The Way the Brain Buys Reading Answers

Dec 8, 2023

The Way the Brain Buys Reading Answers is an academic topic taken from Complete IELTS Bands 5-6.5 Student's Book with Answers. It contains sample questions and answers about the shoppers and retailers. The Way the Brain Buys Reading Answers has 9 different questions. The Way the Brain Buys Reading Answers contains true, false, or not-given type, and completes the sentence type of questions. Candidates are required to read the IELTS Reading passage and answer whether the given statements are true, false, or not given in the passage based on their understanding. Candidates can gain proficiency on diverse topics by undertaking IELTS Reading practice papers to get more topics like The Way the Brain Buys Reading Answers.

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Section 1

Read the following passage to answer the questions given below.

The Way the Brain Buys Reading Answers

The Way the Brain Buys

IT MAY have occurred to you, during the course of a dismal trawl round a supermarket indistinguishable from every other supermarket you have ever been into, to wonder why they are all the same. The answer is more sinister than depressing. It is not because the companies that operate them lack imagination. It is because they are all versed in the science of persuading people to buy things—a science that, thanks to technological advances, is beginning to unlock the innermost secrets of the consumer’s mind.

Shoppers already know that everyday items, like milk, are invariably placed towards the back of a store to provide more opportunity to tempt customers. This is why pharmacies are generally at the rear, even in “convenience” stores. But supermarkets know shoppers know this, so they use other tricks, like placing popular items halfway along a section so that people have to walk all along the aisle looking for them. The idea is to boost “dwell time”: the length of time people spend in a store.

Traditionally retailers measure “footfall”, as the number of people entering a store is known, but those numbers say nothing about where people go and how long they spend there. But nowadays, a ubiquitous piece of technology can fill the gap: the mobile phone. Path Intelligence, a British company working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, tracked people’s phones at Gunwharf Quays, a large retail and leisure centre in Portsmouth—not by monitoring calls, but by plotting the positions of handsets as they transmit automatically to cellular networks. It found that when dwell time rose 1% sales rose 1.3%.

Most of the information that shoppers are bombarded with is visual: labels, price stickers and advertising. But the wafting bread aroma shows smell can usefully be stimulated too, says Simon Harrop, chief executive of BRAND sense agency, a British specialist in multi-sensory marketing. In the aisle by the laundry section he suggests introducing the smell of freshly laundered sheets. Even the sound of sheets being folded could be reproduced here and contained within the area using the latest audio technology. The Aroma Company, which Mr Harrop founded, has put the smell of coconut into the shops of Thompson, a British travel agent. Some suntan oils smell of coconut, so the scent is supposed to remind people of past holidays. The company even infuses the fresh smell of citrus into a range of clothing made by Odeur, a Swedish company. It can waft for up to 13 washes.

Such techniques are increasingly popular because of a deepening understanding about how shoppers make choices. People tell market researchers and “focus groups” that they make rational decisions about what to buy, considering things like price, selection or convenience. But subconscious forces, involving emotion and memories, are clearly also at work.

Retailers and producers talk a lot about the “moment of truth”. This is not a philosophical notion, but the point when people standing in the aisle decide what to buy and reach to get it. The Basingstoke store illustrates some of the ways used to get shoppers’ hands to wobble in the direction of a particular product. At the instant coffee selection, for example, branded products from the big producers are arranged at eye-level while cheaper ones are lower down, along with the supermarket’s own-label products.

Technology is making the process of monitoring shopper behaviour easier—which is why the security cameras in a store may be doing a lot more than simply watching out for theft. Rajeev Sharma, of Pennsylvania State University, founded a company called VideoMining to automate the process. It uses image-recognition software to scan the pictures from security cameras of shoppers while they are making their selections. It is capable of looking at the actions of hundreds of thousands of people. It can measure how many went straight to one brand, the number that dithered and those that compared several, at the same time as sorting shoppers by age, gender and ethnicity.

Section 2

Answers and Explanation
Questions 1-9

Decide if the following questions are true, false, or not given. True = the statement matches the information in the passage False = the statement contradicts the information in the passage Not Given = the information is not found in the passage

Supermarkets are similar in layout because the companies do not have imagination.
Answer: False
Supporting statement: It is not because the companies that operate them lack imagination.
Keywords: imagination.
Keyword Location: 3rd line, First Paragraph.
Explanation: “It is not because the companies that operate them lack imagination.”This section refers to how supermarkets all seem the same, not the companies.
Commonly bought items are occasionally put at the back of the supermarket.
Answer: False
Supporting statement: Shoppers already know that everyday items, like milk, are invariably placed towards the back of a store to provide more opportunity to tempt customers.
Keywords: back of a store.
Keyword Location: 1st Line, Second Paragraph.
Explanation: “Shoppers already know that everyday items, like milk, are invariably placed towards the back of a store to provide more opportunity to tempt customers. But supermarkets know shoppers know this, so they use other tricks, like placing popular items halfway along a section” - This sentence mentions that what customers know, is not what supermarkets actually do.
Putting popular products midway down aisles encourages customers to wander round the shop more in order find something new.
Answer: False
Supporting statement: branded products from the big producers are arranged at eye-level while cheaper ones are lower down, along with the supermarket’s own-label products.
Keywords: Product
Keyword Location: 4th line, Sixth Paragraph.
Explanation: “Branded products from the big producers are arranged at eye-level while cheaper ones are lower down, along with the supermarket’s own-label products.” - This sentence mentions that branded products from big producers are arranged on eye level, cheaper ones are lower down. It does not mention anything about popular products or midway-down arrangements.
Path Intelligence is a successful company, well known with universities.
Answer: Not Given
Supporting statement: Path Intelligence, a British company working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, tracked people’s phones at Gunwharf Quays.
Keywords: Path Intelligence
Keyword Location: 3rd and 4th line, Third Paragraph.
Explanation: “Path Intelligence, a British company working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, tracked people’s phones at Gunwharf Quays.” - This sentence clearly mentions that Path Intelligence is working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology only, it does not mean that the company is associated with the other universities.
Path Intelligence was able to monitor where people’s handsets were.
Answer: True
Supporting statement: Tracked people’s phones at Gunwharf Quays, a large retail and leisure centre in Portsmouth—not by monitoring calls, but by plotting the positions of handsets as they transmit automatically to cellular networks.
Keywords: Tracked, Path Intelligence
Keyword Location: 5th line, Third Paragraph.
Explanation: “by plotting the positions of handsets as they transmit automatically to cellular networks.” - This sentence mentions that Pathway tracks the position of handsets.
Customers can be influenced by aromas.
Answer: True
Supporting statement: The Aroma Company, which Mr Harrop founded, has put the smell of coconut into the shops of Thompson, a British travel agent. Some suntan oils smell of coconut, so the scent is supposed to remind people of past holidays.
Keywords: Aroma, remind people.
Keyword Location: 7th line, Fourth Paragraph
Explanation: “Some suntan oils smell of coconut, so the scent is supposed to remind people of past holidays.” - These sentences mention that the scent is supposed to remind people of past holidays.
The moment of truth is when people decide what they can afford.
Answer: False
Supporting statement: Retailers and producers talk a lot about the “moment of truth”. This is not a philosophical notion, but the point when people standing in the aisle decide what to buy and reach to get it.
Keywords: Moment of truth.
Keyword Location: 1st line, Sixth Paragraph.
Explanation: “But the point when people standing in the aisle decide what to buy and reach to get it.” - This sentence mentions that the moment of truth is when people decide what to buy and reach to get it.
More cameras have been placed in supermarkets to record customer behaviour.
Answer: Not Given.
Supporting statement: security cameras in a store may be doing a lot more than simply watching out for theft.
Keywords: Cameras.
Keyword Location: 2nd line, Last Paragraph.
Explanation: “Security cameras in a store may be doing a lot more than simply watching out for theft”- This sentence mentions that security cameras are installed to watch out for thefts, but does not mention clearly that those cameras are being installed to see customer's behavior.
The position of cameras is strategically planned to encourage people to buy brand names.
Answer: Not Given
Supporting statement: It uses image-recognition software to scan the pictures from security cameras of shoppers while they are making their selections. It is capable of looking at the actions of hundreds of thousands of people.
Keywords: cameras
Keyword Location: 4th and 5th line, Last Paragraph.
Explanation: “It uses image-recognition software to scan the pictures from security cameras of shoppers while they are making their selections. It is capable of looking at the actions of hundreds of thousands of people.” - These sentences mention that the security cameras are there to look at the actions of hundreds of thousands of people.