IELTS Listening Multiple Choice Questions in Section 4 (Doctors)

Research about people’s attitudes to doctors

31 In order to set up her research programme, Shona got

A advice from personal friends in other countries

B help from students in other countries

C information from her tutor’s contacts in other countries

I’ve been doing some research into what people in Britain think of doctors, the ones who work in general practice, and comparing this with the situation in a couple of other countries. I want to talk about the rationale behind what I decided to do.

Now I had to set up my programme of research in 3 different countries so I approached postgraduates in my field in overseas departments, contacting them by email to organise things for me at their end. I thought I would have trouble recruiting help but in fact everyone was very willing and sometimes their tutors got involved too.

32 What types of people were included in the research?

A young people in their first job

B men who were working

C women who were unemployed

I had to give my helpers clear instructions about what kind of sample population I wanted them to use. I decided that people under 18 should be excluded because most of them are students or looking for their first job, and also I decided at this stage just to focus on men who were in employment and set up something for people who didn’t have jobs and for employed women later on as a separate investigation.

33. Shona says that in her questionnaire her aim was

A to get a wide range of data

B to limit people’s responses

C to guide people through interviews

I specifically wanted to do a questionnaire and interviews with a focus group. With the questionnaire, rather than limiting it to one specific point, I wanted to include as much variety as possible. I know questionnaires are a very controlled way to do things but I thought I could do taped interviews later on to counteract the effects of this. And the focus group may also prove useful in future by targeting subjects I can easily return to, as the participants tend to be more involved.

34. What do Shona’s initial results show about medical services in Britain?

A Current concerns are misrepresented by the press.

B Financial issues are critical to the government.

C Reforms within hospitals have been unsuccessful

So I’m just collating the results now. At the moment it looks as if, in the UK despite the fact that newspapers continually report that people are unhappy with medical care, in fact it is mainly the third level of care which takes place in hospitals, that they are worried about. Government reforms have been proposed at all levels and although their success is not guaranteed, long-term hospital care is in fact probably less of an issue than the media would have us believe. However, I’ve still got quite a bit of data to look at.

35. Shona needs to do further research in order to

A present the government with her findings

B decide the level of extra funding needed.

C identify the preferences of the public

Certainly I will need to do more far-reaching research than I had anticipated in order to establish if people want extra medical staff invested in the community, or if they want care to revert to fewer, but larger, key medical units. The solution may well be something that can be easily implemented by those responsible in local government, with central government support of course.

36. Shona has learnt from the research project that

A it is important to plan projects carefully.

B people do not like answering questions

C colleagues do not always agree

This first stage has proved very valuable though. I was surprised by how willing most of the subjects were to get involved in the project – I had expected some unwillingness to answer questions honestly. But I was taken aback and rather concerned that something I thought I’d set up very well didn’t necessarily seem that way to everyone in my own department.