Listen to a conversation between two students.
Man：Hey. Jill. What's on your mind?
Woman：I'm trying to decide what to do about the paper for my history class. A big part of the assignment is working with original historical documents.
Man：Originals.
Woman：Yeah. You know, our library has all kinds of records and books dating back hundreds of years.
Man：Amazing! So is there a problem?
Woman：Uh-huh. The librarian just told me that the documents I was planning to use aren't available right now. They are old newspapers and they were in pretty bad shape, so the library sent them out for repairs, like, restoration work.
Man：So you can't use them.
Woman：No. They say they won't be available for at least another two weeks. So I can't work on my paper.
Man：Well, can you change what you are writing about? You know, choose a topic that doesn't involve those documents.
Woman：I could. There are plenty of historical topics. Then I could really get working on the paper right away, but...
Man：But what?
Woman：Well, I've already done a bunch of research on my current topic. I've collected a lot of information and I wouldn't be able to use any of it if I changed my topic.
Man：Well, when did you say the documents, the old newspapers, will be available?
Woman：The librarian said two weeks.
Man：So you could just postpone working on the paper, wait until they are available.
Woman：Possibly. Unfortunately that would mean doing major work on my paper in the last week of the school term, when I will be working on a lot of other things. If I change the topic, I can really work on the paper right away.
The speakers discuss two possible solutions to the woman’s problem. Briefly summarize the problem. Then state which solution you recommend and why.
In this conversation, the woman is having a hard time dealing with the problem that the documents she needs to use in her history assignment isn’t available right now, so she can’t work on her paper. And the man offers her two possible solutions. One is to change what she is writing about, that is to choose a topic that doesn’t involve those documents. But the woman has already collected a lot of information and if she changed her topic of the paper, she couldn’t use any of them. The other is postpone working on the paper and wait until the documents available again. And if it were my choice, I would choose the former one, because in this way, she can work on the paper right away. Since the documents have to be available in two weeks, which means she has to do a lot of other things in the last week of the school term, and it’ll leave her no time to finish the paper.
