists visit it every
year. As Paco goes out of the hotel, he thinks this is a place which he
wished to visit. So, he is really happy to be there. Thanks to his
studies, he knows that Sydney was the site of the first British colony
in Australia. It was established in 1788 at Sydney Cove by Arthur Phillip, who was a commodore of the so well known First Fleet. The city is built on hills surrounding Sydney Harbour – an inlet
of the Tasman Sea on Australia's south-east coast. It is home to the
iconic Sydney Opera House, the Harbour Bridge and its beaches. The
metropolitan area is surrounded by national parks, where the tourists
spend many hours enjoying nature.
Paco will first go to the Opera House. After taking a taxi to get there, at the entrance he takes a brochure and reads something about this magnificent building:
Planning for the Sydney Opera House began in the late 1940s, when
Eugene Goossens, the Director of the NSW State Conservatorium of Music,
lobbied for a suitable venue
for large theatrical productions. The normal venue for such
productions, the Sydney Town Hall, was not considered large enough. By
1954, Goossens succeeded in gaining the support of NSW Premier Joseph
Cahill,
who called for designs for a dedicated opera house. It was also
Goossens who insisted that Bennelong Point be the site for the Opera
House. Cahill had wanted it to be on or near Wynyard Railway Station in
the northwest of the CBD (Sydney central business district).
A design competition
was launched by Cahill on 13 September 1955 and received 233 entries,
representing architects from 32 countries. The criteria specified a
large hall seating 3000 and a small hall for 1200 people, each to be
designed for different uses, including full-scale
operas, orchestral
and choral concerts, mass meetings, lectures, ballet performances and
other presentations. The winner, who was announced in 1957, was Jørn
Utzon, a Danish architect. The prize was £5,000. Utzon visited Sydney
in 1957 to help supervise the project. His office moved to Sydney in
February 1963.
1 Adapted from Wikipedia.org
Listening activity
