IELTS Writing 2 Practice Test 19 Topic: The high sales of popular consumer goods

It is often considered by many that advertising is the motor of the high sales of famous consumer goods; however, it does not reflect the veritable need of the society where some products are sold. I strongly believe that advertising pushes the consumer to buy something only by impulsion; as well as, spending money for no useful tool instead of focusing on the essential.

Firstly, advertising has the power to attract us in order to buy something. Indeed, seeing your favourite star wearing a wonderful watch, pushes some to have the intention to purchase one, even if it is crazy expensive. However, a watch is not the vital thing that we need at this moment. In our hard lifestyle society, people should have enough to eat or to take care of the family.

Another word, spending money for something that does not work for long term or is not useful, is the mainstream behaviour in our digital lifestyle society. In fact, some TV shows present a wide variety of products that work just once. However, consumers are absorbed by what they see. At the end, it is clearly reported by some surveys that the overwhelming majority of products bought by impulsion, are used just once. In this case, the consumer spends money for something that they do not really need.

In conclusion, advertising is a good way to know what are the mainstream tools. Also, it is an excellent way to spend our money for nothing in order to satisfy our deep desire. Overall, I strongly agree that advertising reflects only our passions likewise our wish to be sophisticated, not our need for our daily life.

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Today many people opine that the increasing sales number of popular consumer goods is only due to the powerful advertising tools being used by the companies, but they fail to meet the actual societal need. I do not quite agree with this opinion.

It cannot be denied that powerful advertising does create a profound impact on the buyers’ mindset, however we also need to observe and understand that shallow and superficial advertising, which only bank upon the celebrities presence to sell the goods, will fail to make its mark into buyers’ thoughts. Until the advertising addresses a real need of the buyers, it will only see a temporary hike in sales numbers and then will fade out, because hardly anyone, with their right mind set and affordable budget, will like to splash money on mindless goods, which are not going to serve any real purpose in uplifting their ways of life.

In earlier days, most families had only a single earning member and so the scope of expenditure was limited. Hence the ‘must-have’ needs used to always take precedence compared to ‘good to have’ requirements. Gradually, with more job opportunities being available and many women stepping into bread earners’ capacity along with men, the amount of expendable money in most of middle-class families has gone up and this certainly gives the freedom to accommodate the good-to-have requirements into monthly family budget. This behaviour pattern might be to establish oneself into the upper crust of middle class and might have been inspired by advertisements, to some extent. However, in most cases the additional expense has helped to better the standard of regular life. Ex: Fridge, washing machine, dish washer or micro-oven might have been a luxury in earlier days where people had more time for the household work, but nowadays these have been a must, if we have to balance our time effectively between the household chores and office work. Splashing money on the expensive items like fashionable watches, shoes, jewelleries have always been a personal choice, rather real need for the society.

So, the popular consumer goods are now slowly being identified also as a real need for the society and they are here to make our regular life comfortable. The powerful advertisements are showing a sign of healthy competition between sellers with the target of making more features available to consumers at a competitive price and that certainly has helped the people to make affordable choice. Thus, this has been instrumental to satisfy the real need of the society.

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Hello IELTS material, this is not the essay for the above question but from one of your practice tests. It would be really helpful if you could evaluate. Thank you

Ques – Many museums charge for admission while others are free. Do you think the advantages of charging people for admission to museums outweigh the disadvantages?

Museums are places where ancient antiquities like art are kept for public display so as to spark interest in common people. It also attracts tourists to know more about the land they venture out to. I think the advantages of charging people for admission to museums outweigh the disadvantages.
There are numerous advantages of charging people at least with a basal charge. The museum can use the collection to maintain the antiquities like using better preserving techniques , more secure displays as well as more employees to maintain the decorum .The profit can also be used to give an enriched experience to their visitors like a gift shop, cafeteria, personalized audio transcripts relating to specific exhibits etc. I have been to a paid as well as a free museum.I experienced that the former was well maintained and was able to display their exhibits in a better way whilst the latter was unkempt in comparison to the former and did not seem to have money to pay for enough employees to look after the exhibits.
The disadvantage of having an admission fee is that it may attract only a specific crowd who are actually interested in the exhibits and are ready to pay for the same. This can become less profitable to the museum. It can also contribute to lesser people in the community knowing about their native land’s history, art etc.
However, the disadvantages will not mask the advantages if the museum charges an affordable admission fee while giving an option to the visitors who are willing to avail additional services like audio transcripts, guides etc. Charging no fees at all can result in visitors taking the exhibits for granted and not valuing the antiquities.Thus, it is advantageous to charge for admission to museums rather than making it free.

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With the development of industrial sector, market is flooded with commodities which are sold in large volumes. This trend is accelerated even more by commercials that promote articles which are otherwise worthless for the community. I agree with this statement to a large extent on the grounds that even though advertisements make people aware about recently launched goods, adverse impact of subliminal advertising cannot be ignored.
To commence with, there is no iota of doubt that when the commodity is promoted, customers come to know about the the existence of such good. As a result, buyers can satisfy their needs after getting all the information from the advertisement due to which articles become popular. In this way both customer and seller are benefited.
On the flip side, some famous articles gain high sales because it is pretended that they enhance social status. Subsequently, many individuals acquire it only as a status symbol even if it is of no or minimal use for them. For example, Apple launches new version of mobiles annually. Although, it serves the basic function of communication with a few advanced features most of the people buy it to improve their social image.
Furthermore, publicity of goods encourage induced buying. In such a phenomenon, free gifts are given with less important but expensive products. Consequently, people are influenced by temptations and indulge in bulk buying which results into stockpiling in their store rooms. To cite an example, during festival season, sauce manufacturers campaign about their products with offers. Innocent customers fell prey of their traps and buy several packs of sauce which are thrown later on when they surpass their manufacturing date.
To conclude, the purpose of promotion campaigns is to cognise people about the use and availability of goods but they allure them to get it for upgrading standard of life while they are worthless for the society. Such a practice should be stopped by promoters.

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