PTE Listening Practice Test 12

"For centuries after the decline of ancient Egyptian civilisation, the meaning of hieroglyphic writing was completely lost, and scholars could only speculate about what the elaborate symbols covering temple walls and monuments actually represented. This changed dramatically in 1799, when French soldiers rebuilding a fort near the Egyptian town of Rosetta discovered a large stone slab inscribed with the same text written in three different scripts: hieroglyphic, a simplified Egyptian script called Demotic, and ancient Greek. Because scholars could already read ancient Greek fluently, the stone provided a crucial key: by comparing the Greek text with the hieroglyphic and Demotic versions, researchers could begin to work out what individual hieroglyphic symbols meant. Progress was slow and required contributions from several scholars over more than two decades, but the French linguist Jean-François Champollion is generally credited with achieving the definitive breakthrough in 1822, correctly identifying that hieroglyphs combined phonetic sounds with symbolic ideas rather than functioning purely as pictures. Champollion's breakthrough depended partly on his ability to read Coptic, a later form of the Egyptian language still used in Christian religious services. The successful decipherment of hieroglyphs opened up thousands of years of previously unreadable Egyptian texts. The original Rosetta Stone has been held in the British Museum since 1802, though its ownership remains a subject of ongoing diplomatic discussion between Britain and Egypt."

রোসেটা স্টোন (১৭৯৯ সালে আবিষ্কৃত) তিনটি ভাষায় (হায়ারোগ্লিফিক, ডেমোটিক, গ্রিক) একই লেখা ধারণ করে, যা মিশরীয় হায়ারোগ্লিফ পাঠোদ্ধারের চাবিকাঠি হয়। শ্যাম্পোলিয়ন ১৮২২ সালে চূড়ান্ত সাফল্য পান। বর্তমানে ব্রিটিশ মিউজিয়ামে রক্ষিত।

"Intermittent fasting, an eating pattern that cycles between periods of eating and voluntary fasting, has attracted considerable scientific and public interest in recent years. Several studies have found that intermittent fasting can produce modest weight loss and improvements in certain markers of metabolic health, such as insulin sensitivity, in some participants. However, researchers emphasise that these benefits appear to result primarily from an overall reduction in calorie intake, since people following intermittent fasting schedules often naturally eat less during their permitted eating windows, rather than from any unique metabolic effect of fasting itself. Most clinical trials comparing intermittent fasting to conventional daily calorie restriction have found broadly similar results between the two approaches for weight loss, suggesting that consistency and long-term adherence to any reasonable eating pattern may matter more than the specific timing of meals."

"Co-working spaces, shared offices that provide desks, meeting rooms and amenities to independent freelancers and small businesses on a flexible membership basis, have grown rapidly in cities worldwide over the past decade. For freelancers who might otherwise work alone from home, co-working spaces offer opportunities for spontaneous professional networking and collaboration that isolated remote work cannot easily replicate, with many freelancers reporting new client relationships or business partnerships formed through casual interactions at these spaces. The shared cost structure also allows individuals and very small businesses to access professional amenities, such as high-speed internet, printing facilities and meeting rooms, that would be prohibitively expensive to maintain independently. Survey data suggests that reported levels of loneliness and professional isolation are notably lower among freelancers who regularly use co-working spaces compared with those who work exclusively from home, though membership costs remain a barrier for some lower-income freelancers."

"Linguists estimate that nearly half of the world's approximately seven thousand languages could disappear by the end of this century, as younger generations in many communities increasingly shift toward more widely spoken national or global languages. Preserving an endangered language typically requires more than simply recording its vocabulary and grammar; linguists argue that a language's long-term survival depends on it continuing to be actively used in daily life, particularly by children acquiring it as a first language at home. Some communities have established language nests, immersive early-childhood programmes conducted entirely in the endangered language, modelled on successful revitalisation efforts for languages such as Māori in New Zealand and Hawaiian in the United States. Documentation projects remain valuable even when a language cannot be fully revived, since they preserve information for future linguistic research and for descendants who may wish to reconnect with their heritage language later."

"Each human eye has a natural blind spot where the optic nerve connects to the retina, containing no light-sensitive cells at all, yet most people never notice this gap in their vision because the brain automatically fills in the missing information using surrounding visual detail."