15000 bài tập tách từ đề thi thử môn Tiếng Anh có đáp án (Phần 71)

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          Advertising helps people recognize a particular brand, persuades them to try it, and tries to keep them loyal to its. Brand loyalty is perhaps the most important goal of consumer advertising. Whether they produce cars, canned foods or cosmetics, manufacturers want their customers to make repeated purchases. The quality of the product will encourage this, of course, but so, too, will affect advertising.

          Advertising relies on the techniques of market research to identify potential users of a product. Are they homemakers or professional people? Are they young or old? Are they cit dwellers or country dwellers? Such question have a bearing on where and when ads should be placed. By studying readership breakdowns for newspapers and magazines as well as television rating and other statistics, and advertising agency can decide on the best way of reaching potential buyers. Detailed research and marketing expertise are essential today when advertising budgets can run into thousands of millions of dollars.

          Advertising is a fast-paced, high-pressure industry. There is a constant need for creative ideas that will establish a personality for product in the public’s mind. Current developments in advertising increase the need for talented workers.

          In the past, the majority of advertising was aimed at the traditional white family – breadwinner father, non – working mother, and two children. Research now reveals that only about 6 percent of American households fit this stereotype. Instead, society is fragmented into many groups, with working mothers, single people and older people on the rise. To be most successful, advertising must identify a particular segment and aim its message toward that group.

          Advertising is also making use of new technologies. Computer graphics are used to grab the attention of consumers and to help them see products in a new light. The use of computer graphics in a commercial for canned goods, for instance, gave a new image to the tin can.

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          Rachek Carson was born in 1907 in Springsdale, Pennsylvania. She studied biology in college and zoology at Johns Hopkins University, where she received her master’s degree in 1933. In 1936, she was hired by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, where she worked most of her life.

          Carson’s first book, Under the Sea Wind, was published in 1941. It received excellent reviews, but sales were poor until it was reissued in 1952. In that year, she published The Sea Around US, which provided a fascinating look beneath the ocean’s surface, emphasizing human history as well as geology and marine biology. Her imagery and language had a poetic quality. Carson consulted no less than 1, 000 printed sources. She had voluminous correspondence and frequent discussions with experts in the field. However, she always realized the limitations of her non-technical readers.

          In 1962, Carson published Silence Spring, a book that sparked considerable controversy. It proved how much harm was done by the uncontrolled, reckless use of insecticides. She detailed how they poison the food supply of animals, kill birds, and contaminate human food. At that time, spokesmen for the chemical industry mounted personal attacks against Carson and issued propaganda to indicate that her findings were flawed. However, her work vindicated a 1963 report of the President’s Science Advisory Committee.

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          Animation traditionally in done by hand-drawing or painting successive frame of an object, each slightly different than the proceeding frame. In computer animation, although the computer may be the one to draw the different frames, in most cases the artist will draw the beginning and ending frames and the computer will produce the drawings between the first and the last drawing. This is generally referred to as computer-assisted animation, because the computer is more of a helper than an originator.

          In full computer animation, complex mathematical formulas are used to produce the final sequences of pictures. These formulas operate on extensive databases of numbers that defines the objects in the pictures as they exist in mathematical space. The database consists of endpoints, and color and intensity information. Highly trained professionals are needed to produce such effects because animation that obtains high degrees of realism involves computer techniques from three-dimensional transfofmation, shading, nad curvatures.

          High-tech computer animation for film involves very expensive computer systems along with special color terminals or frame buffers. The frame buffer is nothing more than a giant image memory for viewing a single frame. It temporarily holds the image for display on the screen.

A camera can be used to film directly from the computer’s display screen, but for the highest quality images possible, expensive film recorders are used. The computer computer the positions and colors for the figures in the picture, and sends this information to the recorder, which captures it in film. Sometimes, however, the images are stored on a large magnetic disk before being sent to the recorder. Once this process is completed, it is replaced for the next frame. When the entire sequence has been recorded on the film, the film must be developed before the animation can be viewed. If the entire sequence dose not seem right, the motions must be corrected, recomputer, redisplayed, and rerecorded. This approach can be very expensive and time – consuming. Often, computer-animation companies first do motion tests with simple computer-generated line drawings before selling their computers to the task of calculating the high-resolution, realistic-looking images.

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          Composers today use a wider variety of sounds than ever before, including many that were once considered undesirable noises. Composer Edgard Varese (1883-1965)  called thus the “liberation of sound…the right to make music with any and all sounds.” Electronic music, for example – made with the aid of computers, synthesizers, and electronic instruments – may include sounds that in the past would not have been considered musical.

          Enviromental sounds, such as thunder, and electronically generated hisses and blips can be recorded, manipulated, and then incorporated into a musical composition. But composers also draw novel sounds from voices and non-electronic instruments. Singers may be asked to scream, laugh, groan, sneeze, or to sing phonetic sounds rather than words. Wind and string players may lap or scrape their instruments. A brass or woodwind player may hum while playing, to produce two pitches at once; a pianist may reach inside the piano to pluck a string and then run a metal blade along it. In the music of the Western world, the greatest expansion and experimentation have involved percussion instruments, which outnumber strings and winds in many recent compositions. Traditional persussion instruments are struck with new types of beaters; and instruments that used to be couriered unconventional in Western music – tom-toms, bongos, slapsticks, maracas – are widely used.

          In the search for novel sounds, increased use has been made in Western music of Microtones. Non-Western music typically divides and intervals between two pitches more finely than Western music does, thereby producing a greater number of distinct tones or micro tones, within the same interval. Composers such as Krzysztof Penderecki create sound that borders on electronic noise through tone clusters – closely spaced tones played together and heard as a mass, block, or band of sound. The directional aspect of sound has taken on new importance as well Loudspeakers or groups of instruments may be placed at opposite ends of the stage, in the balcony, or at the back and sides of the auditorium. Because standard music notation makes no provision for many of these innovations, recent music scores may contain graph like diagrams, new note shapes and symbols, and novel ways of arranging notation on the page.

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          An air pollutnt is defined as a compound added directly or indirectly by humans to the atmosphere in such quantities as to affect humans, animals, vegetation, or materials adversely. Air pollution requires a very flexible definition that permits continuous change. When the first air pollution laws were established in England in the fourteenth century, air pollutants were limited to compounds that could be seen or smelled – a far cry from the extensive list of harmful subtances known today. As technology has developed and knowledge of the health aspects of various chemicals has increased, the list of air pollutants has lengthened. In the future, even water vapor might be considered an air pollutant under certain conditions.

          Many of the more important air pollutants, such as sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide, and notrigen oxides, are found in nature. As the Earth developed, the concentration of these pollutants was altered by various chemical reactions; they became components in biogeochemical cycles. These serve as an air purification scheme by allowing the compounds to move from the air to the water or soil. On a global basis, nature’s output of these compounds dwarfs that resulting from human activities.

          However, human production usually occurs in a localized area, such as as city. In such a region, human output may be dominant and may temporarily overload the natural purification scheme of the cycles. The result is an increased concentration of noxious chemicals in the air. The concentrations at which the adverse effects appear will be greater than the concentrations that the pollutants would have in the absence of human activities. The actual concentration need not be large for a subtance to be a pollutant; in fact, the numerial value tells us little until we know how much of an increase this represents over ther concentration that would occur naturally in the area. For example, sulfur dioxide has detectable health effects at 0.08 parts per million (ppm), which is about 400 times its natural level. Carbon monoxide, however, has a natural level of 0.1 ppm and is not usually a pollutant until its level reaches about 15 ppm.

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Recent technological advances in manned and unmanned vehicles, along with breakthroughs in satellite technology and computer equipment, have overcome some of the limitations of divers and diving equipment for scientists doing research on the great oceans of the world. Without a vehicle, divers often became sluggish, and their mental concentration was severely limited. Because undersea pressure affects their speech organs, communication among divers has always been difficult or impossible. But today, most oceanographers avoid the use of vulnerable human divers, preferring to reduce the risk to human life and make direct observations by means of instruments that are lowered into the ocean, from samples take from the water, or from photographs made by orbiting satellites. Direct observations of the ocean floor can be made not only by divers but also by deep-diving submarines in the water and even by the technology of sophisticated aerial photography from vantage points above the surface of more than seven miles and cruise at depths of fifteen thousand feet. In addition, radio-equipped buoys can be operated by remote control in order to transmit information back to land-based laboratories via satellite. Particularly important for ocean study are data about water temperature, currents, and weather. Satellite photographs can show the distribution of sea ice, oil slicks, and cloud formations over the ocean. Maps created from satellite pictures can represent the temperature and the color of the ocean's surface, enabling researchers to study the ocean currents from laboratories on dry land. Furthermore, computers help oceanographers to collect, organize, and analyze data from submarines and satellites. By creating a model of the ocean's movement and characteristics, scientists can predict the patterns and possible effects of the ocean on the environment.

Recently, many oceanographers have been relying more on satellites and computers than on research ships or even submarine vehicles because they can supply a greater range of information more quickly and more effectively. Some of humankind's most serious problems, especially those concerning energy and food, may be solved with the help of observations made possible by this new technology.

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After two decades of growing student enrollments and economic prosperity, business schools in the United States have started to face harder times. Only Harvard’s MBA School has shown a substantial increase in enrollment in recent years. Both Princeton and Stanford have seen decreases in their enrollments. Since 1990, the number of people receiving Masters in Business Administration (MBA) degrees, has dropped about 3 percent to 75,000, and the trend of lower enrollment rates is expected to continue.

There are two factors causing this decrease in students seeking an MBA degree. The first one is that many graduates of four-year colleges are finding that an MBA degree does not guarantee a plush job on Wall Street, or in other financial districts of major American cities. Many of the entry-level management jobs are going to students graduating with Master of Arts degrees in English and the humanities as well as those holding MBA degrees. Students have asked the question, “Is an MBA degree really what I need to be best prepared for getting a good job?” The second major factor has been the cutting of American payrolls and the lower number of entry-level jobs being offered. Business needs are changing, and MBA schools are struggling to meet the new demands.

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Since water is the basis of life, composing the greater part of the tissues of all living things, the crucial problem of desert animals is to survive in a world where sources of flowing water are rare. And since man’s inexorable necessity is to absorb large quantities of water at frequent intervals, he can scarcely comprehend that many creatures of the desert pass their entire lives without a single drop.

Uncompromising as it is, the desert has not eliminated life but only those forms unable to withstand its desiccating effects. No most skinned, water-loving animals can exist there. Few large animals are found. The giants of the North American desert are the deer, the coyote, and the bobcat. Since desert country is open, it holds more swift-footed running and leaping creatures than the tangled forest. Its population is largely nocturnal, silent, filled with reticence, and ruled by stealth. Yet they are not emaciated.

Having adapted to their austere environment, they are as healthy as animals anywhere else in the word. The secret of their adjustment lies in the combination of behavior and physiology. None could survive if, like mad dogs and Englishmen, they went out in the midday sun; many would die in a matter of minutes. So most of them pass the burning hours asleep in cool, humid burrows underneath the ground, emerging to hunt only by night. The surface of the sun-baked desert averages around 150 degrees, but 18 inches down the temperature is only 60 degrees.

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In 1988, Canadian athlete Ben Johnson set a new world record for the 100 metres sprint and set the Seoul Olympics alight. Just a few days later, he was stripped of his medal and banned from competing after having failed a drug test, highlighting what has since become an international problem - drug use in sport.

Those involved in sports face enormous pressure to excel in competition, all the more so as their careers are relatively short. By the time most sportspeople are in their forties, they are already considered to be past their prime, and as a result they need to earn their money as quickly as possible. In such a high-pressure environment, success has to come quickly and increasingly often drugs are playing a prominent role.

There are a number of specific effects that sportspeople are aiming to achieve by taking performance- enhancing drugs. Caffeine and cocaine are commonly used as stimulants, getting the body ready for the mass expenditure of energy required. In addition, there are those who are looking to build their body strength and turn to the use of anabolic steroids. Having worked so hard and needing to unwind, sportspeople may misuse other drugs as a relaxant in that it can help them cope with stress or boost their own confidence. Alcohol is commonly used for this purpose, but for sportspeople something more direct is often required, and this has led to an increase in the use of beta-blockers specifically to steady nerves.

Increasingly accurate drug testing is leading companies and suppliers to ever-more creative ways of avoiding detection, and there are a range of banned substances that are still taken by sportspeople in order to disguise the use of other, more potent drugs. Diuretics is a good example of this: in addition to allowing the body to lose excess weight, they are used to hide other substances.

Drugs or not, the working life of the average sportsperson is hard and often painful. Either through training or on the field, injuries are common and can lead to the use of narcotics simply to mask the pain. There are examples of champion motorcyclists taking local anaesthetics to hide the pain of a crash that should have seen them taken straight to hospital, and though this is not directly banned, use is carefully monitored.

Drug testing has since become an accepted feature of most major sporting events, and as soon as a new drug is detected and the user is banned from competitive sport, then a new drug is developed which evades detection. Inevitably, this makes testing for such banned substances even more stringent, and has in recent years highlighted a new and disturbing problem - the unreliability of drug tests.

Recent allegations of drug use have seen sportspeople in court attempt to overthrow decisions against them, claiming that they were unaware they had taken anything on the banned list. A test recently carried out saw three non-athletes given dietary substances that were not on the banned list, and the two who didn’t take exercise tested negative. However, the third person, who exercised regularly, tested positive. This, of course, has left the testing of sportspeople in a very difficult position. Careers can be prematurely ended by false allegations of drug abuse, yet by not punishing those who test positive, the door would be open for anyone who wanted to take drugs.

The issue is becoming increasingly clouded as different schools of opinion are making themselves heared. There are some that argue that if the substance is not directly dangerous to the user, then it should not be banned, claiming that it is just another part of training and can be compared to eating the correct diet. Ron Clarke, a supporter of limited drug use in sport, commented that some drugs should be accepted as ‘they just level the playing field’. He defended his opinion by pointing out that some competitors have a natural advantage. Athletes born high above sea level or who work out in high altitudes actually produce more red blood cells, a condition which other athletes can only achieve by drug taking.

Others claim that drug use shouldn’t be allowed because it contravenes the whole idea of fairly competing in a sporting event, adding that the drugs available to a wealthy American athlete, for example, would be far superior to those available to a struggling Nigerian competitor.

Governing bodies of the myriad of sporting worlds are trying to set some standards for competitors, but as drug companies become more adept at disguising illegal substances, the procedure is an endless race with no winner. In the face of an overwhelming drug and supplement market, one thing is certain - drugs will probably be a significant factor for a long time to come.

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THE ILLUSION OF FILM

Film is an illusion because the  moving pictures seen on the screen are not moving at all. A film is actually a series of tiny still pictures, or frames. They appear to be moving because the retina of the  human eye retains the impression of an object for a split second  after  that object has actually disappeared. This principle is known as the persistence of vision. When we look at a single frame of film, the image persists in the brain’s visual center for a fraction of a second. Then, the next frame comes along and the brain has to catch up with the new image. Thus, our eyes and  brain trick us into thinking that we see a smoothly moving image rather than a series of still ones.

Another  illusion of film is known collectively as special effects, the tricks and techniques that filmmakers use when makeup, costume, and stunts are still not enough to make a scene convincing. Special-effects artists apply science to filmmaking, showing us things that no plain camera could ever photograph. Even since the introduction of computer graphics in recent decades, the films of today still rely on some special effects that have existed since the early years of cinema.

One category of special effects is called optical or visual effects, tricks made with the camera. One of the pioneers of optical effects was the French filmmaker Georges Melies, who invented a technique called stop-motion photography. With this technique, a scene is filmed, the camera is stopped, the scene is changed in some way, and then the camera rolls again. Stop-motion photography can create the illusion of an actor disappearing on screen. In one short film, an actor’s clothes keep returning to his body as he tries to get undressed. Melies also invented a technique known as split screen. By putting a card over the camera lens, he prevented half of the frame of film from being exposed. He filmed a scene on the uncovered half of the frame and then backed up the same strip of film in his camera. For the second shot, he covered the exposed  half and took another series of pictures on the half that had been covered the first time. With the technique of split screen, it is possible to achieve illusions such as having the same actor play twins.

Mechanical effects are another category of special effects. Mechanical effects are objects or devices used during the filming to create an illusion, such as feathers or plastic chips to simulate snow, and wires to create the illusion that people are flying. Many sound effects are mechanical effects. Wood blocks create a horse’s hoofbeats, and a vibrating sheet of metal sounds like thunder. During the silent film era, the music machine called the Kinematophone was popular because it could produce the sounds of sirens, sleigh bells, gunfire, baby cries, and kisses—all at the press of a key.

Other  mechanical effects are puppets, robots of all sizes, and tiny copies of  buildings or cities. To reduce the cost of studio sets or location photography, special-effects technicians create painted or projected backgrounds, which replace the set or add to it. For example, in a long shot of a town, the set might be only a few feet high, and the remainder of the town is painted onto a sheet of glass positioned in front of the camera during filming. In a 1916 silent film called The Flying Torpedo, mechanical effects created the appearance of an enemy invasion of the California seacoast. Technicians threw small contact—rigged explosives into toy cities, scattering the tiny buildings into the air. An artist painted a row of battleships on a board that was only six feet long. Carpenters drilled small holes in the ships, which were filled with small charges of flash powder to simulate guns. An electrician wired the charges so they could be fired on cue from a small battery. For audiences of the time, the effect was of a real fleet of ships firing on the California coast.

Sometimes optical and mechanical effects are used together. For the original 1933 version of King Kong, the filmmakers wanted to show the giant ape climbing the Empire State Building in New York City. To show Kong’s climb, the special-effects technicians built a tiny movable model of the ape and a proportionately small model of the Empire State Building. Then, stop-motion photography was used to create the illusion that Kong was moving up the building.