Exercises
A. Choose the best answer. Do not refer to the text.
The main idea of the text is that ______. ( A )
(a) children have some understanding of the advertising game
(b) advertising's goal is too subtle for children to know about
(c) psychologists' study makes child advertising scientific
(d) in children's eyes, an advertisement is nothing but a stunt
B. Comprehending the text.
Choose the best answer.
1. According to Nicky Buss of Ammirati Puris Lintas, young children nowadays are __________. ( B )
(a) so cynical that they refuse to believe anyone, anything
(b) so sophisticated that they come to know the marketing side of advertising
(c) so well-educated that they think of advertisers as illiterate
(d) so intelligent that they can make judgments by themselves
2. There is some _______ in Nicky Buss's claim about child advertising. ( C )
(a) underestimation
(b) ethic
(c) truth
(d) contradiction
3. Why advertisers are trying harder to market directly to children is ________. ( A )
(a) easy to understand
(b) still a mystery
(c) not noticed in Britain and the US
(d) really hard to say
4. Conferences and consultancies abound, which indicates that ________.( D )
(a) child advertising is more and more scientific
(b) they prove to be more influential than television
(c) children are influenced by advertising at a younger age
(d) selling to children has become big business
5. "Less than 1 percent of complaints received by the Advertising Association in 1998 related to ads for toys or games". This statement means that ___________. ( B )
(a) the quality of toys and games had greatly improved
(b) child advertising was under the control of the ITC Code
(c) few people were interested in toys and games
(d) ads for toys and games were the best ones in the country
6. What psychologists call a "theory of mind" refers to the understanding that __________. ( C )
(a) the older one gets, the less egocentric one is
(b) an advertisement is a manifestation of people's motives
(c) the world looks different from another person's perspective
(d) the world is always as it seems
7. A study finding that the majority of children "do not fully understand the purpose of TV advertising _______. ( A )
(a) lasted as long as twenty-five years
(b) was carried out by a 25-year-old psychologist
(c) was used by psychologists to ban toy ads on TV
(d) was used by advertisers against a ban on toys
C. Understanding vocabulary.
Choose the correct definition according to the context.
1. By then children are "brand literate" and they can see through "marketing hyperbole". ( D )
(a) strategy
(b) trick
(c) game
(d) exaggeration
2. Winthrop Publications in London has just launched the International Journal of Advertising and Marketing to Children. ( C )
(a) sold
(b) sent
(c) started
(d) published
3. Children are notoriously fickle, and advertisers have a hard job keeping up with their capricious tastes, ... ( D )
(a) credulous
(b) choosy
(c) greedy
(d) changeable
4. And the ITC Code works, according to the Advertising Association's James Aitchison. ( A )
(a) Regulation
(b) Name
(c) Number
(d) Message
5. Now the European advertising industry wants to see those bans lifted, or at the very least to ensure that they don't spread. ( B )
(a) raised
(b) removed
(c) carried out
(d) strengthened
6. Piaget may have chosen just the experimental subjects to exacerbate any difference in the cognitive abilities of children of the 1920s and of the present day. ( A )
(a) testees
(b) results
(c) areas
(d) topics
7. He based most of his key ideas on observations of his own children—Jacqueline, Laurent and Lucienne—whose upbringing was very sheltered. ( B )
(a) hidden
(b) protected
(c) covered
(d) privileged
8. A doctored version praised the cream but the punch line was that it gave users disgusting spots. ( D )
(a) medicated
(b) treated
(c) imagined
(d) changed
9. They laughed at the doctored ads—not just because they were funny but because they were pathetic as ads. ( A )
(a) unsuccessful
(b) improper
(c) unimaginable
(d) strange
10. Ironically, some psychologists who might usually be more comfortable arguing against sales pitches to children have had to concede that are shrewder than they once supposed. ( D )
(a) degrees
(b) levels
(d) presentations
11. Smith says his study and others reassure him that advertising to children is not "sinful or wicked", but, he concedes, one should "be mindful of the gullibility of young children". ( B )
(a) yields
(b) admits
(c) argues
(d) continues
12. Although the growing consensus is that by the age of five many children realise there is something different about ads, some psychologists claim they still do not truly understand the purpose of advertising. ( C )
(a) complaint
(b) statistics
(c) agreement
(d) argument
13. Then there was that seven-year-old's put-a-sock-in-it comment. ( A )
(a) stop-talking
(b) hang-around
(c) pull-my-leg
(d) forget-it
D. Discussing the following topics.
1. Why do advertisers try hard to market directly to children?
2. How is child advertising made as scientific as possible?
答案： Many measures have been taken to achieve this purpose. For example, Winthrop Publications in London has just launched the International Journal of Advertising and Marketing to Children. One article reports that 60 per cent of children aged two to eleven know by the end of October what they want for Christmas, and that for girls under seven the biggest deciding factor is what they see on television. Conferences and consultancies abound. Pay￡2000 and you can attend Kid Power 99 at any one of a string of European venues. The meetings offer workshops on "what works with kids and why", "peer group marketing" and how to "think like a kid". Consultancy firms will tell you how to build "a wall of communication" to influence "your core consumer lifestyle" from the moment said consumer is two years old.
3. What can we learn from psychologists' experiments on children's response to ads?
答案：
From psychologist's experiments about children's response to ads, we can learn that children are not as gullible as they are thought to be. They become more cynical and sophisticated. Children are "brand literate" and they can see through "marketing hyperbole". Either children are getting wise to the advertising game, and at an earlier age than in the 1970s and 1980s, or in the past psychologists underestimated their young subjects' ability to work out other people's motivation. From article reports we know that 60 per cent of children aged two to eleven know by the end of October know what they want for Christmas, and that for girls under seven the biggest deciding factor is what they see on television. Children are notoriously fickle, and advertisers have a hard job keeping up with their capricious tastes. Children are aware of the purpose of ads, those aimed children are no more sinister than those aimed at adults.
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