Most people would protably agree that many individual consumer adverts
function on the level of the daydream. By picturing quite unusually happy and
glamorous people whose success in either career or sexual terms, or both, is
obvious, adverts construct an imaginary world in which the reader is able to
make come true those desires which remain unsatisfied in his or her everyday
life. An advert for a science fiction magazine is unusually
explicit about this. In addition to the primary use value of the magazine, the
reader is promised access to a wonderful universe through the product-access to
other mysterious and tantalizing worlds and epochs, the realms of the
imagination. When studying advertising, it is therefore unreasonable to expect
readers to decipher adverts as factual statements about reality. Most adverts
are just too meager in informative content and too rich in emotional suggestive
detail to be read literally. If people read them literally, they would soon be
forced to realize their error when the glamorous promises held out by the
adverts didn't materialize. The average consumer is not
surprised that his purchase of the commodity does not redeem the promise of the
advertisement, for this is what he is used to in life: the individual's pursuit
of happiness and success is usually in vain. But the fantasy is his to keep; in
his dream world he enjoys a "future endlessly deferred". The
Estivalia advert company is quite explicit about the fact that advertising shows
us not reality, but a fantasy; it does so by openly admitting the daydream but
in a way which insists on the existence of a bridge linking daydream to
reality-Estivalia, which is "for daydream believers", those who refuse to give
up trying to make the hazy ideal of natural beauty and harmony come
true. If adverts function on the daydream level, it clearly
becomes inadequate to merely condemn advertising for channeling readers'
attention and desires towards unrealistic, paradisiacal (天堂似的) nowhere land.
Advertising certainly does that, but in order for people to find it relevant,
the Utopia (乌托邦) visualized in adverts must be linked to our surrounding reality
by a causal connection.
单选题
The people in adverts are in most cases ______.
单选题
When the glamorous promises held out by the adverts didn't materialize
the average consumer is not surprised, because ______.
A. the consumer is used to the fact that the individual's pursuit of
happiness and success is usually in vain
B. adverts are factual statements about reality
C. the consumer can come into the realms of imagination pictured by
adverts
D. adverts can make the consumer's dream come true
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】[解析] 本题设在第三段第一句话，for引导原因状语从句：for this is what he is used co in life: the individual's pursuit of happiness and success is usually in vain.在生活中他对此早已习惯了，他对幸福和成功的追求通常都是以失败而结束。
单选题
Why does the consumer accept the daydream in adverts?
A. Because the consumer enjoys a "future endlessly deferred" .
B. Because the consumer enjoys up trying to make his dream come true.
C. Because the Utopia is visualized in adverts.
D. Because his purchase of the commodity does not redeem the promise of the
advertisement.
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】[解析] 根据文章第三段最后一句话：But the fantasy is his to keep; in his dream world he enjoys a "future endlessly deferred."他需要保留一些幻想；在他的梦想世界里，他可以沉浸在没有尽头的未来里面。
单选题
What's the bridge linking daydream to reality in adverts?
A. The product.
B. Estivalia.
C. Pictures.
D. Happy and glamorous people.
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】[解析] 设题点在文章第四段。根据推理，广告产品应是连接白日梦和现实的桥梁。
单选题
What is this passage mainly concerned with?
A. Many adverts can be read literally.
B. Everyone has a daydream.
C. Many adverts function on the level of the daydream.
D. Many adverts are deceitful because they can not make their
promises.