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Summarize Spoken Text – You will hear a short report. Write a summary for a fellow student who was not present. You should write 50-70 words.
You have 10 minutes to finish this task. Your response will be judged on the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the key points presented in the report.
Note: This transcript is given for your reference purpose only. It will not be given in PTE Academic examination.
South Korea is planning to move its capital from Seoul to a new site in the middle of the country. Although Seoul has been the capital since the fourteenth century, the city of over 20 million is now very crowded, and also close to the hostile armies of North Korea. The new capital is planned to cost $45 billion, with construction finishing by 2012.
There is, however, strong opposition to the project, since similar schemes in other countries have taken far longer and cost much more than originally planned. Australia, for example, took over 70 years to finish building Canberra, while Nigeria has never completed its planned new capital, Abuja.
Both Brazil and Malaysia have found that the building of new capitals (Brasilia and Putrajaya) can sharply increase the national burden of debt. Even if the government does eventually move to the new capital, it is unlikely that South Korea’s main businesses will follow it, so Seoul will probably continue to be the country’s principal city.
It is planned to move South Korea’s capital from Seoul to a central site by 2012, at a cost of $45 billion. Although Seoul is crowded and too near the border, critics claim that this scheme will be too expensive and take too long. Businesses are unlikely to move away from Seoul when the government does. Other countries have experienced severe problems with capital relocation.