# Shellac: A Resin Made by Insects: answers and explanations

Testmigo Practice Test 1, Listening Part 4

Source: Written by Testmigo.

## Answer key

| Q | Answer | Proof |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 31 | sap | feeding on the tree's sap |
| 32 | kusum | kusum, is reported to give the best quality and the highest yield |
| 33 | Jharkhand | one state, Jharkhand, accounts for about half of the country's output |
| 34 | dye | it also takes away a red dye |
| 35 | bag | packed into a tightly woven cloth bag |
| 36 | flakes | they're broken up into flakes |
| 37 | alcohol | shellac flakes are dissolved in alcohol |
| 38 | brittle | so brittle that they'd shatter |
| 39 | water | stops the fruit losing water |
| 40 | intestine | until they reach the intestine |

## Why these answers are right

**31. sap.** The lecturer says each insect pushes its mouthparts through the bark and spends the rest of its life feeding on the tree's sap. Draws its food from the host's in the notes paraphrases feeding on the tree's.

**32. kusum.** Palas and ber are named as the main hosts, but the lecturer says a third tree, kusum, is reported to give the best quality and the highest yield. The notes call it the tree said to give the best quality and yield.

**33. Jharkhand.** The lecturer says that within India one state, Jharkhand, accounts for about half of the country's output, and spells the name letter by letter. Comes from the state of in the notes paraphrases accounts for.

The why and the trap for questions 34 onwards are free with an account on the [answers page](https://testmigo.com/ielts/listening/shellac-a-resin-made-by-insects/answers).

## Transcript

**Announcer:** Part 4. You will hear a lecture about shellac, a natural resin produced by insects.

**Announcer:** First, you have some time to look at questions 31 to 40.

**Announcer:** Now listen carefully and answer questions 31 to 40.

**Lecturer:** Good afternoon. Today's lecture is about a material that's been on your kitchen table, in your medicine cabinet and quite possibly on your grandparents' record player: shellac.

**Lecturer:** It's the only resin of animal origin that's produced commercially, and it's been used in India for more than two thousand years.

**Lecturer:** The animal in question is the lac insect, Kerria lacca, a tiny scale insect. The young are red and only about half a millimetre long.

**Lecturer:** They crowd onto the young twigs of certain trees, sometimes in such numbers that the branches look red or pink from a distance.

**Lecturer:** Each one pushes its mouthparts through the bark and spends the rest of its life feeding on the tree's sap.

**Lecturer:** Inside the insect, that sap is chemically changed and then secreted through pores, and the secretion hardens in the air into a shell that covers the whole colony.

**Lecturer:** Only about five per cent of the insects are male, and the males die soon after mating, so the females are the main resin producers.

**Lecturer:** Now, which trees? In India the main hosts are palas and ber, which you'll find in a lot of villages. But a third tree, kusum, is reported to give the best quality and the highest yield.

**Lecturer:** The FAO puts world production at around twenty thousand tonnes a year. India is the leading producer, and Thailand comes second.

**Lecturer:** Within India, one state, Jharkhand, accounts for about half of the country's output. That's J, H, A, R, K, H, A, N, D.

**Lecturer:** So how do you get from a crusty twig to a tin of varnish? Harvesters cut off the coated twigs, and the raw material at this stage is called sticklac.

**Lecturer:** It's crushed, sieved and then washed several times. The washing gets rid of bits of wood and insect remains, and it also takes away a red dye that's a useful product in its own right.

**Lecturer:** What's left is dried and called seedlac, because the grains look rather like seeds.

**Lecturer:** To refine it the traditional way, seedlac is packed into a tightly woven cloth bag and heated over a fire. The resin melts at around seventy-five to eighty degrees and seeps through the cloth, which acts as a filter.

**Lecturer:** A worker then stretches the warm resin into thin sheets. These cool and turn brittle, and they're broken up into flakes, which is the form shellac is usually sold in.

**Lecturer:** Some refineries now use solvents instead of heat, but the flakes look much the same.

**Lecturer:** Historically, one big use was furniture. In French polishing, which was the fashionable finish for fine furniture and pianos in the nineteenth century, shellac flakes are dissolved in alcohol.

**Lecturer:** The polisher applies many very thin coats with a soft pad of cloth called a rubber. People sometimes think the shine comes from oil, but the oil is just a lubricant on the pad.

**Lecturer:** Shellac also went into sealing wax and electrical insulators, but its most famous job was in records.

**Lecturer:** The old discs that played at seventy-eight revolutions per minute were made with shellac. They were heavier than modern records, and so brittle that they'd shatter if you dropped one.

**Lecturer:** Before the Second World War, record-making used about thirty per cent of America's shellac supply. But the war cut supplies, and afterwards vinyl took over.

**Lecturer:** According to the FAO, international trade in shellac fell to about half of what it had been in the 1950s, when records were its biggest market.

**Lecturer:** In furniture factories, faster spray-on finishes had already pushed out French polishing by about 1930. So where is shellac now? The answer, mostly, is in food.

**Lecturer:** In Europe it carries the code E904, and it's the glaze that gives some sweets and chocolates their shine.

**Lecturer:** It's also sprayed onto apples and citrus fruit. Partly that's for looks, but the coating also stops the fruit losing water, so it doesn't shrivel in storage.

**Lecturer:** In medicine, it's used to coat certain pills. Those tablets mustn't break down in the stomach, so the shellac holds them together until they reach the intestine.

**Lecturer:** You'll also find it in cosmetics, binding mascara or holding hairspray in place.

**Lecturer:** And it has a loyal following among conservators. An old shellac finish stays partly soluble in alcohol for many years, so damage can be repaired without stripping a historic surface.

**Lecturer:** That's why many conservators prefer it to modern lacquers on period furniture. Right, next week we'll move on to plant gums.

**Announcer:** That is the end of Part 4. You now have 30 seconds to check your answers.

[Practice Shellac: A Resin Made by Insects](https://testmigo.com/ielts/listening/shellac-a-resin-made-by-insects)