Đề thi thật ngày 28/03/2019 tại British Council, computer-delivered 

In some countries, advertisers increase the amount of advertising in order to persuade children to buy snacks, toys and other goods. Parents object to such pressure on children, but some advertisers claim that there is useful information in these advertisements.

Discuss both views and give your own opinion.

Write at least 250 words 

Sample answer

As a matter of fact, advertising aimed at children is on a rise in some countries. While parents raise objection to such advertising, marketers believe their advertisements contain useful information. Although the argument of advertisers is true to some extent, I believe that such commercial can truly have negative effects on children.

On the one hand, manufacturers and sellers nowadays somewhat include truthful and correct information about their products because of two compelling reasons. First, the information in advertisements must be useful and accurate in order to make the products approach their target customers. In order words, sales of the products will increase if customers find the advertisements informative by helping them to know more about the items they are going to buy. Second, it is consumer protection laws that have prevented fraud and deception in advertising. If businesses were identified as intentionally providing false or misleading information, they would suffer from serious punishments and negative impacts on brand reputation. As a result, commercials generally come with useful and truthful information.       

On the other hand, there are many undesirable impacts on children that are caused by child advertising. To begin with, commercials aimed at children can create "pester power". To be more specific, children who view advertisements tend to pester their parents to buy the things they have seen on TV for them. Children's nagging can influence adults' buying habits, making parents purchase even unhealthy items. This leads to another problem: higher consumption of unhealthy foods in children. An increasing number of TV and online commercials for junk food or soda pop is associated with childhood obesity. Clearly, the more children are exposed to such advertising, the more likely they are to consume a large quantity of those foods. Consequently, they will absorb more fats and sugars than the need of their bodies, leading to the health issue of obesity. 

In conclusion, while nobody can deny that many products nowadays are advertised with correct and useful information, I opine that child advertising comes with many unwanted effects on children. 

Word count: 290 words

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