Part 2: Vacation Jobs Survey
Section 2
Questions 11-20
Question 11-16
Complete the table below.
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER for each answer.
| Vacation Job |
Main advantage |
Main disadvantage |
Recommendation |
| Stocktaking |
11 ………………………….. |
Tiring |
12 ………………………….. |
| Office work |
Air-conditioning |
13 ………………………….. |
Choose a 14 ………………………. |
| theme park attendant |
15 …………………………… |
Rude customers |
16 ………………………….. |
Question 17-20
Choose the correct letter, A, B or C
17 Peter learned about the job
A from a college friend
B on the computer
C from a student job centre
18 peter mainly enjoyed the job because it was
A easy
B challenging
C unusal
19 The job’s most interesting aspect was
A learning about the environment
B working with children
C caring for the animals
20 Peter has decided that next vacation he
A
won’t take a job
B will work at the zoo
C will work elsewhere
Key
- traveling
- get good shoes
- wearing formal clothes
- Large office
- good pay
- live nearly
- B
- C
- B
- A
Transcript
Speaker (Sarah): Welcome to Student Life. It’s spring, and many of you may be thinking about arranging work for the long vacation. So on today’s programme, Roger Anwell reports on a survey we conducted into the pleasures and problems of vacation jobs. Roger.
Reporter (Roger Anwell): Thank you Sarah. Well, the first thing to say is that by far the majority of students we surveyed did just three types of jobs. All of these obviously had their advantages and disadvantages.
Common Vacation Jobs Survey Findings
| Job Type |
Main Positive Feature |
Main Negative Feature |
Student Recommendation / Advice |
| Stock Taking in Supermarkets |
The travelling (going to different branches for stock takes). |
Tiring with long hours spent on their feet and climbing high shelves. |
Get good shoes (the only way to keep going). |
| Office Work |
Air conditioning (especially appreciated due to the hot summer). |
Wearing formal clothes. |
Select a large office (for more variety of social contacts, otherwise work gets boring). |
| Theme Park Attendant |
Good pay. |
Having to deal with difficult customers, especially when tempers get frayed in the heat. |
Live nearby (due to a lot of shift work and concerns about difficult transport times). |
An Unusual Job: Zoo Attendant
Reporter: The third job which had attracted large numbers of students was as a theme park attendant, and again I got a surprise here because the big plus people talked about was good pay. It must have improved since my day I must say. Anyway, the downside I did recognise having to deal with difficult customers especially in the heat when tempers get frayed. Not easy. And people said that it was a good idea to live nearby because there’s a lot of shift work, and you don’t have to worry about transport at difficult times of the day.
So those were the findings from the survey on the most common student jobs but not all student jobs have to be mundane and boring.
One of the students who responded in our survey spoke at length about his amazing job as a zoo attendant. Peter Marshall had read about work opportunities on the zoo website, and just went along with a friend to talk to someone in personnel. He was offered a job there and then, as easy as that.
In previous years he’d done singularly unexciting shop work so he was very pleased to be doing such original work.
- He ended up working for just under three months, which was actually slightly more than he’d anticipated, and meant that he had to miss part of university term time but he said it was well worth it.
- Because he thinks he’s found his future career path as a result of this experience.
- He loved working on the educational side in particular helping young kids understand about the animals in their natural environment.
- He said it was the most intriguing thing he’d ever done.
He tells us though that with final exams coming up he won’t be able to do any paid work this coming vacation, so why don’t you apply?
If you’re interested in getting further information about the findings of the survey…
