WRITING TASK 2
You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Write about the following topic:
Advertising encourages customers to buy in quantity not in quality.
To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Write at least 250 words.
IELTS Writing Task 2
Living in the information age, people are bombarded with substantial daily doses of advertising in multiple media. The argument that advertising, with its overwhelming power, leads to consumers' impulsive purchase has been accepted by more and more people. Consumers are encouraged by advertisements to purchase products in quantity without paying heed to quality. This allegation is flawed, as far as I am concerned.
The first tact to note is that despite the strength of advertising, viewers remain as decision-makers. They gather information from advertisements based on their own interest. While some people focus on quality, others are concerned with price. Likewise, advertisements stress different aspects of a product, either quality or price, which is determined by contexts. Consumers are now desensitized to the information delivered by commercials and become increasingly cautious. Quality, in most cases, is a primary concern to them. Even those most loyal users of advertising are now concentrated on product quality, believing that neither pricing nor advertising is an effective facilitator of sales and consumers' satisfaction with quality is the key to repeat purchases.
Price is perhaps an inducement used by marketers to trigger sales, but other elements, such as product package, functions, after-sales service, and warrantee, appear to gain in importance. Advertising informs people of more choices, allowing them to make a buying decision according to their needs and favour a product for different reasons, either quality or price cuts. Needless to say, people have to become more circumspect than ever before and more prone to the interaction of other factors, such as the advice of their friends, past experience, current knowledge and physiological state.
It is also necessary to draw a line between the concept of marketing and that of advertising. Advertising alone is not able to contribute high sales and the link between advertising and product usage is in fact not clear. In its broadest sense, advertising is merely a means of generating demand in society by offering specific information on a product or service in a persuasive format. It is similar to sales promotion, package sales, low-pricing strategy and other marketing techniques. Advertising simply conveys the message relating to price, rather than creating this message.
The facts outlined above, when taken together, are in favour of a view that consumers take in the information delivered by an advertisement differently, and they are influenced by a variety of factors and driven by forces in a decision making process. Quality is of concern to them in most cases, instead of price.
Idioms and Collocations:
1. bombard with substantial daily doses of advertising: receive a lot of adverts every day
2. impulsive purchase: the act of buying something they don't need
3. This allegation is flawed: this claim is wrong
4. an effective facilitator of sales: something that increases sales
5. prone to the interaction of other factors: likely to be affected by different factors
6. draw a line between: make a difference
Please click the red words below for other Sections in this Mock Test:
| Mock Test 2 | Speaking Part 1 |
| Mock Test 2 | Speaking Part 2 |
| Mock Test 2 | Academic Writing Task 1 |
