Reading: Unit 3: Hard sell
15 questions. Answer each one and read the explanation; your score comes at the end. Practise again whenever you like.
15questionsGrade 12 (Tawjihi)
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Shops often place a very expensive item next to the product they actually want to sell. Compared with a 900-dinar coat, a 300-dinar coat suddenly seems reasonable, even though the shopper may never have intended to spend so much. Economists call this effect 'anchoring'.
The main idea of the text is that ..........
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Possibly, the first thing we can take from economics is the importance of doing a cost-benefit analysis when making big decisions. Comfortable though we may be with making a list of pros and cons, we should recognise that it is actually a rather ineffective tool. Just one of the cons might easily outweigh all of the pros. A cost-benefit analysis is something altogether more sophisticated, which allows you to be more objective.
Why does the writer consider a pros and cons list a rather ineffective tool?
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Possibly, the first thing we can take from economics is the importance of doing a cost-benefit analysis when making big decisions. Comfortable though we may be with making a list of pros and cons, we should recognise that it is actually a rather ineffective tool. Just one of the cons might easily outweigh all of the pros. A cost-benefit analysis is something altogether more sophisticated, which allows you to be more objective.
The pronoun 'which' in 'which allows you to be more objective' refers to .......... .
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Behavioural economics teaches us that people have a tendency to overvalue immediate rewards over long-term payoffs. A famous study showed that given the choice between receiving less money now, or more money later, most people would choose the former, even though they'd end up less well-off. This is also the reason why people procrastinate, or why you should never go food shopping when you're hungry.
The writer implies that people put things off because .......... .
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Behavioural economics teaches us that people have a tendency to overvalue immediate rewards over long-term payoffs. A famous study showed that given the choice between receiving less money now, or more money later, most people would choose the former, even though they'd end up less well-off. This is also the reason why people procrastinate, or why you should never go food shopping when you're hungry.
The word 'the former' in the text refers to .......... .
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The sunk-cost fallacy is the idea that because you have already invested time or money in something, you should persist with it no matter what. One study asked people to imagine they were at a birthday celebration and that they were offered chocolate cake. The researchers told some people this was from a local supermarket, and others that it was an expensive handmade cake from a shop almost an hour away. Having been told the cake had required a significant investment of time and money seemed to make people much more likely to eat it all, even though they felt uncomfortably full.
What had the biggest impact on whether people ate all the chocolate cake?
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The sunk-cost fallacy is the idea that because you have already invested time or money in something, you should persist with it no matter what. One study asked people to imagine they were at a birthday celebration and that they were offered chocolate cake. The researchers told some people this was from a local supermarket, and others that it was an expensive handmade cake from a shop almost an hour away. Having been told the cake had required a significant investment of time and money seemed to make people much more likely to eat it all, even though they felt uncomfortably full.
The word 'persist' in the text is closest in meaning to .......... .
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Even when we've made a good decision, we should also be aware of the law of diminishing returns. This economic concept states that after a certain point, investing more money (or effort) does not lead to increased benefits. This law can also be applied to eating pizza. The first few slices are great, but after that, it becomes less and less palatable, and if you kept going, you might even feel nauseous.
What lesson does the writer think we should learn from the law of diminishing returns?
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Even when we've made a good decision, we should also be aware of the law of diminishing returns. This economic concept states that after a certain point, investing more money (or effort) does not lead to increased benefits. This law can also be applied to eating pizza. The first few slices are great, but after that, it becomes less and less palatable, and if you kept going, you might even feel nauseous.
The word 'palatable' in the text means .......... .
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With the advent of the Internet, targeted advertising became much more established. Web browsers and social media platforms were able to harvest huge amounts of data on the public's viewing habits and histories, information they could monetise by selling it to advertisers. And, once visited, websites installed 'cookies' onto people's computers which, quietly and unbeknown to many users, collected information about their interests and their consumer behaviour.
The word 'they' in 'information they could monetise' refers to .......... .
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With the advent of the Internet, targeted advertising became much more established. Web browsers and social media platforms were able to harvest huge amounts of data on the public's viewing habits and histories, information they could monetise by selling it to advertisers. And, once visited, websites installed 'cookies' onto people's computers which, quietly and unbeknown to many users, collected information about their interests and their consumer behaviour.
The phrase 'unbeknown to many users' means that many users .......... .
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Any websites accessed within the 27 member countries of the EU, or in the UK, are obliged to be transparent about their advertising methods and, crucially, cannot monitor online behaviour without obtaining the user's consent. The onus is on these companies to offer people a simple and clear choice between opting in or out of tracking cookies. There are massive fines for companies that fail to comply with any of the regulations.
According to the text, the GDPR made it compulsory for companies to .......... .
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Any websites accessed within the 27 member countries of the EU, or in the UK, are obliged to be transparent about their advertising methods and, crucially, cannot monitor online behaviour without obtaining the user's consent. The onus is on these companies to offer people a simple and clear choice between opting in or out of tracking cookies. There are massive fines for companies that fail to comply with any of the regulations.
The phrase 'The onus is on these companies' means that .......... .
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Known as contextual advertising, this alternative method involves the strategic placement of relevant adverts on relevant web pages, for example, an advert for a cookbook on a website dedicated to food. Contextual advertising has a number of advantages for the marketer: it is inexpensive, it is generally proving to be quite effective, and it respects privacy laws. A pitfall, however, is that a company's advert may appear side by side with that of a direct competitor.
According to the text, a disadvantage of contextual advertising for the marketer is that .......... .
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Known as contextual advertising, this alternative method involves the strategic placement of relevant adverts on relevant web pages, for example, an advert for a cookbook on a website dedicated to food. Contextual advertising has a number of advantages for the marketer: it is inexpensive, it is generally proving to be quite effective, and it respects privacy laws. A pitfall, however, is that a company's advert may appear side by side with that of a direct competitor.
The word 'that' in 'side by side with that of a direct competitor' refers to .......... .
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