Commercial advertisement was once thought of as a technique of the marketers to inform the potential buyers about the availability of certain products. It was seen more as a medium to inform the buyers rather than persuade them to buy. The present day marketers see advertisement as a medium to damage the image of their competitors and their products. This indeed, is an undesirable and an immoral practice. Instead of speaking about their own products, these marketers speak about the drawbacks (often without any basics) of the competing products.

    People watching TV advertisements would notice that there has always been an advertisement war between the marketers of different consumer goods. A few such cases are given below.

⑴Parachute Coconut Oil vs. V.V.D. Gold

Sometime back, the producer of V.V.D Gold Coconut Oil claimed in their TV advertisement that only their products were superior and the one sold in blue colour bottles (the reference was to Parachute coconut oil) was suitable only for un-natural hair.

⑵Tata Salt vs. Captain Cook

Tata salt was first iodised (碘处理) salt marketed by an Indian Company. It has been enjoying a good and steady market. Captain Cook, another producer of iodised salt, who entered the market later, had to adopt some strategy to get control of the market. The TV advertisement of Captain Cook stressed on ‘Free flow' of their salt when transferred to a container. The producer of Tata Salt retaliated (报复) by saying that the claim of Captain Cook was a trick and those who were quality conscious should deal with it with caution.

⑶Pepsi vs. Coca Cola

Coca Cola was selected as the official soft drink for the Wills World Cricket 1996. When the cricket series was on, the marketers of Pepsi constantly advertised on TV. Their advertisement gave the idea that the cricketers preferred only Pepsi and as a matter of fact there was nothing official about it.

⑷Horlicks vs. Complan

Sometime back, the TV advertisement of Complan, a health drink directly attacked Horlicks, which has been in the market for several decades. The claim of Complan was that their brand (which according to them was Brand C) has a higher percentage of ingredients compared to Brand H (reference was nothing but to Horlicks).

The above examples clearly show how the technique of advertisement is misused by some marketers to ruin the image of their competitors. This, certainly, is not a healthy trend.

    Any marketer should only speak about his products and not about his competitors' products. The awareness of consumers has certainly increased over the years and they are no longer easily taken in. There are many consumer products like salt, oil, shaving blades etc. But one thing for sure is that offering the same product in a different container will not make the product different.

    Mass media like Radio, Television and newspaper should not allow advertisements that tell lies. Legal regulations, in this regard, should also be made stricter.

    The history of chocolate begins with a plant whose name is cacao. For centuries, people worldwide have been enjoying the rich favor of chocolate, a product made from cacao{#blank#}1{#/blank#}Americans eat an average of more than five kilograms of chocolate per person every year. The specialty shop shows the culture of chocolate and sells chocolates from different areas of the world.

    Historians believe the Mayan people of Central America first learned to farm cacao plants around 2,000 years ago{#blank#}2{#/blank#}Then they grew them around their homes. They cooked the cacao seeds and pressed them into soft powder. They mixed the powder with water to make a delicious chocolate drink. There are often images of cacao plants on Maya buildings and art objects. The rulers drank chocolate at ceremonies{#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    The Aztecs also valued chocolate in the Aztec culture. But the cacao plant could not grow in the area where they lived{#blank#}4{#/blank#}They even used cacao seeds as a form of money to pay or give as offerings to the gods. Only the very wealthy people in Aztec societies could afford to drink chocolate because cacao was so valuable.

    The explorer Christopher Columbus brought cacao seeds to Spain after his trip to Central America in 1502. The wealthy people of Spain first enjoyed the chocolate drink{#blank#}5{#/blank#} Nowadays, the English, Dutch and French all plant cacao trees in their own countries.

A. Chocolate is very sensitive to temperature.

B. The Mayan took the cacao trees from the rainforests.

C. Chocolate is especially popular in the United States.

D. Chocolate has been prepared as a drink for nearly all of its history.

E. So they had to exchange goods with other societies for cacao seeds.

F. Since then, the popularity of the drink has spread throughout Europe.

G. And even poorer members of Mayan society could enjoy the drink sometimes.

Who's Really Addicting You To Technology?

    “Nearly everyone I know is addicted in some measure to the Internet”, wrote Tony Schwartz in The New York Times. It's a common complaint these days. A steady stream of similar headlines accuses the Net and its offspring apps, social media sites and online games of addicting us to distraction.

    There's little doubt that nearly everyone who comes in contact with the Net has difficulty disconnecting. Then who's at fault for its overuse? To find solutions, it's important to understand what we're dealing with. There are four parties cooperating to keep you connected: the tech, your boss, your friends and you.

    The technologies themselves and their makers are the easiest suspects to blame for our distraction. Online services like Facebook, Google, twitter and the like rely on advertising revenue, so the more frequently you use them, the more money they make. No wonder these companies employ teams of people focused on improving their services to be as attractive as possible.

    Good as these services are, there are simple steps we can take to keep them from coming too close. However, less than 15 percent of smartphone users are willing to adjust their notification settings  meaning the remaining 85 percent of us default to (默认)the app makers' every preset devices.

    While companies like Facebook harvest attention to generate revenue from advertisers, other technologies have no such agenda. Take email, for example. We check email at all hours of the day we're obsessed, because that's what the boss wants. For almost all white-collar jobs, email is the primary tool of corporate communication. A slow response to a message could hurt not only your reputation but also your livelihood.

    Your friends are also responsible for the addiction. Think about this familiar scene. People gathered around a table, enjoying food and each others' company. Then, during an interval in the conversation, someone takes out their phone to check who knows what. Barely anyone notices and no one says a thing.

    The reality is taking one's phone out at the wrong time is more than an impolite behavior because, unlike other minor offense, checking tech is contagious (传染). Once one person looks at their phone, other people tend to do the same, starting a chain reaction.

    Hie technology, your boss, and your friends, all influence how often you find yourself using (or overusing) these gadgets. But there's still someone who deserves careful examination the person holding the phone.

    When people are doing something difficult they'd rather not do, the phone is used to transport them elsewhere. They can easily escape discomfort temporarily, by answering email or browsing the web under the excuse of so-called “research”. The truth is that we are working unproductively out of our bad habits.

    Personal technology is indeed more attractive than ever, which doesn't mean we shouldn't attempt to control our use of technology, instead, we should come to terms with the fact that it's more than the technology that's responsible for our habits. Our workplace culture, social norms and individual behaviors all play a part.

The North Star

    Among the pile of stars in the universe, there are a couple that are of great importance to people on Earth. The sun, of course, is one of them. The other is known as Polaris, the North Star. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Therefore, it is a great compass(指南针).When people in the northern part of Earth look toward Polaris, they can be certain that they are facing north. The permanence of Polaris in the north sky has helped countless people find their destinations.

    Before the invention of modern navigation tools, sailors relied on Polaris. From the top of their ships, sailors would look for Polaris to figure out their place at sea. They figured out the angle between the star and the horizon to determine their latitude(纬度). As long as the equations were not wrong, the results were very reliable. Polaris also let sailors determine North, South, East, and West. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    To those who sail at night, changeable storms and dark clouds were more than annoying things.{#blank#}3{#/blank#} It's possible for a captain to make an accidental wrong turn. The ship could become stranded at sea, and the frustrated captain would have no way to get the ship back on the right course. The sailor's fears wouldn't be relieved until the clouds cleared and Polaris came back into view. Even today, sailors sometimes choose to steer by using Polaris on clear nights.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} The Big Dipper, a constellation that is well known in astrology, appears to revolve around Polaris. The handle of the Big Dipper always points to the North Star. When people get lost, it's comforting to know that their problems can be relieved by looking at the sky.

A. It's not difficult to tell the Polaris apart from the pile of other stars in the universe.

B. People who are lost can be relieved by gazing up at Polaris.

C. By knowing directions and their location, sailors could easily steer their ships.

D. They could destroy entire journeys by blocking the view of Polaris.

E. It's certain that the Polaris is part of a constellation(星座), which is not far from it.

F. It is special because it is the only star that always appears to be in the same place in the sky.

Fighting the curse of presenteeism

    "It's true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?" Beyond a certain level, extra effort seems to be self­defeating. Studies suggest that, after 10 hours a week, employee productivity falls sharply.

    But that doesn't stop some managers from demanding that workers stay chained to their desk for long periods. Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, recently applauded the "996" model, where employees work from 9am to 9pm, six days a week, as a huge blessing". However, to modern office workers presenteeism is a curse.

    There will be days when you do not have much to do, just waiting for someone else to respond to a request. As the clock ticks past 5pm, there may be no purpose in staying at your desk. But you can see your boss hard at work and, more important, they can see you. So you make an effort to look busy.

    If bosses do not like to go home before their underlings (下属)and underlings fear leaving before their bosses, everyone is trapped. Staff may feel that they will not get a pay rise, or a promotion, if they are not seen to be putting in maximum effort. This is easily confused with long hours. Managers, who are often no good at judging employees5 performance, use time in the office as a measurement.

    But presenteeism has more serious consequences. As well as reducing productivity, this can increase medical expenses for the employer. According to a study, these costs can be six time: higher for employers than the costs of absenteeism among workers. To take one example, research found that Japanese employees with lower­back pain were three times more likely to turn up for work than in Britain. As a result, those workers were more likely to experience greater pain and to suffer from depression. What could be more discouraging than being in pain while feeling trapped at work?

    "None of this is to say that employers are not entitled to expect workers to be in the office for a small amount of time. Unavoidably there will be a need for some (preferably short)meetings. Dealing with colleagues face-­to­-face develops friendships, allows for a useful exchange of ideas and enables workers to have a better sense of their common needs.

    With portable smart phones and laptops, we can work at home as easily as in the office. Turning an office into a prison does nothing for the creativity that is increasingly demanded of office workers as routine tasks are automatic. To be productive you need presence of mind, not being present in the flesh.

The urge to share our lives on social media

    People have long used media to see reflections of themselves. Long before mobile phones or even photography, diaries were kept as a way to understand oneself and the world in which one lives. In the 18th and 19th centuries, as diaries became more popular, middle-class New Englanders, particularly white women, wrote about their everyday lives and the world around them.

    These diaries were not a place into which they poured their innermost thoughts and desires, but rather a place to chronicle (记录) the social world around them. The diaries captured the everyday routines of mid-19th-century life, and women diarists in particular focused not on themselves but on their families and their communities.

Diaries today are, for the most part, private. But things were different for these New England diaries. Young women who were married would send their diaries home to their parents as a way of maintaining kin (血缘) relations. When family or friends came to visit, it was not uncommon to sit down and go through one's journal together.

    Diaries are not the only media that people have used to document lives and share them with others. We have long used media like photo albums, baby books and even slide shows as a means of creating traces (痕迹) of our lives. We do this to understand ourselves and to see trends in our behaviour. We create traces as part of our identity and part of our memory.

    Sharing everyday life events can strengthen social connection and intimacy (亲密感). For example, you take a picture of your child's first birthday. It is not only a developmental milestone: the photo also strengthen the identity of the family unit itself. The act of taking the photo and proudly sharing it further reaffirms (再次证实) one as a good and attentive parent. In other words, the media traces of others figure in our own identities.

    Today's social media platforms are, by and large, free to use, unlike historical diaries, which people had to buy. Today, advertising subsidises (补贴) our use of networked platforms. Therefore these platforms encourage use of their networks to build larger audiences and to better target them. Our pictures, our posts, and our likes are commodified—that is, they are used to create value through increasingly targeted advertising.

    Instead of social media merely connecting us, it has become a craze (狂热) for information, continually trying to draw us in with the promise of social connectivity—it's someone's birthday, someone liked your picture, etc. There's a multibillion-dollar industry pulling us into our smartphones, relying on a longstanding human need for communication.

    The urge to be present on social media is much more complex than simply narcissism (自恋).

    Social media of all kinds not only enable people to see their reflections, but to feel their connection as well.