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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Average: 4.4 (26 votes)
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Submitted by ICM2 on Wed, 20/04/2022 - 02:50

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Y had a hard time remembering, a long time ago I was a lecturer. I think it was from an English Architect. He was describing his feeling about a project of his that was being built in the city.

Submitted by Ehsan on Tue, 29/03/2022 - 08:20

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Our company had a seminar at the field of IT( Computer networking and security). It was the last lecture that I was in that. I think it was good but we were the host and I didn't listen to it well because we were doing some tasks.

Submitted by jmajo on Tue, 15/03/2022 - 14:18

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I think the last lecture I went to was about the most common issues related to MacOS systems, it was a bit confusing at first but at the first break all the students had the opportunity to make some questions and I get some really good answers from the lecturer, so at the end it was more clear for me and I could understand most of the lecture.

Thanks for the lesson.
Great site!

Submitted by azharbgskr on Thu, 25/11/2021 - 15:04

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My last lecture I attended was Discrete Mathematics. It was about recursive function. My professor explained it properly. I can easily understand the material.

Submitted by vuhoap on Tue, 09/11/2021 - 00:17

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The last lecture I went to about Japanese language about one year ago today. Yes, my teacher explained the usage of Japanese words very well. Until now, I still remember these words.

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.