I had listened one podcast:

• "Business Daily Shrinking Russia" at BBC World Service, broadcast on 31 Jul 2009 - http://search.bbc.co.uk/search?tab=tvradio&q=Russia%20unemployment&scope=all

I had an aim to self-assess what skills do I have listening tasks, especially how I can understand the authentic speech.
At first I'd like to say that the task listended by me was about unemployment and  how the crisis in Russia influence  to frims disitions such as eliminate employees. There were several peoples opinions, their notion about crisis and so or and so both. In Maria's opinion who was in English, German and French teacher. It was a crisis for her in her job as the company where she worked had a lot of problems and they had to move twice faster in order to get the same money. There were also some  other men's notions and speech about marketing and operating the market system in Russia.
         So what I'd like you to know is that I found few difficulties in listening this task. Almost I understood what  peoples talked about. But I admit that I had to listen two or exactly three times the task and I know  that it will take me much tiime in working on vocabulary and working on listenings. So after what I think I will be able to  pass an exam.