Narrator: Now listen to two students discussing the memo.
Female student: I don’t think it’s a good idea to change the play to a drama this term. The drama professor hasn’t considered an important factor.
Male student: What’s that?
Female student: We raise a lot of our budget via ticket sales. If you look at the last couple of years, the spring comedy has always outsold the fall drama. We make almost 50 percent more from the comedy than the drama. So if we produce another drama this spring, we may not make as much money and that would make our budget problems worse.
Male student: We can reuse the costumes and sets, though. That will save money so maybe it won’t matter if we don’t make as much.
Female student: Why don’t we produce a comedy by Shakespeare, like A Midsummer Night’s Dream? We could still reuse everything—and we would be able to get more people to buy tickets.
Male student: That’s a good idea.
Female student: We would even still be able to take advantage of Professor Ludgate’s expertise. He is probably just as knowledgeable about Shakespeare’s comedies.
Male student: You’re right. One of the seminars he’s leading this term is based on the comedies of Shakespeare.
Narrator: The woman expresses her opinion about the proposed change of the play. State her opinion and explain the reasons she gives for holding that opinion.
The woman does not believe that, um, the university should do a drama for the spring production instead of a comedy. Um, she says that usually, um, the comedies that the school does, uh, sells much better than the dramas that the school does. Um, she says that it… they usually… tickets sales are about 50 percent better for comedies than dramas. Um, and if they do a drama this term then the budget problems will become even worse because they won’t have the opportunity to make up, um, the money with the ticket sales. She suggests that they can do a comedy if they do a Shakespeare comedy. That way they will still be able to reuse all of the, um, costumes and props and scenery that they would be reusing, um, if they did a Shakespeare drama. And the visiting professor that’s working at the school also is, uh… knows about Shakespeare comedy, so then he would able to work with the…
The student addresses most of the woman’s reasons for wanting to do a comedy, not a drama. The student provides very good detail, but she does run out of time while making her final point. She could improve her response by cutting down on the earlier detail just a little bit. Then she would have had time to address the woman’s final point.