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A large number of young people cannot find a job when they leave university.
What problems will youth unemployment cause for individuals and for society?
Give some measures to help reduce unemployment.
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Get off the treadmill
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Felicity Lawrence
Thursday December 28, 2006
The Guardian
1. Consumers are to be presented with two rival new year advertising
campaigns as the Food Standards Agency goes public in its battle with the
industry over the labelling of unhealthy foods.
2. The Guardian has learned that the FSA will launch a series of 10-second
television adverts in January telling shoppers how to follow a red, amber and
green traffic light labelling system on the front of food packs, which is
designed to tackle Britain’s obesity epidemic.
3. The campaign is a direct response to a concerted attempt by leading food
manufacturers and retailers, including Kellogg’s and Tesco, to derail the
system. The industry fears that traffic lights would demonise entire categories
of foods and could seriously damage the market for those that are fatty, salty
or high in sugar.
4. The UK market for breakfast cereals is worth ￡1.27bn a year and the
manufacturers fear it will be severely dented if red light labels are put on
packaging drawing attention to the fact that the majority are high in salt
and/or sugar.
5. The industry is planning a major marketing campaign for a competing
labelling system which avoids colour-coding in favour of information about the
percentage of "guideline daily amounts" (GDAs) of fat, salt and sugar contained
in their products.
6. The battle for the nation’s diet comes as new rules on television
advertising come into force in January which will bar adverts for unhealthy
foods from commercial breaks during programmes aimed at children. Sources at the
TV regulators are braced for a legal challenge from the industry and have
described the lobbying efforts to block any new ad ban or colour-coded labelling
as "the most ferocious we’ve ever experienced".
7. Ofcom’s chief executive, Ed Richards, said: "We are prepared to face up to
any legal action from the industry, but we very much hope it will not be
necessary." The FSA said it was expecting an onslaught from the industry in
January. Senior FSA officials said the manufacturers’ efforts to undermine its
proposals on labelling could threaten the agency’s credibility.
8. Terrence Collis, FSA director of communications, dismissed claims that the
proposals were not based on science. "We have some of the most respected
scientists in Europe, both within the FSA and in our independent advisory
committees. It is unjustified and nonsensical to attack the FSA’s scientific
reputation and to try to undermine its credibility."
9. The FSA is understood to have briefed its ad agency, United, before
Christmas, and will aim to air ads that are "non-confrontational, humorous and
factual" as a counterweight to industry’s efforts about the same time. The
agency, however, will have a tiny fraction of the budget available to the
industry.
10. Gavin Neath, chairman of Unilever UK and president of the Food and Drink
Federation, has said that the industry has made enormous progress but could not
accept red "stop" signs on its food.
11. Alastair Sykes, chief executive of Nestlé UK, said that under the FSA
proposals all his company’s confectionery and most of its cereals would score a
red. "Are we saying people shouldn’t eat confectionery? We’re driven by
consumers and what they want, and much of what we do has been to make our
products healthier," he said.
12. Chris Wermann, director of communications at Kellogg’s, said: "In
principle we could never accept traffic light labelling."
13. The rival labelling scheme introduced by Kellogg’s, Danone, Unilever,
Nestlé, Kraft and Tesco and now favoured by 21 manufacturers, uses an
industry-devised system based on identifying GDAs of key nutrients. Tesco says
it has tested both traffic lights and GDA labels in its stores and that the
latter increased sales of healthier foods.
14. But the FSA said it could not live with this GDA system alone because it
was "not scientific" or easy for shoppers to understand at a glance.
Questions 1-6
Answer the questions below using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage
for each answer.
1. When will instructions be given on reading the color-coded labels?
2. Where can customers find the red light labels?
3. What problem is the FSA trying to handle with the labeling system?
4. Which product sells well but may not be healthy?
5. What information, according to the manufacturers, can be labeled on
products?
6. What can not be advertised during children’s programmes?
Questions 7-13
Use the information in the text to match the people (listed A-E) with the
opinions (listed 7-13) below. Write the appropriate letter (A-E) for questions
1-7.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
A Ed Richard
B Terrence Collis
C Gavin Neath
D Alastair Sykes
E Chris Wermann
7. Generally we will not agree to use the red light labels.
8. It is unreasonable to doubt if FSA is trustworthy.
9. We are trying to meet our consumers’ needs.
10. The food industry has been improving greatly.
11. The color-coded labeling system is scientific.
12. Our products will be labeled unhealthy by the FSA.
13. We are ready to confront the manufacturers.
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How shops can exploit people's herd mentality to increase sales
1.A TRIP to the supermarket may not seem like an exercise in psychological
warfare—but it is.Shopkeepers know that filling a store with the aroma of
freshly baked bread makes people feel hungry and persuades them to buy more food
than they had intended.Stocking the most expensive products at eye level makes
them sell faster than cheaper but less visible competitors.Now researchers are
investigating how “swarm intelligence” (that is，how ants，bees or any social
animal，including humans，behave in a crowd) can be used to influence what people
buy.
2.At a recent conference on the simulation of adaptive behaviour in
Rome，Zeeshan-ul-hassan Usmani，a computer scientist from the Florida Institute of
Technology，described a new way to increase impulse buying using this
phenomenon.Supermarkets already encourage shoppers to buy things they did not
realise they wanted: for instance，by placing everyday items such as milk and
eggs at the back of the store，forcing shoppers to walk past other tempting goods
to reach them.Mr Usmani and Ronaldo Menezes，also of the Florida Institute of
Technology，set out to enhance this tendency to buy more by playing on the herd
instinct.The idea is that，if a certain product is seen to be popular，shoppers
are likely to choose it too.The challenge is to keep customers informed about
what others are buying.
3.Enter smart-cart technology.In Mr Usmani's supermarket every product has a
radio frequency identification tag，a sort of barcode that uses radio waves to
transmit information，and every trolley has a scanner that reads this information
and relays it to a central computer.As a customer walks past a shelf of goods，a
screen on the shelf tells him how many people currently in the shop have chosen
that particular product.If the number is high，he is more likely to select it
too.
4.Mr Usmani's “swarm-moves” model appeals to supermarkets because it
increases sales without the need to give people discounts.And it gives shoppers
the satisfaction of knowing that they bought the “right” product—that is，the one
everyone else bought.The model has not yet been tested widely in the real
world，mainly because radio frequency identification technology is new and has
only been installed experimentally in some supermarkets.But Mr Usmani says that
both Wal-Mart in America and Tesco in Britain are interested in his work，and
testing will get under way in the spring.
5.Another recent study on the power of social influence indicates that sales
could，indeed，be boosted in this way.Matthew Salganik of Columbia University in
New York and his colleagues have described creating an artificial music market
in which some 14,000 people downloaded previously unknown songs.The researchers
found that when people could see the songs ranked by how many times they had
been downloaded，they followed the crowd.When the songs were not ordered by
rank，but the number of times they had been downloaded was displayed，the effect
of social influence was still there but was less pronounced.People thus follow
the herd when it is easy for them to do so.
6.In Japan a chain of convenience shops called RanKing RanQueen has been
ordering its products according to sales data from department stores and
research companies.The shops sell only the most popular items in each product
category，and the rankings are updated weekly.Icosystem，a company in
Cambridge，Massachusetts，also aims to exploit knowledge of social networking to
improve sales.
7.And the psychology that works in physical stores is just as potent on the
internet.Online retailers such as Amazon are adept at telling shoppers which
products are popular with like-minded consumers.Even in the privacy of your
home，you can still be part of the swarm.
Questions 1-6
Complete the sentences below with words taken from the reading passage.Use NO
MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
1.Shopowners realize that the smell of _______________ can increase sales of
food products.
2.In shops，products shelved at a more visible level sell better even if they
are more _______________.
3.According to Mr.Usmani，with the use of “swarm intelligence” phenomenon，a
new method can be applied to encourage _______________.
4.On the way to everyday items at the back of the store，shoppers might be
tempted to buy _______________.
5.If the number of buyers shown on the _______________ is high，other
customers tend to follow them.
6.Using the “swarm-moves” model，shopowners do not have to give customers
_______________ to increase sales.
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不懂得金钱价值的孩子最后在赚钱方面会有困难。
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If you increase your initial order to 30,000 , I suppose we could consider
reducing the price to 300,080$ per unit.
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We are too heavily committed to be able to entertain fresh orders.
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你现在过着多少人羡慕不来的生活。你所羡慕的人或许也在羡慕你。
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请试着比较一下黑盒测试、白盒测试、单元测试、集成测试、系统测试、验收测试 的区别与联系
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People throw things away and buy new ones instead of repairing them and using
again. What do you think may be the reasons for this? What problems might this
cause in society?