单选题 Over the past decade, many companies had perfected the art of creating automatic behaviors—habits—among consumers. These habits have helped companies earn billions of dollars when customers eat snacks or wipe counters almost without thinking, often in response to a carefully designed set of daily cues.
"There are fundamental public health problems, like dirty hands instead of a soap habit, that remain killers only because we can"t figure out how to change people"s habits," said Dr. Curtis, the director of the Hygiene Center at the London School of Hygiene Tropical Medicine. "We wanted to learn from private industry how to create new behaviors that happen automatically."
The companies that Dr. Curtis turned to—Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Unilever—had invested hundreds of millions of dollars finding the subtle cues in consumers" lives that corporations could use to introduce new routines.
If you look hard enough, you"ll find that many of the products we use every day—chewing gums, skin moisturizers, disinfecting wipes, air fresheners, water purifiers, health snacks, teeth whiteners, fabric softeners, vitamins—are results of manufactured habits. A century ago, few people regularly brushed their teeth multiple times a day. Today, because of shrewd advertising and public health campaigns, many Americans habitually give their pearly whites a cavity-preventing scrub twice a day, often with Colgate, Crest or one of the other brands.
A few decades ago, many people didn"t drink water outside of a meal. Then beverage companies started bottling the production of far-off springs, and now office workers unthinkingly sip bottled water all day long. Chewing gum, once bought primarily by adolescent boys, is now featured in commercials as a breath freshener and teeth cleanser for use after a meal. Skin moisturizers are advertised as part of morning beauty rituals, slipped in between hair brushing and putting on makeup.
"Our products succeed when they become part of daily or weekly patterns," said Carol Berning, a consumer psychologist who recently retired from Procter & Gamble, the company that sold $76 billion of Tide, Crest and other products last year. "Creating positive habits is a huge part of improving our consumers" lives, and it"s essential to making new products commercially viable."
Through experiments and observation, social scientists like Dr. Berning have learned that there is power in tying certain behaviors to habitual cues through ruthless advertising. As this new science of habit has emerged, controversies have erupted when the tactics have been used to Sell questionable beauty creams or unhealthy foods.

单选题 According to Dr. Curtis, habits like hand washing with soap ______

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】[解析] 在第二段Curtis博士提到，用肥皂洗手这样的习惯关系到公共卫生问题，应该想办法改变不洗手这样的旧习惯，创造新行为，而且要让这些行为自动发生。这里，happen automatically指让习惯在不知不觉中形成。Curtis博士认为，在培养人的新习惯上，我们可以向某些私人公司学习。本文主要是想说明像宝洁这样的公司，如何通过广告来塑造人们的习惯，让人们在不知不觉中开始使用他们的产品。可见，这个答案也与文章的主题有关。
B：Curtis认为不用肥皂洗手的坏习惯应该改掉，而不是改掉用肥皂洗手的好习惯。

单选题 Bottled water, chewing gum and skin moisturizers are mentioned in Paragraph 5 so as to ______

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】[解析] 这道题的正确答案也与本文的主题紧密相连。
第五段提到三种产品，这仅仅是举例，用来说明这些产品如何被公司通过广告宣传塞入我们的生活，改变了我们的生活，使我们树立了新的生活习惯。实际上，第四段也提到了多种产品，在举出这些例子前，第四段第一句陈述了这些例子旨在说明的道理，即我们每天用的许多产品是被创造出的习惯所产生的结果。在举完例子之后，第六段用Carol Betning的话进行了总结，说明了同一个道理。

单选题 Which of the following does NOT belong to products that help create people"s habits?

单选题 From the text we know that some of consumers" habits are developed due to ______

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】[解析] 第四段最后一句提到，由于精明的广告和公共卫生宣传，人们开始每天用高露洁等牙膏刷牙两次。第五段和最后一段都提到了广告宣传在促使人们形成日常习惯上的重要作用。广告是通过把某种行为与某种习惯线索相联系，从而产生影响人的力量。比如，刷牙是每天的习惯，你已经在坚持每天刷牙一次，但高露洁的广告告诉你，每日用它们的牙膏早晚刷牙各一次是非常重要的。久而久之，你接受了它们的暗示，开始每天刷两次牙。高露洁于是通过培养你的习惯从你身上挣到了钱。
A：第一段第一句中的perfected the art of creating automatic behaviors指公司用巧妙的方式塑造人的习惯，与选择项A的意思差别很大。
B：第一段第一句中的“自动行为”指习惯。如果这个选择项是正确的，那么这个题的意思就成了“消费者的某些习惯是由于习惯而塑造成的”，逻辑上根本讲不通。

单选题 The author"s attitude toward the influence of advertisement on people"s habits is ______

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】[解析] 回答提问态度的题时，认真阅读最后一段非常重要，因为作者往往在最后一段重申自己的态度和立场。在本文中，把握好最后一段对回答这个问题非常重要，这段包括两句，第一句中提到广告如何在树立人的习惯上肆无忌惮地(ruthless)施加自己的影响力(power)；第二句也提到了公司的这些策略可能引起争议。其实，第一段的两个句子也带有一定的讽刺和否定语气，如perfect和carefully designed等这样的措辞在这里都含有一定程度的贬义。