This task can be completed by pencil and paper or online (with auto-marking).

Information on administration by pencil and paper only

In order to follow the same procedure as the resource trial, and thereby ensure the reliability of the difficulty estimates, we suggest you follow these instructions.

• Hand out the student sheets which should be turned upside down until you have finished reading the passage.
• Say: "This is a test of your listening skills. I will read the passage and then you will answer questions about it. Listen carefully."
• Read the introduction and passage. (Please note the suggested reading time of the text is 2 minutes and ten seconds).
• Say: "Now turn over your sheet. Listen to each question and circle the best possible answer. Circle only one answer per question. If you wish to change your answer, cross out your first answer and circle your new answer."
• Read out each question and set of options with an approximately 10 second gap between each question.
• Except in the case of a significant interruption, read each part of the passage and each question and its options only once.

Kākāpō are native birds that are in danger of dying out. Listen to the story of how someone is trying to help them to survive.

Last summer, I spent two weeks on Little Barrier Island helping to feed the kākāpō.

There are very few kākāpō left, and they need to breed as often as possible or they will become extinct. Some time ago, scientists decided to try and help the birds by giving them extra food like nuts to make them strong and healthy, and better able to breed.

My job was to carry the food through the bush to the places where the kakapo came to feed. There, I had to weigh what the birds had left so we knew how much they had eaten, and put out some more food.

Then, one night, I had the chance to watch the kākāpō from a hiding place. Inside it, there was a special telescope that lets you see in the dark. I had to be in the hiding place before night came, and be very quiet in case I frightened the birds away.

Then, about two o'clock in the morning, I heard the nut feeder opening. Looking out, I saw a kakapo bent over, eating a nut she had taken out. From the colour of the band on her leg, I knew this was the female bird called Wendy.

She took some more nuts, then put her head right inside the nut feeder for several minutes, eating away. I noticed how big she was – as long as the board she was standing on, with her tail drooping off the end of it.

Wendy started scraping nuts out of the feeder – I could hear them dropping. They were the large brazil nuts she never eats. Later she put her head in the tray to have some kumara and apple.

Later, when Wendy had come back to eat the scraps she had left, she suddenly gave a throaty growl, and another kakapo answered from the bushes. Then I saw Wendy's son, Dobbie, creep towards her as if he did not want to be seen.

Dobbie put his head down as if to snuggle under her like a chick. But now he was ten months old, almost fully grown and quite as big as Wendy, and she was having none of this nonsense. She chased him away, and off they went, thump, thump, thump, into the bushes. That was the last I saw of them, though I did hear scrark! scrark! from time to time until nearly five o'clock. By now I was so tired that I laid down for a sleep.