Understanding an explanation

Understanding an explanation

Listen to a professor's explanation to practise and improve your listening skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.

Preparation

Transcript

Professor: OK, before we continue, does anybody have a question? Oh, lots of questions, I see. OK, we'll go one at a time. Yes?

Student: Thank you. You talked about Fibonacci numbers in the lecture. Sorry, I don't understand. Can you explain?

Professor: Of course. What do you want to know?

Student: OK … I hope this isn't a silly question, but what does Fibonacci actually mean?

Professor: No question is ever silly – it's always good to ask. OK, it's the name of a person. Fibonacci was a European mathematician in the Middle Ages.

Student: Ah, OK. Thanks. So, we know he was a person, but what are the Fibonacci numbers? I don't get it.

Professor: The Fibonacci numbers are a sequence of numbers. They go 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and so on. Do you see the sequence? Do you see how it works?

Student: I'm not sure.

Professor: OK. This is how it works. The first number is 1, then 1 again, then 2. The third number is the first number plus the second number. The fourth number is the second number plus the third number: 1 plus 2 is 3. The fifth number is the third number, 2, plus the fourth number, 3. So the fifth number in a Fibonacci sequence is 5.

Student: Ah! I think I understand now. But what about their importance? You said these were very important.

Professor: Yes, let me explain. This sequence of numbers is important because we see it in many things. Fibonacci numbers are common in geometry, they are common in nature, for example in plants. We see the sequence everywhere.

Student: Could you give us some more examples?

Professor: OK ... well, we don't have time right now but I can bring more examples in for next class, OK?

Discussion

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Language level

Average: 4.5 (30 votes)
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Submitted by Thais Gomes Ribeiro on Fri, 15/10/2021 - 16:34

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The last lecture I went to was about Algebra and yes, the professor explained well.

Submitted by Suraj paliwal on Wed, 14/04/2021 - 03:31

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Yes, my last lecture was held two days before. It was about economics it was held online due to virus. Teacher can't explain well because network issues. He was seem bad academicians He had no experience to how to teach students very well.

Submitted by vespinosa10 on Tue, 02/03/2021 - 18:08

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i never had a lecture.

Submitted by fariba on Tue, 16/02/2021 - 10:53

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it was about labor organization and ILO. IT WAS USEFULL. AND MANY LECTURR EXPLAIN.

Submitted by Sara Kalafat on Mon, 08/02/2021 - 20:06

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it was about korean alphabet

Submitted by Minh on Thu, 07/01/2021 - 22:52

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Well, if I remembered clearly, when I was in the university that we had a trouble with many subjects, so these professors were willing to explain all of things for students. However, some subjects were difficult understand that the one of reason was made a number of students to fail the final exam.

Submitted by Suraj paliwal on Tue, 05/01/2021 - 05:47

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My last lecture is on public finance. Public finance is a branch of economics. Lecture was held offline. We obey the government regulations. We made a social distancing each other. Teacher explain about canons of public expenditure. Teacher had explained very well. There was no doubt.

Submitted by Pola on Fri, 25/12/2020 - 16:52

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Really, I didn't remember the last lecture, I had took, but I'm not sure the last one was lecture on design thinking, oh, that was 12 years ago.

Submitted by fatfat on Sun, 20/12/2020 - 21:30

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I dont remember it. But usually the lectures were boring because academics were so bad.