Mock test 3 · listening part 3

Part 3. You will hear a talk: A small business with big ideas.

Hi, everyone, and thanks for having me on the podcast. My name is Maria, and I make wooden toys. Cars, trains, animals, little houses, all made of wood and painted with natural colors.

I started the business in 2019. Before that, I worked in a bank for eight years. I was good at it, but I was bored. When my son was born, I couldn't find nice toys that weren't made of plastic, so I made one myself. Friends wanted one too, and that's how it started.

My first workshop was in our garage. There was no heating, so in winter I worked in a coat and gloves! My father, who was a carpenter all his life, came every weekend and taught me everything about wood. My husband did the website.

Now we have a real workshop, and the company has grown a lot. Twelve people work for us today, most of them part-time.

We sell mostly online. About seventy percent of our customers are here in the US, but we also send toys abroad. Most of our foreign orders come from Canada, and some from Europe.

Something we're really proud of: for every toy we sell, we plant a tree. Last year that was more than nine thousand trees.

Oh, and the name of the company. It's Twigly, because a twig is a small piece of a tree. That's T, W, I, G, L, Y. You can find us at twigly dot com.

Hi, everyone, and thanks for having me on the podcast. My name is Maria, and I make wooden toys. Cars, trains, animals, little houses, all made of wood and painted with natural colors.

I started the business in 2019. Before that, I worked in a bank for eight years. I was good at it, but I was bored. When my son was born, I couldn't find nice toys that weren't made of plastic, so I made one myself. Friends wanted one too, and that's how it started.

My first workshop was in our garage. There was no heating, so in winter I worked in a coat and gloves! My father, who was a carpenter all his life, came every weekend and taught me everything about wood. My husband did the website.

Now we have a real workshop, and the company has grown a lot. Twelve people work for us today, most of them part-time.

We sell mostly online. About seventy percent of our customers are here in the US, but we also send toys abroad. Most of our foreign orders come from Canada, and some from Europe.

Something we're really proud of: for every toy we sell, we plant a tree. Last year that was more than nine thousand trees.

Oh, and the name of the company. It's Twigly, because a twig is a small piece of a tree. That's T, W, I, G, L, Y. You can find us at twigly dot com.