Part A: Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following text. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET. (40 points)
Text 3
The rough guide to marketing success used to be that you got what you paid for. No longer. While traditional “paid” media-such as television commercials and print advertisements-still play a major role, companies today can exploit many alternative forms of media. Consumers passionate about a product may create “earned” media by willingly promoting it to friends, and a company may leverage “owned” media by sending e-mail alerts about products and sales to customers registered with its Web site. The way consumers now approach the process of making purchase decisions means that marketing’s impact stems from a broad range of factors beyond conventional paid media.
Paid and owned media are controlled by marketers promoting their own products. For earned media, such marketers act as the initiator for users’ responses. But in some cases, one marketer’s owned media become another marketer’s paid media-for instance, when an e-commerce retailer sells ad space on its Web site. We define such sold media as owned media whose traffic is so strong that other organizations place their content or e-commerce engines within that environment. This trend, which we believe is still in its infancy, effectively began with retailers and travel providers such as airlines and hotels and will no doubt go further. Johnson & Johnson, for example, has created BabyCenter, a stand-alone media property that promotes complementary and even competitive products. Besides generating income, the presence of other marketers makes the site seem objective, gives companies opportunities to learn valuable information about the appeal of other companies’ marketing, and may help expand user traffic for all companies concerned.
The same dramatic technological changes that have provided marketers with more (and more diverse) communications choices have also increased the risk that passionate consumers will voice their opinions in quicker, more visible, and much more damaging ways. Such hijacked media are the opposite of earned media: an asset or campaign becomes hostage to consumers, other stakeholders, or activists who make negative allegations about a brand or product. Members of social networks, for instance, are learning that they can hijack media to apply pressure on the businesses that originally created them.
If that happens, passionate consumers would try to persuade others to boycott products, putting the reputation of the target company at risk. In such a case, the company’s response may not be sufficiently quick or thoughtful, and the learning curve has been steep. Toyota Motor, for example, alleviated some of the damage from its recall crisis earlier this year with a relatively quick and well-orchestrated social-media response campaign, which included efforts to engage with consumers directly on sites such as Twitter and the social-news site Digg.
31. Consumers may create “earned” media when they are
32. According to Paragraph 2, sold media feature
33. The author indicates in Paragraph 3 that earned media
34. Toyota Motor’s experience is cited as an example of
35. Which of the following is the text mainly about?
全文翻译
过去营销成功的大致指南是你付出什么就得到什么。但不再是这样了。虽然传统的"付费"媒体——如电视广告和平面广告——仍然发挥着重要作用，但当今公司可以利用许多替代形式的媒体。对产品充满热情的消费者可能通过自愿向朋友推荐产品来创造"赢得"媒体，而公司可以通过向其网站注册客户发送关于产品和促销的电子邮件提醒来利用"自有"媒体。如今消费者进行购买决策的方式意味着，营销的影响力来源于超越传统付费媒体的广泛因素。
付费媒体和自有媒体由推销自己产品的营销人员控制。对于赢得媒体，这些营销人员充当用户反应的发起者。但在某些情况下，一个营销者的自有媒体变成了另一个营销者的付费媒体——例如，当一家电子商务零售商在其网站上出售广告位时。我们将这种出售的媒体定义为流量如此之大的自有媒体，以至于其他组织将其内容或电子商务引擎放置在这个环境中。这一趋势，我们认为仍处于起步阶段，实际上始于零售商和旅行供应商如航空公司和酒店，无疑将进一步发展。例如，强生公司创建了BabyCenter，一个推广互补甚至竞争产品的独立媒体资产。除了创造收入外，其他营销者的存在使网站显得客观，为公司提供了了解其他公司营销吸引力的宝贵信息的机会，并可能帮助扩大所有相关公司的用户流量。
为营销人员提供了更多（且更多样化）传播选择的同样剧烈的技术变革，也增加了热情消费者以更快、更显眼且更具破坏力的方式表达意见的风险。这种被劫持的媒体是赢得媒体的反面：一项资产或活动被消费者、其他利益相关者或活动人士劫持，他们对一个品牌或产品做出负面指控。例如，社交网络的成员正在了解到他们可以劫持媒体，对最初创建这些媒体的企业施加压力。
如果发生这种情况，热情的消费者会试图说服其他人抵制产品，使目标公司的声誉面临风险。在这种情况下，公司的回应可能不够迅速或周密，而学习曲线一直很陡峭。例如，丰田汽车公司通过一场相对迅速且精心策划的社交媒体回应活动——包括努力在Twitter和社会新闻网站Digg等网站上直接与消费者互动——减轻了今年早些时候召回危机造成的一些损害。
Answers & Explanations (答案与深度解析)
试题精解
31. [D] enthusiastic about recommending their favorite products.
【解析】细节题。文章第一段指出：Consumers passionate about a product may create “earned” media by willingly promoting it to friends（对产品充满热情的消费者通过自愿向朋友推广来创造“赢得”媒体）。D 选项中的 enthusiastic 对应 passionate，recommending 对应 promoting，其意完全一致。
32. [C] strong user traffic.
【解析】细节题。第二段给出了 sold media 的定义：We define such sold media as owned media whose traffic is so strong that other organizations place their content...（我们将这种售出媒体定义为流量如此强劲，以至于其他组织在该环境中放置其内容或电商引擎的自有媒体）。故选 C。
33. [B] can be used to produce negative effects in marketing.
【解析】推理题。第三段提到，由于技术变化，热情的消费者会以破坏性更强的方式表达意见，产生 hijacked media（被劫持媒体）。这种媒体是 earned media 的反面（opposite），即由正面的“口碑推广”转变为负面的“指控和抵制”。因此，earned media 这种模式若失控，会产生负面营销效果。故选 B。
34. [A] responding effectively to hijacked media.
【解析】例证题。第四段提到丰田公司的例子。在召回危机中，热情的消费者试图说服他人抵制其产品（hijacked media 的体现），丰田通过快速且精心策划的社交媒体回应（well-orchestrated response campaign）减轻了损害。这被引用为有效应对“劫持媒体”的成功案例。故选 A。
35. [A] Alternatives to conventional paid media.
【解析】主旨题。文章第一段首句点明：以前营销成功靠投入（付钱），现在不再如此。随后全文介绍了 earned, owned, sold, hijacked 等多种区别于 conventional paid media（传统付费媒体）的新型媒体形式。因此全文主旨是介绍传统付费媒体的替代方案。故选 A。
考研核心句型与长难句
【长难句剖析】
1. 抽象概念定义句：
"We define such sold media as owned media whose traffic is so strong that other organizations place their content or e-commerce engines within that environment."
【解析】define A as B 结构。whose 引导定语从句修饰 owned media，从句中又包含 so... that...（如此...以至于...）结构。
"We define such sold media as owned media whose traffic is so strong that other organizations place their content or e-commerce engines within that environment."
【解析】define A as B 结构。whose 引导定语从句修饰 owned media，从句中又包含 so... that...（如此...以至于...）结构。
2. 技术风险描述句：
"The same dramatic technological changes... have also increased the risk that passionate consumers will voice their opinions in quicker, more visible, and much more damaging ways."
【解析】主语是 technological changes，谓语是 have increased。that 引导同位语从句解释 risk 的具体内容。
"The same dramatic technological changes... have also increased the risk that passionate consumers will voice their opinions in quicker, more visible, and much more damaging ways."
【解析】主语是 technological changes，谓语是 have increased。that 引导同位语从句解释 risk 的具体内容。