2024/02/12 Mon
Independent Writing Task
Question:
This week, we will be discussing a shortage of affordable housing that exists in many countries. In these places, housing-both apartments (flats) and houses—are expensive, because populations are growing faster than new housing is being built. Now, think about places in your country that have a housing shortage. In your post, I would like you to indicate the most effective way for the government to address a housing shortage in your country. Please explain why you think so.
Answer:
I reckon that the government should take the initiatives for companies to move to relatively suburban locations. Most people prefer residing in areas near to their occupations in order to shorten their commuting time. However, a high proportion of affordable housing options are available primarily on the outskirts of big cities, while most companies show the propensity to be situated in highly populated regions, namely metropolitan areas. Given that people put their job into consideration with respect to the decisions on where to live, it seems to be crucial to resolve this matter to help minimize the distances between jobs and affordable housing that exists on the fringes of cities. The government can embark on this, for instance, simply by offering tax relief to such companies that willingly decide to relocate to outlying districts. Moreover, shortened commuting time can enable people to save money by avoiding expenditures on not only prolonged but also tedious travel time, thus potentially leading to private asset accumulation. The money thus to be acquired can also be utilized in future civil investments in real estate or housing. Therefore, if the government take on enticing companies to the peripheral areas, it may well be able to not solely successfully address the shortage of affordable housing, but furthermore encourage citizens to build wealth over time in a long-term view.
2024/02/13 Tue
Integrated Speaking Task
Notice: Now listen to part of a lecture in business class.
Lecture: Today, we’ll talk about how companies determine the initial price for their products. By that, I mean, when they first introduce a product in the market, there’re different approaches. And today, we’ll discuss two of them. They’re quite different, each with their own advantages. One approach or strategy sets the initial price of a product high, follwed by a lower price at a later stage. Why? Well, when introducing a new product, companies want to build a high-quality image for it. Products that cost more are believed to be a higher quality. During the early stages of the product life cycle, companies can make very high profits from consumers willing to pay more for a high quality product, and although consumers know that the prices will eventually go down, they are also willing to pay more to get the product sooner. This approach works very well with innovative high products. Now just think about when video recorders or video cameras, or even cell phones first came out. They were very expensive, but then they became much more accessible. Another very common strategy sets the initial price low. Now, this happens when the market is already saturated with the product, and the strategy is to undercut its competitors. See, there is a newly starting computer maker trying to gain market share. So, what do they do? They offer a computer at an affordable price, lower than the existing brands. By doing this, the company appeals to new consumers who weren’t probably even interested in getting a new computer, and, of course, to existing consumers who might now be tempted to switch brands. Now, how does this company make profits with its low-priced computers? Well, one thing that’s often done is to encourage their customers to buy accessories also manufactured by them, like printers or software.
Notice: Using the points and examples from the lecture, explain the two pricing strategies described by the professor.
Answer:
2024/02/14
Today, we’re discussing the ethics of targeted advertising. Some people argue that online advertising which uses personal information to target specific people is an invasion of privacy. Others argue that it’s simply an acceptable way to reach consumers with products and services they’re interested in. What’s your take? Do you think targeted advertising is ethical, or is it an invasion of privacy?
I reckon that as long as consumers are given the option to decide whether they share their private information with companies, targeted advertising is not only fairly ethical but also desirable in many respects. To begine with, in present days, the accumulation of such valuable data that facilitates targeting advertising as internet users’ searching history or watch history is not done surreptitiously. People tend to vaguely consider using a person’s private information itself as relevant to culpable demeanors and posing potential harms. Nevertheless, private information itself is a fundamental resource in a society fully exploiting information technology. A knife can be either a tool to help you cook better or a weapon to kill other people, depending on who lays a hold on it. Thus, if we make a good use of it, we can assist our daily lives to be more bountiful, fostering public benefit of citizens. Then, it is clear that transparency and consumer choice play crucial roles in shaping the ethical landscape of targeted advertising. Apparently, the circumstance at the turn of the 21st century was quite on the opposite side. Back then, digitalization was in the initial stage in the wake of the wide-spread distribution of the Internet. Most people barely perceived how detrimental the impacts would be on their lives that privacy leakage through the Internet posed, recklessly delegating the obligation to protect their private data to companies. Correspondingly, there were relatively fewer regulations dealing with companies’ commercial use of personal information, and information-technology companies, as it were, arbitrarily utilized their customers’ private information without consent in their own favor. However, as time went on, civilians soon became aware of the potential threats. This in turn led governments to constitute statutes determining to what extent it is allowed for companies to legally exploit their customers’ personal data and other pertinent regulations. As a result, nowadays, consumers have almost restored their right to protect privacy from insidious intruders, which is all thanks to plenty of governmental regulations and growing civic awareness. For instance, Chrome, one of the most preoccupied web browsers developed by Google, offers the function that its users can opt for whether they share their activity records on the Internet with the company and other third-party ones. Even if customers choose to prevent their imformation from being shared, it is legally ensured that there is no entailing disadvantage to them. Moreover, targeted advertising itself has lots of subsequent benefits along with it, posing positive impacts on a diverse range of our society: Companies, for example, can avoid spending exceeded expenditures on marketing, thus investing in other realms such as R&D or HR departments. And consumers can reach products they are in need of on time, saving their time to be spent on searching on the Internet.
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