Revision test 2

I. Choose the best word to complete the sentence.

1. We need a name for the product which will … to teenagers.

a. draw b. appeal c. attract

2. With effective advertising a company can become a … name.

a. home b. home-made c. household

3. The first thing an ad must do is … the reader’s eye.

a. catch b. reach c. find

4. During the commercial …, there was an advertisement for a new teenagers’ magazine.

a. pause b. break c. interval

5. We do the art work while he writes the … for each advertisement.

a. media b. copy c. copyright

6. Advertising on TV is very expensive during … viewing hours.

a. high b. big c. peak

7. The advertising copy is probably the most common form of … .

a. promotion b. media c. design

8. The article mentions a number of different … - cigars, yoghurt and jeans, for example.

a. gadgets b. products c. staff

9. Benetton succeeded in creating a truly international … .

a. company b. production c. campaign

10. We did a lot of research to ensure that the advertisement would appeal to the … audience.

a. goal b. aim c. target

II. Complete each space in the text with a word formed from the word in capitals.

A man takes a single (1) spoonful of a substance and SPOON

puts it in his mouth. Instantly he is transported to another

world, a place of surreal visions and swirling colours. He

rushes (2) ….. into this parallel universe. HEAD

What is this (3) ….. compound with the TERRIFY

power to induce such a mind-blowing trip? Is it some kind

of drug that makes the user hallucinate? No, it’s just a humble

cereal ad on TV. The Fruity Wheat ad is the latest in a long

line of (4) ….. ads whose imagery appears to CONTROVERSY

draw on the effects of mind-altering substances. Colin Rees

of the “Stop TV Advertising” group said: “I find this and other

such ads totally (5) ….. . Take this staff and ACCEPT

you will experience something out of the world – the

(6) ….. of the ad seems clear to me. The IMPLY

companies who make them will say that any relation to

drugs is just one (7) ….. of the advert, and not INTERPRET

one that they (8) ….. . When I complained INTENTION

about this ad, I was told that it didn’t contain any

(9) ….. messages. I thought that was a bit CONSCIOUS

rich – I think the message in it is blatantly obvious! And I

don’t think we should be giving TV viewers any

(10) ….. in that respect”. ENCOURAGE

III. Read the text without a dictionary and choose the best variant for each statement.

One of the strongest thing about controversy over advertising is that the greater the fuss, the more of a mystery the industry itself seems to become. This is because advertising is a passionate area. It seems to affect those who attack it and those who defend it in remarkably similar ways. Before long both are exhibiting the same compulsive¹ desire to overstate their case so that it is difficult to believe that the critics and the defenders of advertising are even arguing over the same thing.

But just as it seemed sensible to us to regard advertising without going to either extreme, so it also seemed logical to try and find out, as cold-bloodedly as we could, what advertising in Britain in the “sixties” really was.

We knew that it consumed over £500 million a year, or roughly 2 per cent of the national income. We knew that it employed something over 200, 000 individuals, the majority of whom were paid salaries considerably above the national average. And we knew that it was supposedly run in accordance with certain rather vague and often complex rules and “professional” taboos.

But once we tried finding out exactly what all this money went on, what all these highly paid individuals did for it (and with it), and how the rules and taboos influenced them, a curious thing happened. This strange animal called advertising, so disliked by its critics and so beloved by its defenders, began to disappear. In its place were advertising men and advertising agencies – all working in different ways and to different rules and all showing quite startling differences of competence, taste and effectiveness.

We started by expecting to find a conspiracy of insensitive persuaders. We ended by discovering groups of well paid, highly anxious individuals all trying, in their various ways, to cope with a number of opposed and often contradictory forces within their work. Their success of failure in reconciling these forces results in the advertising we have.

All this seemed of considerable importance. For unless society is willing to give advertising a complete carte blanche¹ (which strikes us as madness) or to ban all advertising totally (which strikes us as absurdity) any future move to reform advertising will have to make the mental effort to understand what it is about and why its practitioners behave as they do. To understand this necessity will be to understand these forces that shape their working lives.

1. The advertising industry is a mystery to most people because

a. everyone makes such a fuss about it.

b. it is such a controversial subject.

c. its critics and defenders are not really talking about the same thing.

d. no one seems able to discuss it calmly and rationally.

2. The writers began their investigation of advertising

a. in an analytical, unprejudiced frame of mind.

b. in an attempt to discover its professional secrets.

c. in order to expose its faults to the general public.

d. to find out the basic facts and figures connected with its organization.

3. What surprised the writers most, once they had begun their investigation, was that

a. advertising executives were so highly paid.

b. it was impossible to find out where all the money went.

c. the rules and taboos they had heard about did not exist.

d. there was so little consistency that it was impossible to generalize.

4. The average advertising executive, in the writers’ opinion, is

a. incapable of coping with so many conflicting forces.

b. more sensitive and concerned about his work than is generally believed.

c. overpaid and overworked

d. anxious to reconcile conflicting individuals.

5. The writers believe that society should

a. let advertisers go on more or less as they like.

b. impose strict controls on all advertising immediately.

c. reform advertising on the lines they themselves have proposed

d. study advertising and its problems before making changes.