Summary
Date: 2015-10-07; view: 457.
Text 2
Text 2
Text 1
Comprehension
Paper 3, Part 5
Exam Focus
In Paper 3, Part 5 you have to read two texts on related topics, answer two comprehension questions on each text and write a summary using information from both texts.
To answer the comprehension questions successfully, you need to be able to:
- identify the effect of the writer's choice of words
- recognize stylistic devices such as formal and informal language, image and metaphor
- understand patterns of reference in the text, e.g. pronoun use.
1)
1 The following texts are about children and advertising. What type of information do you expect to find in the texts?
2 Read the opening and closing lines of both texts to get a general idea of the content and style. Do the texts give one point of view, or more than one?
3 Read quickly through the texts and match the following headings to the paragraphs.
Writer's conclusion (para. …………)
The origins of advertising to children (para. …………)
Why children are vulnerable (para. …………)
Why regulation is needed (para. …………)
The basic question (para. …………)
Evidence that there is a problem (para. …………)
The argument against regulation (para. …………)
| Text 1 Marketing people say that the big sell to the tinies began for them with the invention of the child-carrying supermarket trolley. Their most powerful weapon in the fight to sell is sitting right under the nose of the parent, bored, seeking attention and absolutely bound to spot anything whose packaging features a logo or a cartoon character seen regularly on the television. But many of the items in these packages are foods and soft drinks with high fat and sugar contents which are not particularly good for children. It takes until the age of about six for the young consumer to understand the difference between an advert and programme on the television, and even longer to appreciate what the ad is trying to do. Even then, the child does not necessarily care. Keeping in with the peer group is much more important at that age, and marketing managers are well aware of this. If they can start a craze with, for example, collectable toys given away in packets of cereal or crisps, sales of that product will probably go through the roof. Such marketing is aimed at a very impressionable age group, and although companies claim that it is the responsibility of parents to monitor what their children eat, drink or play with, it may be that the time has come for a little more social responsibility to be shown by those people who are exploiting children for their own financial gain. |
2) Read the texts again and answer questions 1-4 with a word or short phrase. You do not need to write complete sentences.
1 Explain in your own words what ‘their most powerful weapon in the fight to sell' refers to. (line 3)
(HINT: This question tests your understanding of the world ‘weapon', which is used metaphorically here. What subject would you normally expect for the verb ‘is sitting' in this context?)
2 Explain in your own words exactly what it is that the child cannot yet appreciate at the age of six.
(HINT: At six, the child can understand the difference between an advert and a TV programme. What can't he understand: Remember you have to explain this in your own words.)
A growing number of senior figures in advertising are rebelling against the official industry line that ‘if it's legal to sell, it should be legal to advertise'. They are prepared to say in public what they have hitherto only said in private: that advertisers deliberately encourage children to pester their parents to buy products they don't need and can't afford. Peter Mead, chairman of one of the UK's biggest advertising agencies, is one of them. ‘It's a personal decision,' he said. ‘I remember once watching a child nagging his father for a present he clearly couldn't afford and felt how painful that must be.'
Much of the debate about advertising to children centres on whether or not they are able to work out that the advertiser is working to an agenda, and not merely spreading the good news about a toy or fizzy drink as a matter of public service. Many in the industry are now prepared to argue that this is expecting too much, even of the media-wise 21st-century brat.
‘I believe in commercial freedom. But it is obvious that children are not able to strike a free and informed bargain with advertisers, which is why I personally believe they need extra protection,' says one account director.
But Lional Stanbrook, legal affairs adviser at the advertising association, doesn't agree. ‘Peter power is not a real issue. It has been manufactured by special interest groups. It is insulting to suggest that children can't deal with ads,' he says.
3 Who and what is referred to in the phrase ‘how painful that must be'? (line13)
(HINT: This is a reference question. You need to work out what ‘that' refers to, and who is implied to be feeling pain.)
4 Explain in your own words what the writer means by ‘children are not able to strike a free and informed bargain with advertisers'. (line 25)
(HINT: Read further in the text for a simpler expression of the same idea, but remember you must explain the ideas in the quoted section in your own words.)
To do the summary task successfully, you need to be able to:
- identify the focus of the task
- find the correct information in the texts
- identify when the information or opinions given in the two texts are the same or different
- re-express this information as a well-constructed paragraph of 50-70 words, using your own words as far as possible.
3) The first step when doing the summary is to make sure you have understood what information if required.
1 Read the following summary task and underline the key words.
| In a paragraph of between 50 and 70 words, summarise in your own words as far as possible the arguments for regulating advertisements aimed at children. |
2 Which of the following should you include? Tick one only.
- justification given for advertising for children
- specific names of people and their opinions
- types of advertisement shown to children
- places where advertisements are shown to children
- general dangers of advertising to children
- your own opinion
4) The next step is to find the information in the texts.
1 Read through the texts again and underline the answer to the following questions.
| <== previous lecture | | | next lecture ==> |
| Speaking | | | Language Focus: Vocabulary |