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Passage
One
Businesses
need to advertise. If they did not advertise no one would
even learn of the existence of their wares. In part, advertising
is aimed at conveying information to potential customers
and clients, but it is also used to persuade the public
to buy. This is the area in which advertising is often criticised.
Advertisements are sometimes misleading. Although it is
illegal for advertisers to make untrue statements about
their goods, services or prices, they still make their wares
seen unduly attractive. They pander to our egos and our
vanities. They create a demand which would not otherwise
exist.
It is easy to say, "I'm not influenced by
the adverts!" Everyone is influenced to a certain extent.
There was recently some research on subliminal advertising.
The word "coffee" was flashed on to the television screen.
It happened so quickly that no one was aware it had happened.
For just a fraction of a second it registered on the viewers'
subconscious. The result? A surprising number of people
chose to make coffee at that precise moment. Of course it
could have been a coincidence but it was highly unlikely.
Yet, for the typical manufacturer advertising
is a form of insurance. The nature and extent of consumers'
needs have to be constantly assessed. If the needs are over-estimated
it is possible, through advertising, to soak up the surplus
goods which have been produced. As a demand for a product
sags, it can be stimulated. There are all sorts of useful
by-products. Without the possibility of advertising, workforces
would have to be laid off when sales fell. The warehouses
would become overfilled and the stocks would deteriorate,
perhaps even becoming obsolete.
An alternative to advertising would be to
lower prices when sales fall. This would suit the purchasers
but introduce an element of uncertainty for the manufacturers.
They are always concerned to ensure that their revenue exceeds
their costs, and where would they be if there were daily
fluctuations in the prices of their products?
Advertising goes far beyond television and
hoardings, newspapers and magazines. The proprietress of
a boutique is advertising when she goes into the window
to drape dresses over her inanimate models. A bicycle manufacturer
is advertising when he sends a new price-list through the
post to his retailers. How could trading be carried on without
such devices?
Some would even go so far as to say that
advertising actually enriches our lives. Commercial television
is able to provide us with free programmes thanks to its
advertising revenues. National newspapers derive much of
their revenue from advertising. Look at a typical newspaper
and you will discover the proportion of the pages devoted
to advertisements. While we have advertisers to thank for
the free colour supplements accompanying the Sunday newspapers.
(459 words)
1. Advertising is often criticised for _________. ( B
)
(a) providing information to potential customers and clients
(b) persuading people to buy things they might not want
(c) misleading the public to the wrong shops
(d) making everything unduly attractive
2. The example of the coffee advertisement
is used to describe __________. (
C
)
(a) a coincidence
(b) the role of TV in advertising
(c) subliminal advertising
(d) TV viewers' subconscious
3.For a manufacturer, advertising is important
because it helps __________. (
A
)
(a) to keep employees' jobs when the situation is not good
(b) to improve the relationship with an insurance company
(c) to assess the nature and extent of consumers' needs
(d) to overfill the warehouses and then reduce the stocks
4. While newspaper offices and TV stations
gain revenues from advertising, readers and viewers ___________.
(
C
)
(a) can do nothing about it
(b) blame it on advertisers
(c) gain benefits from it
(d) suffer a loss from paying for it
5. The author seems to _______ the idea that
advertising actually enriches our lives. (
D
)
(a) reject
(b) doubt
(c) put forword
(d) agree to
TOP
Passage
Two
The trouble with television is that it discourages concentration.
Almost anything interesting and rewarding in life requires
some constructive, consistently applied effort. The dullest,
the least gifted of us can achieve things that seem miraculous
to those who never concentrate on anything. But television
encourages us to apply no effort. It sells us instant gratification.
It diverts us only to divert, to make the time pass without
pain.
Capturing your attention—and holding it—is the prime motive of most television programming and
enhances its role as a profitable advertising vehicle. Programmers
live in constant fear of losing anyone's attention—anyone's.
The surest way to avoid doing so is to keep everything brief,
not to strain the attention of anyone but instead to provide
constant stimulation through variety, novelty, action and
movement. Quite simply, television operates on the appeal
to the short attention span.
It is simply the easiest way out. But it
has become to be regarded as a given, as inherent in the
medium itself: as an imperative, as though august pioneers
of video had bequeathed to us tablets of stone commanding
that nothing in television shall ever require more than
a few moments' concentration.
In its place that is fine. Who can quarrel
with a medium that so brilliantly packages escapist entertainment
as a mass-marketing tool? But I see its values now pervading
this nation and its life. It has become fashionable to think
that, like fast food, fast ideas are the way to get to a
fast-moving, impatient public.
In the case of news, this practice, in my
view, results in inefficient communication. I question how
much of television's nightly news effort is really absorbable
and understandable. Much of it is what has been aptly described
as "machine gunning with scraps." I think its technique
fights coherence. I think it tends to make things ultimately
boring and dismissible (unless they are accompanied by horrifying
pictures) because almost anything is boring and dismissible
if you know almost nothing about it.
I believe that TV's appeal to the short
attention span is not only inefficient communication but
decivilizing as well. Consider the casual assumptions that
television tends to cultivate: that complexity must be avoided,
that visual stimulation is a substitute for thought, that
verbal precision is an anachronism. It may be old-fashioned,
but I was taught that thought is words, arranged in grammatically
precise ways.
There is a crisis of literacy in this country.
Literacy may not be an inalienable human right, but it is
one that the highly literate Founding Fathers might not
have found unreasonable or even unattainable. We are not
only attaining it as a nation, statistically speaking, but
we are falling further and further short of attaining it.
And, while I would not be so simplistic as to suggest that
television is the cause, I believe it contributes and is
an influence.
(478 words)
6. The
major trouble with television is that __________.
(
A
)
(a) as a passive activity, it discourages concentration
(b) as a profitable advertising vehicle, it captures and
holds attention
(c) as a boredom, it makes things ultimately dismissible
(d) as a mass-marketing tool, it pervades the nation and
life
7. The
provision of ______ is important in holding audience's attention.
(
C
)
(a) horrifying pictures
(b) fast ideas
(c) constant stimulation
(d) escapist entertainment
8. Which
of the following is not an assumption that contributes to
television's decivilizing?
( B
)
(a) Complexity must be avoided.
(b) Thought is words arranged in grammatically precise ways.
(c) Visual information is a substitute for thought.
(d) Verbal precision is an anachronism.
9. According
to the author, television is ______ a national illiteracy.
(
D
)
(a) nothing but the cause of
(b) the sole cause of
(c) the functional means of
(d) one of the contributors to
10.
The author suggests that
_______. ( C
)
(a) television should be used more for educational purpose
to get rid of illiteracy
(b) television should operate more on the appeal to the
short attention span
(c) people should be more active to devote attention to
what is around them
(d) people should be more simplistic and realistic about
television
TOP
Passage
Three
I am greatly concerned by the findings of
a questionnaire to mothers about children's viewing habits,
carried out for TV Times. I am not as surprised as European
Marketing Surveys are by what they call the "incredible
amount" watched—90 per cent of the nation's children viewing
every day. What does worry me is the negligence revealed
on the part of parents.
Eight out of ten children are
"usually or
sometimes" allowed to watch right up to "their bedtime":
a third of 5 to 8-year-olds and two-thirds of 9 to 11-year-olds
are allowed to stay up after their normal bedtime at weekends
to watch TV.
There is a notional "watershed" at 9 pm,
fixed by the BBC and IBA, after which more violent and intimate
scenes can be shown and adult themes explored. But the survey
reveals that 24 per cent of every five to eight-year-olds
are sometimes allowed to view after nine o'clock, and half
of the nation's 9 to 11-year-olds may actually be watching
then. As mothers could be expected to play down their estimates,
"the real figures would be even higher," adds the author
of the survey's summary.
Only 62 out of the 524 mothers interviewed
said they allowed their children under ten to watch anything
they liked. But implicit in the figures is that adult taste
rather than concern for the child's mind is the main factor
governing a decision to switch off (27 per cent) or switch
over (57 per cent) when parents considered a programme unsuitable.
Just two per cent stopped their children
watching the violent Starsky and Hutch; only one percent
banned The Professionals or Charlie's Angels. The programme
with the highest percentage—six out of a hundred—of
parents forbidding it from the screen was one designed for
children, Dr. Who. Yet 74 per cent agreed or partly agreed
that there was too much violence on TV. Interestingly, only
eight per cent thought sex on television was more harmful.
What emerges most clearly from the mass
figures is that parents exercise little or no control over
their children's viewing, even when it worries them. They
throw the onus on to the programme-makers, which is both
cowardly and irresponsible. The people who make and schedule
programmes should not be the ones who have to worry about
little children being upset.
Much as I am against any form of censorship,
this survey convinces me that there should be some sort
of indication given to parents as to the suitability of
programmes. While children cannot be prohibited from viewing
at home by anyone except their parents, as they can be by
an "X" certificate in the cinema, there is a precedent for
guidance in another way. Adult American movies now carry
an "R" for Restriction Recommended. Adopting an "R", to
be clearly attached to tricky titles in programme journals
and in on-air trailers, would be of immense assistance to
responsible parents, and would encourage those who are less
keen to take their job of guiding the young seriously.
(504 words)
11. The author is greatly concerned with __________.
(
A
)
(a) the parents' inattention to children's viewing habits
(b) the number of children watching TV at night
(c) the amount of programme children are watching
(d) the results of the surveys about children's watching TV
12. Adult theme programmes are mostly shown
on TV after 9 pm, but _______ children may still be watching
them. (
C
)
(a) only a few children
(b) almost all children
(c) 50% of the children
(d) many
13. The program which was banned by most of
the parents was ________. (
C
)
(a) Charlie's Angels
(b) Starsky and Hutch
(c) Dr. Who
(d) The Professionals
14. Which of the following is Not true? (
C
)
(a) Many parents do not think there is much violence and intimacy on TV.
(b) Many parents do not realize how serious the problem is.
(c) Many parents do not consider the programme suitability to children.
(d) Many parents do not take their job of guiding the young seriously.
15. According
to the passage, _________ should be most responsible for the
TV viewing problem. (
C
)
(a) programme-makers
(b) children themselves
(c) parents
(d) mothers
TOP
测验结果：15 题中 共答对题， 答错题，
还有题未答。
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