Listen to a conversation between two students.
(man) How's it going, Marie? Weren't you away this past weekend?
(woman) Yeah, I flew out to see my family in Boston for the weekend, just got back from the airport actually. What a mess! My flight was delayed several hours cause of the bad weather.
(man) Oh, yeah, there was that big storm out East, huh?
(woman) Right, so I was at the airport like all night waiting for my flight to leave. I was supposed to arrive back to campus last night, but, instead, I got in early this morning.(man) You must be exhausted.
(woman) I am. I hardly got any sleep, just a short nap on the plane. And I am supposed to, I can't believe it, I am supposed to give a presentation in my history class today, an hour from now.
(man) What kind of presentation?
(woman) It's a ten-minute presentation on a paper I wrote. And then there's an answer, a question-and-answer session afterward, where the professor and other students ask me questions about my history paper and stuff.
(man) Well, I bet if you told your professor what happened, how the flight was delayed and you didn’t get an y sleep, I bet your professor would let you do the presentation on a different day.
(woman) Yeah, she’d probably let me reschedule. I just don’t know if I want to put it off. I’ve got a lot of other stuff coming up, big assignments.
(man) Oh!
(woman) I could just give the presentation today, I mean, I did prepare a lot for it last week. So, I don’t know, maybe I should just grab a cup of coffee or something and go through with it.
(man) Well, if you feel OK with that.
(woman) Well, I’m definitely tired. I wouldn’t be as quick or sharp as I normally am but I’ve got an hour to go over my notes and the coffee should help wake me up.
Briefly summarize the problem the speakers are discussing. Then state which of the two solutions from the conversation you would recommend. Explain the reasons for your recommendation.
Well, the woman's problem is that her flight got delayed so she hardly had any sleep during the night but she's got a presentation to do an hour later. Accordingly, there are two solutions for the woman. First, she could explain to the professor about her situation and ask for a reschedule of her presentation, or she could just give the presentation today. I believe that the woman should give the presentation today mainly because asking for extension from the professor would be unfair for other students, especially for the students who pull an all-nighter preparing for the presentation. After all, there are students who didn't get sound sleep too and yet are preparing for the presentation. Besides, she's prepared well for the presentation, and she's got big assignments to deal with too, so if she reschedules her presentation, she'll have too much work to handle later. So maybe with a cup of coffee, she could just go ahead and finish her presentation. (162 words)
