P COMMERCE AND

C O M M E R C E A N D C U LTU RE

CULTURE

R e t a i l t h e r apy

P Retail therapy

Key Language
Linking expressions
Talking about research
Noun + noun
combinations

Exam Focus
Speaking: Parts 13
Reading skills
Speaking / Writing

Check your answers on page 000 and discuss how true

the statements are of you personally, and of other
people you know.
Underline linking expressions within each pair of
statements.

Focus on speaking 1 Discussing likes and dislikes; consumer topics

Part 1: Interview

P exam briefing

Speaking: Interview Part 1

Questions about likes and dislikes are very common in Part 1, so its important to
know a variety of expressions to describe your feelings. It may be useful to start with
a brief introduction to help you give a more specific answer. If you need to give a
negative opinion, its a good idea to begin with a softening phrase.

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M07_FOCI_CB_HIGGLB_9162_U07.indd 68-69

Study the Useful language, notice the introduction and softening phrases.

Introduction

Softening phrases

It depends what kind of / what you mean by

To be honest, Im afraid, , Actually

Likes
I (quite/really) enjoy/I dont mind

Dislikes

The (kind of) I enjoy most is/are because

I dont (really) like/enjoy (very much/at all)

I find (very/extremely/really) interesting/relaxing/

enjoyable, etc.

Im not (very/all that) keen on

Work in pairs. Read the following statements and decide whether the missing
word in each space is men or women.
1 When they shop, 70 per cent of ... become
hunters, aiming for a defined product in a specific
shop. 80 per cent of ... , on the other hand, act
as leisurely gatherers, roaming round in a less
purposeful manner.
2 ... have normally exhausted their patience
after 72 minutes of shopping. Meanwhile most
... prefer to carry on shopping for at least
another 28 minutes.
3 Generally speaking, ... buy their own clothes,
without seeking other peoples advice. However, around
a quarter of ... admit to relying on the input
of other people to choose what they wear.

KEY LANGUAGE
Linking expressions
pp. 000, ex. 00

Useful language

In this unit you will practise

Discussing likes and dislikes; consumer topics;
describing objects
Sampling a text; dealing with unknown vocabulary
Short answer; summary completion; matching;
True/False/Not Given
Topic vocabulary and pronunciation

Lead-in

retail therapy n [U] The act of buying things that

you do not need when you are unhappy because
you think it will make you feel better often used
humorously. (Longman Exams Dictionary)

I find (rather/really) boring/frustrating/annoying,

etc.

Practise answering the following Part 1 questions with a partner. Remember

to use expressions from the Useful language above.

How do you feel about shopping in general?

What is your least favourite kind of shopping?
Do you prefer shopping alone or with someone else?
What kind of shopping do you do on the Internet?
Part 3: Discussion

Discuss the following questions. Try to present two sides of the argument using
the expressions below. Use introductory sentences or softening phrases as
appropriate.
1 Are large out-of-town hypermarkets and shopping malls a good thing?
2 Do you think people are too materialistic these days?
3 Is there too much advertising on TV?

Tip Answer questions

as fully as possible by
giving reasons for
opinions and mentioning
examples from your
experience.

Useful language
On the whole / Generally speaking (I think)
(But) On the other hand

Focus on reading Retail therapy

P exam briefing

One challenge of the Reading paper is dealing with a large

amount of text in a short time. A single passage may be
up to 900 words long, and the three passages together
contain 2,2502,700 words. At least one passage will put
forward a detailed, logical argument, which needs careful
analysis.

Academic reading: tackling long texts

by forming a general picture of the content and

Begin
how it is organised.
Study the questions to find out what information is

needed.
Scan the text to locate the relevant section, then read
closely for detail.

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SAMPLING A TEXT

administered
condition
consumers

Read the first paragraph of the text on page 77, and the first sentence of each
of the following paragraphs. Then decide which answer (AD) best describes
the overall topic.

EXAM PRACTICE

Short answer questions

living
recognize
resisting

scientists
seek
shopaholic

8.9 %

1 . have developed a new test which aims to tell if you are a 2 . .

The test is designed to identify 3 . who regularly spend money on items,
regardless of need, and who have difficulty in 4 . the impulse to buy. This
5 . is known as compulsive buying. When the test was 6 .to a sample
of 550 university staff members, the results revealed that nearly 7 . would be
considered compulsive buyers. The authors concluded that we are 8. in a
consumption-orientated society and people need to be educated to 9 . if
compulsive buying is a problem in their lives so that they can 10 . help.

A history of the marketing industry

Effective sales techniques for the retail industry
Information on credit card debt and how to avoid it
Research findings that can help us reduce our spending

Read paragraphs 14 of the text on page 00 and answer Questions 13

below.

TASK APPROACH

b Identify suitable words from the box and choose the best answer in each case.

Sampling is a way of forming a general picture of a text. The main topic is

usually set out in the first paragraph, and sub-topics are often made clear in
the first sentence of each paragraph, so these are good places to begin.

A
B
C
D

Check the instructions to find how many words you can write.
Underline key words in the questions.
Use skimming skills to find the relevant section of text and scanning skills to
locate the information you need. The answers are in text order.

Now do the exam task. If necessary, remind yourself about the general Task Advice
on page 53 and the specific advice on page 70 before you begin.

Questions 412
Questions 13
Answer the questions below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
1
2
3

What aspect of shopping causes dopamine to be released?

What research method did Gregory Berns use in his work?
Which institution was responsible for a report on shoppers attitudes to credit cards?

Summary completion

KEY LANGUAGE
Grammatical terms
P p. 00,
1
PARTS
OFex.
SPEECH

6 and professional journals. Among other things, researchers have looked at the difference
between shopping alone or with 7 , and at the effect of shopping when you have 8
problems. Much of this research into shopping is 9 by the marketing industry, in order to
discover how to 10 consumers to buy more and more products they dont need. 11 ,
it is also possible to use the same research to help people to control their 12

G funded
H make
I marketing
J money
K others
L popular

A academic
B additionally
C aimed
D companion
E encourage
F fortunately

M psychologists
N retailers
O scientists
P spending
Q time

Before you start the exam task, do this practice exercise.

Ns (noun singular)
Npl (noun plural)
Number

M07_FOCI_CB_HIGGLB_9162_U07.indd 70-71

like Jennifer Argo, but also by 5 like Gregory Berns, and the results can be found in various

Study each gap and think about the part of speech that is missing, eg. noun,
verb, adjective, etc. This will help you narrow the choice.
Search the list of options for words of that kind, and try them in the space.
Locate the relevant part of the text and re-read carefully, looking for parallel
expressions which help identify the correct answer.

a Decide what part of speech is missing in each space in the text on page 71.
Choose from the list below and say what clues helped you decide.

70

Many studies into the psychology of shopping have been carried out, not only by experts in 4

This task was introduced in Unit 5. In this second type, you have to choose
answers from a box of options. Read the advice for this task below.

TASK APPROACH

Complete the summary using the list of words, AQ, below.

V (plain verb)
V+-ing (-ing form, N or V)
V+-s (3rd person singular)
V -ed (past)

Matching
REMINDERS

This task was introduced in Unit 3. Study the following reminders.

Scan the text and underline the points to match in the text (in this case journals).
Underline key words in the questions.
Study the relevant sections of the text, looking for parallel expressions.

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Questions 1317
Look at the following advice on how to avoid overspending when shopping (Questions 1317), based on
research published in a number of journals (AD).
Match each piece of advice with the correct journal. NB You may use any letter more than once.
13
14
15
16

Use only cash as a method of payment for goods.

Avoid shopping in the company of other people.
Try to resist the attraction of designer brands.
Be particularly cautious if you have financial
problems.
17 Take time to consider before making a purchase.

True/False/Not Given

TIP Answers to True/

False/Not Given
questions are in passage
order.

A The Journal of Consumer Research

The Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

C The Journal of Advertising Research
D Behavioural Research Therapy
B

Read the following advice on choosing between No/False and Not Given answers.

TASK APPROACH

A No/False statement says the opposite to information in the passage. You

can therefore make a No/False statement true by inserting no or not.
There is no information in the passage to say whether a Not Given statement is true
or false. Even if you know the information is true, you must choose Not Given if
there is no evidence in the passage.

Read paragraph 8 again carefully, then say which of each pair of statements is False
and which Not Given.
1a 90% of the worlds population lives on less than $2 a day.
1b Purchasing power of $2 a day is defined as the international poverty line.
2a The term satisficing comes from a combination of the words satisfy and suffice.
2b The term satisficing was invented by the author of the article.

Questions 1822
Do the following statements agree with information given in the passage?
Write:
TRUE
FALSE
NOT GIVEN
18
19
20
21
22

if the statement agrees with the information

if the statement contradicts with the information
if there is no information on this

Shoppers first concern when buying something is whether it is good value or not.
Wendy Liu holds the position of Assistant Professor of Marketing.
After buying a product, the level of dopamine in the body increases rapidly.
The pain of paying is likely to be experienced when using a credit card.
People with more than one credit card are more likely to get into debt.

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Retail therapy

1 The marketing industry has spent

billions of dollars scientifically perfecting
ways to appeal to shoppers primitive
brain responses of instinct and emotion
so that they buy products which their
reasoning higher brain knows that they
dont need or particularly want. The good
news is that much of this research can be
turned on its head, enabling us to control
our instincts and spend less.
2 To take a simple example: pausing
briefly between choosing something and
taking it to the checkout can dramatically
increase the chance of resisting the urge
to buy, according to a study in the
Journal of Consumer Research. Wendy
Liu, of the University of California, Los
Angeles, ran four tests where she
interrupted peoples purchasing. She
found that a break in the buying process
changed their priorities. Before the
interruption, shoppers focused on
whether the object they desired was a
bargain, whereas after the interruption,
they returned with a far more objective,
higher-brained view, which questioned
whether they really wanted the item at all.
3 The need to cool off our consumer
brains is reinforced by Gregory Berns, a
neuroscientist at Emory University,
Atlanta, Georgia. His brain scan studies
show how the feelgood chemical
dopamine is released in waves as shoppers
see a product and consider buying it.
However, it is only the anticipation,
rather than the buying, that releases the
chemical. Once an item has been
purchased, the chemical high dissipates

rapidly, often leaving a sense of regret. In

fact, with practice it is possible to
stimulate the dopamine release merely by
window-shopping, without making any
purchase.
4 Another area of enquiry has been
methods of payment. Four studies on 330
people in the Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Applied confirm the suspicion
that its much easier to spend money in
the form of a credit card. The New York
University-led report concludes that we
regard anything but hard cash as play
money and that real currency is the only
thing that gives you the pain of paying.
Credit cards might not only anaesthetise
retail pain, they may also create a physical
craving to get the dopamine high from
spending, according to Professor Drazen
Prelec, a psychologist at the Massachusetts
Institute of technology. He cautions that
when you see and touch the plastic it is
just like smelling biscuits baking when
you are hungry. You feel compelled to
spend in order to satisfy the craving.
5 Researchers have also looked at the
phenomenon of designer brands. These
have proved highly effective at persuading
people to spend more money on special
goods which are actually only of average
quality. Such brands are painstakingly
developed to encourage people to identify
with them, to believe, in effect, that their
favourite labels have exactly the same
human values as they do. A study in the
Journal of Advertising Research, which
investigated this area, reveals how our
primitive brains are built to relate to other

people and animals and this way of

relating attaches to inanimate objects too.
6 One aspect of shopping psychology
studied by Jennifer Argo, an associate
professor of marketing at Alberta
University, arose from personal
experience. Argo realised that whenever
she went shopping with a friend, she
changed her habits, choosing costlier
foods and clothes. She subsequently
employed mystery shoppers to stand by a
rack of batteries, and found that their
mere presence made the battery buyers
pick the most expensive brand. If no one
was there, they chose cheaply. The result,
published in The Journal of Consumer
Research, was consistent in three separate
studies. We will spend more money in
order to maintain our self image in front
of other people, she says. One answer,
according to a separate study, may be to
shop with relatives: apparently we buy
fewer things when accompanied by family
members.
7 A final point of potential interest is
that we are more liable to spend when in
financial difficulty: under stress we can
feel driven to hoard, according to a study
of students in Behavioural Research
Therapy. This residual instinct can help
to explain how sales campaigns may work
by collectively preying on our deepest
insecurities youre not good enough, no
one likes you.
8 The fact is that we need to look wider,
to the global neighbourhood,
remembering that about half of humanity
lives on less than $2 a day according to
UN statistics. Meanwhile, a fifth of the
earths people buy nearly 90 percent of all
the consumer goods. Satisficing, a term
originally from the social sciences, is the
sensible alternative to maximising. When
you satisfice, you dont let an impossible
search for the perfect option destroy your
enjoyment of the merely satisfactory. We
have an opportunity to decide that life in
the developed world today, with its
unprecedented levels of healthcare,
comfort and personal safety, is probably
as good as it will get, and there is no need
to try buying any more contentment. We
just need to convince our primitive brains
of this.

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DEALING WITH
UNKNOWN VOCABULARY

you are not expected to understand every word in a text.

if a word is not important to understanding, ignore it!
if a word is important to understanding, try to guess the general meaning.
9

10

Find and underline two examples of the word craving in paragraph 4. This
word is helpful to general understanding and its possible to work out the
meaning. What information about the word is given? What do you think it
means?

4 inanimate (5)
5 liable (7)

These are long thin sticks about 25

centimetres long, and they come in
pairs. Theyre made of wood, plastic
or ivory and they sometimes have
beautiful decorations on them. You
hold them both in one hand and
theyre used for

B Success and failure in business

C Economics

Check any meanings youre not sure of.

This is an extremely thin piece

of metal about four centimetres
long. Its got a hole in one end
and the other end is pointed
and sharp. Its used for

This is a flattish object which is

usually square or rectangular in
shape and made of plastic. There
are buttons with numbers and
mathematical symbols on them
on top, and also a small clear
window. You use it for

Practise describing objects AE on the right. Before you begin, study the
Useful language below.

Its a thing/a gadget/a device you use for (+-ing) (purpose)

It looks (a bit) like . (appearance)
Its (roughly/sort of) square/rectangular/circular, etc. (shape)
Its made of (material); Its soft/hard (texture); Its red, etc. (colour)

Work in pairs to describe objects and see if your partner can identify them.
Student A: Turn to page 000. Student B: Turn to page 000.

Complete the following sentences with words from the list above, using
singular or plural forms as necessary.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

BMW is a leading car .. in Germany

It is often cheaper to buy goods on-line rather than from a high street ..
The production of food is now dominated by huge .. like McDonalds.
The city has attracted a large number of .. such as insurance.
There was high during the 70s and prices increased rapidly.
The . of Japan is the yen.
One in ten people only pay off their credit card .. by the minimum
amount each month.
8 The poor economic situation has led to an increase in companies facing

bankruptcy
currency
debt
gross national product
inflation
loss
manufacturer
multinational (corporation)
profit
recession
retailer
service industry

PRONUNCIATION: SOUNDS

Complete the following descriptions and say what the objects are.

Categorise the following words and phrases according to whether they relate
mainly to:
A Types of business

Noun + noun
combinations, e.g. designer
brand, self image
P p. 000, ex. 13

In some Part 2 tasks you need to describe an object. If so, think about the key
aspects: size and shape, colour, what its made of and how the object is used.

Useful language

Focus on vocabulary Business and Economics

1

Part 2: Long turn

Look at the way the expressions below are used in context and try to guess the
general meaning.
1 to turn something on its head (paragraph 1)
2 to dissipate (2)
3 to compel (4)

Focus on speaking 2 Describing objects

Remember these points:

KEY LANGUAGE
Talking about research
e.g. According to a study
P p. 000, ex.12

TOPIC VOCABULARY

R e t a i l t h e r apy

C O M M E R C E A N D C U LTU RE

EXAM PRACTICE

Work in pairs.
1 Read the topic card below and think of a suitable possession to describe.
Notice that describing appearance is only one part of the task, so you dont
need to go into a lot of detail.

TIP: You don't need to know

the exact word for
something as long as you can
describe it clearly.

2 Spend a few moments making brief notes in the form of a mindplan.

3 Take it in turns to describe your chosen possession. You should try to keep
talking for two minutes, without interruption. Keep an eye on the time while
your partner is speaking and let them know when their time is up.
Describe a personal possession which means a lot to you.

The letter o can be pronounced in several ways. Put the following words under
the correct heading according to the way the letter o is pronounced.
/ / e.g. hot

/ / e.g. note

/ e.g. son

You should say:

what the item is
what it looks like
where you keep it
and explain why its important to you.

among
home
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M07_FOCI_CB_HIGGLB_9162_U07.indd 74-75

company
done
flow
front
gone
gross
know
loss
money
odd
own
profit
wrong
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